Thread: Direction of hair growth makes WTG & ATG shave difficult

I have E-W grain, coarse whiskers that lie flat to the skin on my neck and underside of my chin, relatively deep grooves along my trachea, and easily irritated skin. I think I have coarser than average whiskers based on only getting 1.5 shaves from a cartridge razor before irritation starts and getting severe bumpy irritation on shave 3. So YMMV, but here's what works best for me:

Face and underside of chin: Pull skin upward at the cheekbone and shave N-S on pass 1 + ear-to-chin on pass 2. Result = 12 hours of no 5 o-clock shadow.

Neck. Pull the skin downward and toward the ear and shave N-S on pass 1, and S-N on pass 2. Yes, this is the opposite direction than all the advice says to pull on the 1 side - but it pulls the skin out of a groove, and onto the flatter side area of the neck. Result = 8 hours of short enough stubble it doesn't stick into the collar of my dress shirts when I turn my head. Since I have to wear the dress shirt more than 8 hours, I do a 3rd pass on my problem areas (the trachea grooves), unless my neck is already irritated.

For the neck groove where I cutting toward the center, I'm cutting "downhill and into a groove", so I have to use a very curved scything motion and only cut with the last inch of the razor. This causes the part doing the cutting to be traveling close enough to horizontal to give a DFS shave. Result = 12 hours of short enough stubble to not grab my shirt collars - BUT I can only do this 2 days in a row. If I try to do this a 3rd day, I'll get irritated bumpy skin in my problem areas that takes 2-3 days of "1 pass shaves" to recover. (If I do 2-pass shaves during this period, the recover time stretches to 5-6 days). For this area, I've found 5/8 shaves closer than 6/8 since it fits into the grooves better, and stiffer full hollow work better than flexy extra-hollows.

For the neck groove where I'm cutting away from the center, I'm going "uphill, and onto a flat area", so I can make the path of the razor about 45 degrees from center and shave lightly. I can do this 4 days in a row if I shave lightly, and it only takes 1 day of "2-pass shaving" for the skin to recover. For this area, the grind makes no difference.

I've also found that an extra sharp razor is a very noticeable improvement for getting BBS-ish on my neck. As a result, I touch up my edge every 7-10 shaves. I know it's sharp enough when I can shave ATG in the dense mustache area with no extra pressure.

I've never tried a DE, but have often thought buying one - just due the problems I have with my neck.