Thread: East - West shaving

Being new to straight razor shaving the first thing I did was youtube LOTS of videos about how to do everything. GeoFatBoy with ShaveNation is a channel that I came across that was a very big help! Unfortunately I have not been able to find a video of how to do cross grain shaving.

I have no problem going North - South with the grain and East - West in my sideburn area however does anyone have any videos of you how shave across the grain under the chin area? I can not for the life of me figure out how to get that area!

Also does anyone go with the grain and then against the grain and just skip the cross grain cut? I tried but ended up with some nasty razor burn.

I only do an XTG pass on my cheeks, going from the sideburn down to the jaw area. I mainly rely on a WTG pass first everywhere and follow that with ATG in the same areas. Seems to work fine.

DylanMW,

It's impossible for me to get a full reduction below the jawline without an east-west pass; however, as you've experienced, it's an awkward area to attempt that kind of motion with a straight. I've attacked the problem by stroking diagonally: 1, below the earlobe to the adams apple; and 2, chin to collar bone. I keep the blade parallel to the floor and make a "guillotine" stroke (a slicing motion—be extremely careful with this). Over the tougher spots, I use very light buffing strokes.

I follow the above with a a re-lather and a south-north pass, which yields a really good reduction. With a good blade and keen edge, I can achieve BBS.

Hope this helps...let me know if you try it and what kind of results you get. (And if you discover any new approaches.)

i had just posted a thread similar to this looking for a video that was posted awhile back and after about 30-40min of searching my old post FOUND it don't know if this helps but i have a similar issue and this seems to work GREAT.....i will say it is harder to do with my larger blades and best with my DD Dwarf

HERE

Originally Posted by DylanMW

Being new to straight razor shaving the first thing I did was youtube LOTS of videos about how to do everything. GeoFatBoy with ShaveNation is a channel that I came across that was a very big help! Unfortunately I have not been able to find a video of how to do cross grain shaving.

I have no problem going North - South with the grain and East - West in my sideburn area however does anyone have any videos of you how shave across the grain under the chin area? I can not for the life of me figure out how to get that area!

Also does anyone go with the grain and then against the grain and just skip the cross grain cut? I tried but ended up with some nasty razor burn.

This video put me over the top in terms of mastering straight razor shaving. I have basically learned to shave pretty much like him. The major difference between his shaves and mine are that on the first pass WTG I use right hand, right side and left hand, left side. My second pass is his XTG (east-west and vice-versa) pretty much verbatim. My third and final pass is ATG pretty much like his. This gives me BBS shaves as the norm but this only occurred after close to two years diligent effort (which I enjoyed). So I would watch his XTG (east-west) movements because they are really effective for me. Another thing to notice are that your lather has enough water content to allow your razor to glide over your face rather than hop off and crash land.

Thank you very much everyone! All of your help is greatly appreciated!