ATG Necessity?

Is the ATG stroke absolutely necessary? I seem to get what I classify as a really nice shave without it. The few times I went against the grain it tore me up and i had wicked burn for three or four days. Just curious on everyone's thoughts.
Kurt

Definitely not. Many of us cannot go ATG without discomfort; I use a WTG and XTG stroke and when I want extra smooth I'll shave a second XTG going the opposite direction.

Your goal should always be comfort first and closeness second.

I've been doing two passes WTG but only one XTG. I never thought of doing a second XTG. Going to have to try that. Thanks.

No, it is not.
A shave consisting of a WTG and a XTG will for most of us yield a very smooth shave.
Many settles for just a WTG, and are quite happy with that.

A ATG is nice, sort of the icing on the cake, but needed, no not for the majority of us

Thanks guys. I got the impression that it was unnecessary but thought it was one of those strokes you 'had' to do.

You have answered your own question, you get a really nice shave without it.

Its your face do what ever you like and are comfortable with. If you take your time and you are confident with your angles and your face can handle 3 passes you will get an even closer shave. From the looks of it and what alot of people do and say wtg and xtg is more then enough or even just wtg. Stick with what you like and perfect it once your confident in your lather/technique etc try to get slowly into atg if you want. It seems to be all about personal preference and what you like and are comfortable with.Gluck Ty

Yea it certainly seems as though I answered my own question. Being new to this it helps to have other input.

I unfortunately cant go XTG so ATG is my only option. It can be brutal if your razor isnt up to snuff and your technique isnt the best. If I didnt need to use it, I probably wouldnt!! lol

Big thing is take your time if it doesn't feel right don't do it.

If I'm going on a date its just atg to give smooth appearance and no burn..of I'm feeling dangerous its 3 pass..but 1 does well for me.

One of the nice things about this activity is that it's Face Specific. You're there all by your lonesome to do whatever you want, any way you want to. Fantastic!

I only started doing ATG this past 2 weeks, I've been straight shaving for about 4 months. I was probably doing it wrong before, I found it very uncomfortable. Now I can do it no problem at all. The trick is no pressure. Literally, none. That and the blade flat against the skin. If I do that and short swiping strokes I get no irritation.

How many passes and their direction is all on you, and the little woman of course... you want her to be comfy to.

jim

I think it is impossible to get a real smooth face without ATG. For me a shave exists of two lather ups. The first for a WTG and XTG, the second for an ATG.

I can get a really nice acceptable shave with just two passes, but I really like feeling BBS, so the ATG is necessary for me to achieve that level of smoothness. Now necessity doesn't demand that I make that final ATG cut, but I just really prefer it. I know a ton of guys swear by cleaning up with the DE. I even do that under the chin sometimes, the neck is really hard for me to get ATG. If I don't do an ATG stroke, then I am smooth in two directions, but I'll still be slightly sandpaper when rubbing my face in the opposite direction.
So in essence, what I am saying is that, for me, I like to do the third pass every morning. I do also have to mention that my beard is VERY coarse, if yours isn't it may not be necessary to achieve the same goal.

Hey, some people are obsessed with BBS and will do WTG XTG and ATG. personally like others have said i too get a really close comfortable shave by just going WTG and XTG. If you do decide ATG is you thing and want to try again make sure you blade is super sharp and when shaving the skin is pulled nice and tight whilst the razor angle is non existent and kept pretty much flat to you skin.

No, ATG is not necessary for a good shave.

For some reason it never dawned on me to use a DE to clean up. I guess maybe it felt like cheating on my straight, or forcing it into an unwanted manage toi.

The other night I was thinking about a TV show that used to be on, called 'Queer Eye for the Straight Guy', anyone used to watch that? I remember they (the queer guys, who would gleefully bombard the straight guy with their queer fashion and grooming advice) used to shriek at the monitor as they saw their 'charge' forget their oft repeated advice to NEVER go ATG. But of course that wasn't with a straight...

I go ATG only along the jawline. I get a perfectly good shave from just a WTG with all but one of my razors (one needs a bit more work), but a perfectly good shave is relative. If I don't want to FEEL ANY whiskers at ALL, then three full passes is needed, but really, there's no need for me to be that smooth all the time. I don't think I'd ever go ATG on the chin. When I shaved my goatee a while ago (just to see what it was like, it's grown back now) I found ATG on the chin almost impossible, and did just WTG and XTG on that area.

I go slightly XTG (as a consequence of how I shave) but mostly WTG and I don't feel like my shave is really lacking anywhere. I could pull on the skin and feel a little bit of hair (that I wouldn't if I stretched it tight and really worked at it ATG), but otherwise if I feel my face after a shave, I don't feel anything except perhaps just at my neck below the jawline which is a big time razorburn area for me. I usually take it light there but still get it pretty good, just WTG.

Someone made a comment here not too long ago about a barber saying that the thing that most people do wrong is try to get too close. If you have extremely sensitive skin (I do) then you can get a really really good shave with two WTG passes and a razor that is properly sharp (if it's not properly sharp, then it's not going to work that well).

If you want to play some saturday and take a 20 minute shave, then you can fiddle with the rest of the stuff, I guess. My morning shave is two passes in four minutes (which includes getting out and putting away the soap, face lathering only). I don't blade buff in the morning, and I don't even pull the skin that tight, it's not necessary if the razor is really sharp. Just start the razor at the sideburn and run it all the way down to the middle of my neck. Move over an inch and a half, pull one long stroke again. And do the same thing on the second pass.

When I first started shaving, i'm pretty sure my razors were a step short of the sharpness needed to do that and get a good shave. I'm much more pleased with that process now for a daily shave than all of the fiddling to try to get everything perfect and go over some spots more than twice. It's a very pleasant experience, and it's still a better shave with less irritation than I ever got with cartridge razors.

It's a must for me, or I can feel stubble in certain directions. I guess it all boils down to how picky a person is with the smoothness. I don't feel any discomfort with it though, so you have to do what's right for your skin. Everyones face is like a snowflake, no 2 the same.

No two alike, definitely true. Reminds me of Ben Hogan's comment about the secret to his swing "it's in the dirt", as in working at it is the best way to find it.

A little patience and some repetition and a few iterations with honing/stropping and I don't think most people will find it very hard to shave with a straight razor. But it seems like resolve is lacking sometimes in finding out answers for ourselves, persisting, and then having the confidence to stick with what you find instead of trying 29 different things afterward when you already know from experience what you'll need to know.

I thought shaving with a straight razor was a bit cumbersome and slow until I resolved to do it every day for a month no matter what. After shaving only a day a week on the weekend with a straight for a year, within about two weeks of doing it every day instead, it clicked and I haven't picked up a grubby cartridge razor in a long time. I can't say that I ever worry about the possibility of getting a mark on my face now from the razor, it'd have to be a freak event for it to occur, and certainty is a matter of repetition and less than literal things, rather than an exact review of piles of methodical details.

Personally if I feel any whiskers I'm slightly disappointed in my shave. My routine is wtg and xtg with my straight and then atg and touch ups with my de. My hair is so course that atg grabs at my blade. Also I'm sure my technique could use work.