Thread: A theory about shaving against the grain

I prefer the single edge razor when I don't have time for a straight shave or to do some clean up if the shave starts to run to long and I need to finish up.
My favorite is the 1901 Gem Junior, but others that are good are what's called the G bar or a Micromatic.
Ray

I have a bunch of DEs, but the one I'm using right now is a Gillette Superspeed, circa 1955. I have a Fatboy as well, and it's supposed to be a great razor, but I haven't tried it out yet.

Actually, I have a couple of DEs that I'd be willing to part with for a reasonable price. PM me if you're interested.

Josh

Originally Posted by mparker762

I should have said better prep and technique. Nowadays M3 shavers don't bother prepping their beard, stretching their skin, or doing multiple passes. But if you do all those things that you normally do with a straight or DE, but use an M3 then you get a really impressive shave, much much better than our collective memory of what a "M3 shave" was like, because those shaves were generally unprepped, unstretched, single pass shaves. And that prickly stubble was largely an artifact of this lousy prep and technique than of the razor being used.

I agree completely with this. When I was getting started with straights I had a week or two with some decent creams & soaps but no strop yet, so I started using those instead of canned lather with my M3.

Using good lather, technique, and rinsing the blades out more frequently instead of making long passes the length of my face gave me much better M3 shaves than I was accustomed to. It left the skin feeling a little fuzzy or felted though compared to the smoothness you get with a straight.

I don't know if this is of any interest, but once I thought why not just shave against the grain 1st? Well I tried it (just to be safe with one of my DE's) with disastrous results. My neck looked like raw meat when I was done. So I guess you have to cut the hairs down 1st with the grain in order to allow the blade to pass smoothly over the skin against the grain.

I think maybe your skin can be conditioned to this...I am not sure. I have pretty sensitive skin -- when I use a Mach3, and when I started with the straight (have since corrected the angle), my chin would just bleed all over when I shaved it, spotty blood like the pores were just bleeding instead of growing hair or sweating or whatever.

That being said, all throughout boot we had to shave against the grain, and only against the grain. And we shaved quite quickly, I might add. :P It wasn't comfortable at all at first, but I know folks who never stopped shaving like that (sadly, for many, that was the first instruction they ever received on the subject), and they can & do still shave that way...

It always gave me horrendous razor burn at first, and by the end, even though the burn was gone, my face would itch and be irritated all day. But it seemed like after awhile it adapted to the constant ATG-only shaving. *shrug*

My experience was similar. I always shaved ATG with my Mach 3, and my face did adapt to some extent. But it was never comfortable--just somewhere between irritated and burned.

It also wasn't very close.

Josh

They made you do a one pass against the grain shave those Sargeants are really animals!

Hey, I did it to myself voluntarily for years. Yowch.

Josh

Originally Posted by joshearl

...One day I noticed that this stubble looked blond...

Josh

And here I thought I was just getting old...

Jordan

When I first started shaving I used an Atra I think it was(gillette 2-blade fixed head) with no lather, no wetting the face, just dip the blade in the sink and shave against the grain, one pass and I was done. I did it like this through college, and I guess my face just got used to it over the years. I grew a beard after watching the movie "Gettysburg" and a few years later when I shaved it off I couldn't do it anymore.