help out a noob with shaving neck

Ive only just started sr shaving but have read a great deal. My problem is that my neck hair grows from left ear down and fowards and from front to right ear up and back. I also have a hollow at side of wind pipe and when i stretch the skin its still there. I have sensative skin and have now had numerous nicks. All the vids ive seen and most threads talk of up and down on neck but id be going wtg/xtg on left and xtg/atg in right. Have included a photo and should be able to see direction of growth. I only shave lower neck as swmbo will not let me shave any more:cry:Attachment 124071Thanks for all your help Ed

Three things to consider when tackling the neck:

1. Direction of beard growth
2. Stretching - try stretching the skin every which way
3. Type and length of stroke - short scything strokes work very well.


The multi-pass routine - WTG/XTG/ATG - is suggestion, you can actually do it in whatever order you want. Most will start with WTG, but if that's inconvenient for areas like the neck (especially for guys like you and me with sideways neck growth) it's fine to start with a XTG pass. Hell, some do a ATG pass first; not for me, but if you can get away with it, why not?

How is your beard prep? When I was starting out I used ore shave oil which helped. Hair conditioner also help to soften the beard. You'll get red marks or worse if your whiskers get pulled instead of shaved. Make sure your blade is shave-ready and prepare your beard well before shaving.

For prep I shower if possible, prorasso preshave, hot towel, preshave, and then lather. Have been stretching but if to much i nick myself a lots of tendons? just under skin causing problems. Have just started scything and its helps with the cut but is irritating a little. Haven't figured out wtg yet as that is around neck. Cheers for your replys

I too have trouble with shaving my neck.
One of the things that helped me most was finding out which direction to stretch the skin.
Before the shave stretch the neck skin in slightly different angles while feeling the whiskers in an against the grain motion with the fingers of the other hand.
I found that if I stuck my chin up and to the side as far as it would go while streching and feeling I could find a combination that would make the whiskers stand up that are normally laying flat.
The other thing that helped me was to use a very light pressure against the skin. The effectiveness of each pass was greatly improved and the light pressure allows for more passes without razor burn.
The pressure thing reminds me of my stropping technique. Light pressure there makes good things happen while heavy pressure does the opposite.
Anyway, good luck to you, and just keep trying new techniques and your shave will improve for you.

My neck hair rebels when I go ATG resulting in serious skin irritation and ingrown hairs so I had to get creative myself. I discovered I could shave from my throat outward at an angle and do a XTG stroke on my neck hair which grows straight down. When going from the throat outward your razor has to be at an angle kind of like this "\" following your jaw line. If you need a picture to help you visualize this stroke I can get someone to photograph me doing it later today. This would give you another option to play with. I would also strongly recommend Proraso sensitive skin preshave cream. It really works wonders for me.

I stopped shaving with the grain/against the grain. My beard growth is all over the place. It is much easier for me to shave north to south and south to north. Another mistake newcomers make is they shave using slow strokes. Doesn't matter how sharp the blade if the strokes are very slow the blade will pull and tug the beard causing an uncomfortable shave. Make sure your strokes are confident and efficient. If you don't have confidence in your strokes you have to fake it until you make it :)

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Originally Posted by TucoRamirez

I stopped shaving with the grain/against the grain. My beard growth is all over the place. It is much easier for me to shave north to south and south to north. Another mistake newcomers make is they shave using slow strokes. Doesn't matter how sharp the blade if the strokes are very slow the blade will pull and tug the beard causing an uncomfortable shave. Make sure your strokes are confident and efficient. If you don't have confidence in your strokes you have to fake it until you make it :)

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A buffing stroke helps with this. It gives you enough feedback in the razor and is very efficient. You will be able to move much more quickly once you decide to try it! (Buffing is moving the blade in and out in the direction of the pass. It replaces the soap/cream and lets you take several mini strokes at once) It seems scary at first and don't let your swmbo watch as it looks scary even when you are comfortable with it! If you can scythe, you can buff!

I’ll assume you want to go with wtg or xtg passes first. Assuming you do, make your fist pass on the left side straight down. If your beard is growing on an angle from top left to bottom/middle, you should be going approximately xtg. On the right, hold the razor like a hot dog with the spine between your thumb and index fingers with the edge facing up. Anchor the skin at the base of your neck on the right and perform the same pass as the left but in the opposite direction. If the beard is growing bottom/middle to upper/right, you should again be going mostly xtg. When you want to go atg, use that same grip on the left but angle the cutting edge toward your ear, hold the skin at the base of the neck securely, and cut upward toward your left ear. For the right side, I would use the cleared area of the left to pull the neck skin hard to the left with your RIGHT hand. Using your LEFT hand, I would shave downward on an angle from as high as you can along the upper right side down toward your lower middle. Awkward? Yes. But you CAN get the hang of it. I perform similar cuts every time I shave in order to do the same thing. For xtg passes you might also alter that grip such that you’re still holding the blade between thumb , forefinger/indexfinger by the spine with the cutting edge facing left (tang pointing upward). Lean your head back and move the blade directly across the neck, right to left. Don’t try running over your adams apple though. Again, awkward? Yes. But I do it every time I shave.

Cheers for all the replys. I shave tomorrow so Will try a few suggestions and see how it goes. Hopefully don't end up looking like i shaved with a sander again.

I too have trouble with my neck. I've found if I put my chin down against my chest and hold the skin between the collar bones tight and lift my chin back up it streaches differently so I can get different areas easier. Or even just tipping my chin and shaving without streaching. It bunches the skin in that area a little and exposes the areas that normally suck in when I stretch.

I hope this helps.

Alright. had my shave and gave s few things a go. Making faster passes definently helped. Buffing went ok but have irritation mainly to areas of Buffing but that could be a pressure issue. Better than last shave though so will keep at it and sure won't be too long before its sweet. Even with irritation is still a better shave than my fusion cartridges.

I have trouble with my neck also, the hair seems to grow in all directions. If it helps it is getting easier as time goes by and my technique improves. I usually get it pretty smooth after the second pass.

Russell

1. Prepping is not necessarily a good thing. My neck fares better with cold water than warm. With warm temperature I get heat spots. Figure out which type you are.

2. My beard goes from right to left. All over my face. Ah-huh weird lol. From the sound of it, you're like me. That's why in my upwards and downwards strokes, I make them tilted slightly ie razor not horizontal. This way it can a little across or against grain action. Never go totally sideways, that irritates the hell out of my neck.

3. Go very lightly and never add pressure even if you're tempted. Let the razor move around your skin not push it down scrapping it. I have a not very sharp razor and always tempted to do that.

Good luck. Let us know how you progress.

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Originally Posted by Steelstubble

My neck hair rebels when I go ATG resulting in serious skin irritation and ingrown hairs so I had to get creative myself. I discovered I could shave from my throat outward at an angle and do a XTG stroke on my neck hair which grows straight down. When going from the throat outward your razor has to be at an angle kind of like this "\" following your jaw line.

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That's exactly what I do! It took me a while to figure it out. Hope it works for you.

Great advice above! I have some odd directional growth and found that in addition to stretching, I use the opposite hand to shave. For me it gives a better ATG angle (ear to middle of neck). It requires a bit of contortionism but I've had better results than without. Good luck!

Chris

So I know and try most all of the techniques (prep, scything, perfectly honed blade, hot, cold, mega stropping, stretching, etc.) and some days I really score a close and irritation free neck and others not as much. I, at least, get good results nearly every day in this area. It's the great/fantastic/can't stop touching my neck results that seem intermittent and elusive. The problem is that at this degree of fine tuning I have absolutely no idea what made the better days work over the lesser days.

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Originally Posted by 1holegrouper

So I know and try most all of the techniques (prep, scything, perfectly honed blade, hot, cold, mega stropping, stretching, etc.) and some days I really score a close and irritation free neck and others not as much. I, at least, get good results nearly every day in this area. It's the great/fantastic/can't stop touching my neck results that seem intermittent and elusive. The problem is that at this degree of fine tuning I have absolutely no idea what made the better days work over the lesser days.

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Probably you, ie tired, hungover, thinking about other things. Maybe not though.

My neck hair is like barbed wire and grows in all kinds of convoluted ways. It also starts nearly at my collar bone. Early on, I tried to figure out all the ways I could go WTG on the first pass. It was so complicated, I just said the heck with it. I now just shave south to north under the jaw on the first pass and north to south on the second. I get a close comfortable shave like this. The key, for me, is to strop the devil out of my razor. I shave at night, and several times during the day, I'll do 50 passes on my SRD's premium strop. Good luck, persevere and you'll develop your own technique.

I find that tilting my head back as far as possible and pointing my chin towards the sky to stretch the max out of my neck works best. I too have sideways-growing neck hair and get a great shave going south to north and touching up a few areas going diagonal in various directions from north to south.

-john