I’m saying newbies because I am thinking the long timers have now settled into a routine that works (whatever that may be).
These are not great gems that I’ve devised but mostly posts and literature reviews from shaving forums and some interesting older material that make sense to me.
Be consistent – I’ve now been wet shaving again for about six months and if you are an inquisitive person it seems that one can spend the first three or four months trying different things – blades, soaps, razors etc.
The problem with this is that you can’t refine your techniques because too many variables change.
That was a great shave! Was it the new blade, the new soap, the new technique I just read about and tried?
Anyway, just keep doing it till you have got it out of your system.
Below are a few things that I have found helped me.
LATHER
Basic tenant: Lather softens the beard.
Used to: After a shower I used to whip up a lather in a bowl (which can take a few minutes), brush the lather on my face and then start shaving. All the time I was doing this my face was drying out.
Now: Still after shower I will quickly get some soap and lather on to my face. It is not ready for shaving but it is wet and there is some lather there as well.
Then I will continue to face lather till I have a good shaving later.
Even after that I will try and wait a few minutes before I start shaving to give the water/lather even more time to soften the beard.
In all I think I would have lather on my beard for five minutes more than bowl lathering.
Outcome: In some tough areas of my face I notice a much better “first cut” with much less drag on the blade. It also appears that the blades last significantly longer now.
GEOMETRY
If you think about trying to shave a billiard ball with a DE you will understand the problem.
My blades are the same as yours. My face isn’t so I will generalise.
The blade is straight and won’t bend. My face certainly isn’t straight but can bend a bit.
I try to contort my face so that I present flatter sections to the blade. I’m not talking about stretching the skin because that can make it more curved and therefore only a small portion of the blade is actually cutting.
Think about shaving your bottom lip north to south. The blade only contacts a small portion of my face on each stroke. (YMMV)
As an example, using your facial muscles to pull down on your top lip will stretch the skin and will most likely increase the curvature so it’s even harder to cut. I work to try and flatten the area which sometimes is counter intuitive.
A simple test that I did was to shave a section of my cheek that had a concave section and then shave it again after puffing it up to make it flatter. I could easily hear the blade cutting more.
BEARD REDUCTION
I recently read an article posted on SMF that said the main cause of razor burn was shaving ATG with the beard still too long.
This would cause the blade to run along the hair and dig in to the skin as it cut. It was therefore a deeper cut and caused aggravation.
It seemed to make sense so my basic technique is to shave WTG first and then feel my face and see how the blade has cut.
If it is not a new blade it might not be as efficient so the remaining hair might be longer. If that is the case I then do another WTG pass to further reduce the beard length.
I then usually go XTG twice (different directions) and use very little ATG.
The rest is up to you as your beard is different to mine.
Advice on SOAPS BLADES RAZORS AND BRUSHES
You ARE kidding right!
