Well.... First shave is down. Used a personna blade on a tech. TOBS Sandalwood cream and a tweezerman brush.
I can say right now... My technique is HORRIBLE. I got razor burn so my first time haha. Next shave im going to use the krona for the longer handle. My angle needs to be fixed badly. I think it was too sharp of an angle. Did have some bleeders but it was taken care of. No nicks though. Just razor burn. Hopefully the next shave is better.
New Member help
My tried and proven method for achieving the correct angle is as follows (assume N-S pass, then simply adjust for the direction of the pass):
- Place the razor head do your face, holding the handle parallel to the floor (presumes you have a flat floor to stand on
) - As you ever so slowly allow the razor to drop to the floor, drop the end of the razor handle in the direction of the pass (for this explanation, N-S - that would be towards the floor).
- As soon as you hear those little "pings" of the whiskers being cut stop tilting the handle. Many of us started erroneously by working from the safety rail up rather than the razor head down and thus placing the blade on your face sooner -- the head of the razor is the key, I think, not the safety rail.
- Maintain that angle as you continue the pass, adjusting for the shape of your face.
- Repeat on another part of your lathered face.
- Correct angle goes hand in hand with blade pressure - you simply can't be without irritation if you are only doing one correctly.
- Hold the razor firmly in your hand -- too loose or too tight, and you'll get nicks and irritation because the blade isn't moving in a smooth or straight pattern across your face and neck.
- Try to think of the razor as an extension of your arm - the majority of movement should come from your shoulder and elbow, with the wrist only being employed for micro adjustments
- The neck may well be the most difficult part to shave cleanly and without incident -- you may want to stick with only one or possibly two passes while you gain confidence.
- If you need to - use a single pass twice daily, or skip a day between shaves to give your face a rest.
- Don't expect BBS at all for a number of days or possibly even weeks. Shoot for good form and a respectable appearance - not everyone is going to come up and stroke your face to tell you how smooth it is --- well, some might, but don't expect it
-
ShadowsDad
- Posts: 3121
- Joined: Thu Sep 29, 2011 1:13 am
- Location: Central Maine
I didn't intend to write this much, I swear! 
But it's staying. I hope there aren't too many typos.
Any first shave you can walk away from is a good one. We can deal with razor burn. Or at least help you get away from it- you need to deal with it once you've done it. But when you post asking for help, too much info is much better than controlling the info we're given. We can toss out what we don't need. I hope that makes sense.
We don't know what you used other than razor and blade, and so much more goes into a shave.
With a Tech, the sweet spot on angle is so critical that you simply can't get burn from bad angle IMO. If angle is off just a hair all you'll do is rub an area that is bladeless across your skin. That forgiveness is built into the geometry of a mild razor. That's what makes a mild razor such a great noob razor and such a frustrating razor for experienced shavers.
I'd look more to lather as the cause of the burn. If your angle is right with the Tech, and you get razor burn, I can't see how it can be anything other than lather. The Tech simply isn't capable of cutting off the top layers of skin (that's the cause of razor burn) because it doesn't have enough blade exposure to do that. That is, if you used no pressure and lather was correct. Heck, one can easily dry shave with a Tech once one knows what one is doing.
Lather is a critical skill. It needs to be practiced w/o shaving. You may think you're wasting soap, but what's worth more, lack of razor burn or a miniscule amount of soap?
OK, the role of lather is to lubricate the skin so that when the blade passes over the skin the blade/skin interface is lubed and the blade doesn't dig in. Think of it also as cushioning the skin from the blade, but lubrication and cushion are 2 different qualities. Forget lifting the whiskers, that's TV advertising and it's pure BS. Lather also has another role. The whiskers need to be prepped. Cutting a whisker is quite similar to cutting a copper wire of the same diameter. But whiskers can soak up water to soften them, and copper can't so we get the beard wet and keep it wet to help cut it, and don't bother soaking copper wires to aid in cutting them.
If you didn't prep your face you need to. You can do it as a separate step, using soap or some such, or just learn to face lather and combine prep and lathering into something that needs to be done anyway. You want to take about 3 minutes or more face lathering and at the end of that time the beard will be pretty much as soft as it will get. It makes a huge difference as seen in the picture above.
There are other ways to prep the face, but I can't help you with them. Neither do I use an oil, I never found it to be anywhere near as effective as great lather and face lathering.
What you're looking for is a very dense lather with bubbles you'd need a microscope to see. If the bubbles are large, you either used too much water, or not enough soap. The answer is to load the brush more. If you want a denser lather, load the brush more (dense is very good for cushion). Pretty much any soap problem, the answer is to use more soap (load the brush more). Don't forget to work the brush to make the dense cushiony lather you want. Be patient with lather making. Get it right. That's your face you're protecting with a really great lather- make it right. It's a critical skill.
It is possible to load the brush plenty and stll have terrible lather by not using enough water. The dense finely aerated lather you're looking for should last at least as long as one pass takes to perform and water makes it do that. If it disappears rapidly and isn't bubbly, it's too dry, hydrate it some more. There are some soaps that are real water hogs and w/o adding lots of water you simply won't make decent lather at all. When you make your test lathers spread the lather on your arm and time how long it lasts w/o disappearing.
You also need to take your test lathers to the point of over hydration so that you can recognize that condition. Continue adding water until the bubbles begin to get large and at some point the lather will totally break down. You need to recognize bubbly lather that's too thin. You never want to use that type. It's guaranteed razor burn. What's the solution? Either add more soap or get rid of it and start over. Never use that sort of lather! It actually isn't lather at all.
How do you test lather? If you intend to face lather you can use the face. But I find it much easier to make lather in the hand for test lathers and for learning to lather. As with face lathering you can instantly tell what the lather is doing by the feel of it and adjust on the fly.
The way I build lather is this way. I find this way gives me the most control. No matter what you're using as a soap product, soak your brush. The bristles must be wet. I dip my brush under the surface of the water in the basin for at least 20 seconds and I make sure to gently work them to get all of the bristle wet, even where they enter the handle. Then as I'm opening the soap and further preparing for the shave, the brush is sitting upside down on the countertop for still more soaking. Some folks soak their brushes for 20-30 minutes. Do what you want. I would never do that with a wooden handled brush. Never use extremely hot water either. If you're skin can handle it, so can the brush.
When the soap is open and you're ready, shake the brush off in good shape, you want a more than damp brush, but no where near dripping or even close to dripping. That's where my method departs from some others. They use a wet brush and from that point on you're locked into using that amount of water. My method allows you to adjust the lather and will allow a really superior lather when you get to that point (ask me in a month or 2- not now).
OK, so your soap is open, if you're using a soap here's where you load the brush. If you're using a cream wet your skin then take an amount equivalent to an almond and smear it onto your skin. Take a break for now while the soap users get caught up.
To load from soap, using just the first 1/3 of the bristles, go round and round to build up a sort of paste. The brush will start out by moving easily; as the paste begins to form you'll notice a resistance. Look at the brush to notice the paste. With later lathers you might want to use more. But you won't know what more is unless you look at what's on the brush. If you want a lot more, it's ok to dip the tips of the brush back into the water and build more paste.
OK, if using a soaped brush wet the skin you'll be lathering, then put the brush onto the face or hand. If using a cream, put the center of the brush directly on the cream that you put on to the skin. Or you could have put the cream onto the bristles of the brush, but I prefer to just smear it onto the skin. Now lather it using nothing more than what's on the skin and brush for now. It'll be dry initially, but get it moved around the wet skin using just the first 1/3 to 1/2 of the bristle length. You don't want to use the very base of the bristles. Dipping just the tips of the brush into the pool of water go back to lathering and building lather. Dip the very tips of the brush as many times as you need to in order to build the lather and hydrate it properly. It'll be slow to start out but in a week you'll be an old hand at making lather, especially if you do your homework and build test lathers so that you can learn.
BTW, when I get a new brush or new soap I always make a test lather first. I don't want any surprises when I use the lather and blade against my face. If I still use test lathering, so should you.
Give us more info about what you used for this shave and we can be of more help. There are differences in brushes that affect lather- so many variables.
Be patient, you'll get there. The more you tell us about your shave, the faster you'll get there because we won't need to try to guess.
But it's staying. I hope there aren't too many typos. Any first shave you can walk away from is a good one. We can deal with razor burn. Or at least help you get away from it- you need to deal with it once you've done it. But when you post asking for help, too much info is much better than controlling the info we're given. We can toss out what we don't need. I hope that makes sense.
We don't know what you used other than razor and blade, and so much more goes into a shave.
With a Tech, the sweet spot on angle is so critical that you simply can't get burn from bad angle IMO. If angle is off just a hair all you'll do is rub an area that is bladeless across your skin. That forgiveness is built into the geometry of a mild razor. That's what makes a mild razor such a great noob razor and such a frustrating razor for experienced shavers.
I'd look more to lather as the cause of the burn. If your angle is right with the Tech, and you get razor burn, I can't see how it can be anything other than lather. The Tech simply isn't capable of cutting off the top layers of skin (that's the cause of razor burn) because it doesn't have enough blade exposure to do that. That is, if you used no pressure and lather was correct. Heck, one can easily dry shave with a Tech once one knows what one is doing.
Lather is a critical skill. It needs to be practiced w/o shaving. You may think you're wasting soap, but what's worth more, lack of razor burn or a miniscule amount of soap?
OK, the role of lather is to lubricate the skin so that when the blade passes over the skin the blade/skin interface is lubed and the blade doesn't dig in. Think of it also as cushioning the skin from the blade, but lubrication and cushion are 2 different qualities. Forget lifting the whiskers, that's TV advertising and it's pure BS. Lather also has another role. The whiskers need to be prepped. Cutting a whisker is quite similar to cutting a copper wire of the same diameter. But whiskers can soak up water to soften them, and copper can't so we get the beard wet and keep it wet to help cut it, and don't bother soaking copper wires to aid in cutting them.
If you didn't prep your face you need to. You can do it as a separate step, using soap or some such, or just learn to face lather and combine prep and lathering into something that needs to be done anyway. You want to take about 3 minutes or more face lathering and at the end of that time the beard will be pretty much as soft as it will get. It makes a huge difference as seen in the picture above.
There are other ways to prep the face, but I can't help you with them. Neither do I use an oil, I never found it to be anywhere near as effective as great lather and face lathering.
What you're looking for is a very dense lather with bubbles you'd need a microscope to see. If the bubbles are large, you either used too much water, or not enough soap. The answer is to load the brush more. If you want a denser lather, load the brush more (dense is very good for cushion). Pretty much any soap problem, the answer is to use more soap (load the brush more). Don't forget to work the brush to make the dense cushiony lather you want. Be patient with lather making. Get it right. That's your face you're protecting with a really great lather- make it right. It's a critical skill.
It is possible to load the brush plenty and stll have terrible lather by not using enough water. The dense finely aerated lather you're looking for should last at least as long as one pass takes to perform and water makes it do that. If it disappears rapidly and isn't bubbly, it's too dry, hydrate it some more. There are some soaps that are real water hogs and w/o adding lots of water you simply won't make decent lather at all. When you make your test lathers spread the lather on your arm and time how long it lasts w/o disappearing.
You also need to take your test lathers to the point of over hydration so that you can recognize that condition. Continue adding water until the bubbles begin to get large and at some point the lather will totally break down. You need to recognize bubbly lather that's too thin. You never want to use that type. It's guaranteed razor burn. What's the solution? Either add more soap or get rid of it and start over. Never use that sort of lather! It actually isn't lather at all.
How do you test lather? If you intend to face lather you can use the face. But I find it much easier to make lather in the hand for test lathers and for learning to lather. As with face lathering you can instantly tell what the lather is doing by the feel of it and adjust on the fly.
The way I build lather is this way. I find this way gives me the most control. No matter what you're using as a soap product, soak your brush. The bristles must be wet. I dip my brush under the surface of the water in the basin for at least 20 seconds and I make sure to gently work them to get all of the bristle wet, even where they enter the handle. Then as I'm opening the soap and further preparing for the shave, the brush is sitting upside down on the countertop for still more soaking. Some folks soak their brushes for 20-30 minutes. Do what you want. I would never do that with a wooden handled brush. Never use extremely hot water either. If you're skin can handle it, so can the brush.
When the soap is open and you're ready, shake the brush off in good shape, you want a more than damp brush, but no where near dripping or even close to dripping. That's where my method departs from some others. They use a wet brush and from that point on you're locked into using that amount of water. My method allows you to adjust the lather and will allow a really superior lather when you get to that point (ask me in a month or 2- not now).
OK, so your soap is open, if you're using a soap here's where you load the brush. If you're using a cream wet your skin then take an amount equivalent to an almond and smear it onto your skin. Take a break for now while the soap users get caught up.
To load from soap, using just the first 1/3 of the bristles, go round and round to build up a sort of paste. The brush will start out by moving easily; as the paste begins to form you'll notice a resistance. Look at the brush to notice the paste. With later lathers you might want to use more. But you won't know what more is unless you look at what's on the brush. If you want a lot more, it's ok to dip the tips of the brush back into the water and build more paste.
OK, if using a soaped brush wet the skin you'll be lathering, then put the brush onto the face or hand. If using a cream, put the center of the brush directly on the cream that you put on to the skin. Or you could have put the cream onto the bristles of the brush, but I prefer to just smear it onto the skin. Now lather it using nothing more than what's on the skin and brush for now. It'll be dry initially, but get it moved around the wet skin using just the first 1/3 to 1/2 of the bristle length. You don't want to use the very base of the bristles. Dipping just the tips of the brush into the pool of water go back to lathering and building lather. Dip the very tips of the brush as many times as you need to in order to build the lather and hydrate it properly. It'll be slow to start out but in a week you'll be an old hand at making lather, especially if you do your homework and build test lathers so that you can learn.
BTW, when I get a new brush or new soap I always make a test lather first. I don't want any surprises when I use the lather and blade against my face. If I still use test lathering, so should you.
Give us more info about what you used for this shave and we can be of more help. There are differences in brushes that affect lather- so many variables.
Be patient, you'll get there. The more you tell us about your shave, the faster you'll get there because we won't need to try to guess.
Brian
Maker of Kramperts Finest Bay Rum and Frostbite
Or find it here: Italian Barber, West Coast Shaving, Barclay Crocker, The Old Town Shaving Company at Stats, Maggard Razors; Leavitt & Peirce, Harvard Square
Maker of Kramperts Finest Bay Rum and Frostbite
Or find it here: Italian Barber, West Coast Shaving, Barclay Crocker, The Old Town Shaving Company at Stats, Maggard Razors; Leavitt & Peirce, Harvard Square
Thanks for the help guys. I shaved again but with the krona and a astra blade. Shave came out better but still not the best. I worked on my lather also. Tried to make sure it was perfect. Once i shaved, i took my time and paid more attention. It was a better shave so hopefully they continue to get better from here on out.
Well I have had acouple of shaves in now. I am liking this wet shaving stuff haha. My last shave i think my lather was too dry though and i still am unsure if my angle is right or not. I feel the hairs being cut but i dont know if im putting to much angle in it or not. Will time pass and my angle will get better?
-
ShadowsDad
- Posts: 3121
- Joined: Thu Sep 29, 2011 1:13 am
- Location: Central Maine
Your technique should improve with time.
You might feel it cutting when it's right, maybe hear it also. When you do find it cutting, maintain that angle. The more you move the handle searching for the right angle the less you'll achieve it. You only have a narrow window with a mild razor. No pressure will make it work better too since with pressure you're actually bending the skin away from the blade. Warping it around the razor edge might be a better way to think of it.
Lather will also improve with time also since it's part of technique. Practicing making lather will speed it along. You progress as fast or as slow as you wish there.
Is it worth learning? Yup, absolutely.
You might feel it cutting when it's right, maybe hear it also. When you do find it cutting, maintain that angle. The more you move the handle searching for the right angle the less you'll achieve it. You only have a narrow window with a mild razor. No pressure will make it work better too since with pressure you're actually bending the skin away from the blade. Warping it around the razor edge might be a better way to think of it.
Lather will also improve with time also since it's part of technique. Practicing making lather will speed it along. You progress as fast or as slow as you wish there.
Is it worth learning? Yup, absolutely.
Brian
Maker of Kramperts Finest Bay Rum and Frostbite
Or find it here: Italian Barber, West Coast Shaving, Barclay Crocker, The Old Town Shaving Company at Stats, Maggard Razors; Leavitt & Peirce, Harvard Square
Maker of Kramperts Finest Bay Rum and Frostbite
Or find it here: Italian Barber, West Coast Shaving, Barclay Crocker, The Old Town Shaving Company at Stats, Maggard Razors; Leavitt & Peirce, Harvard Square
Ya my lather last night was a tad dry. I would make a pass and my skin was drying behind it pretty quick. Also with my angle, i do hear it cutting but i always wonder if its to much of an angle. I think I will use this tub of cream i have now as my practice then move onto something else soon. A certain someone doesnt care for the smell haha