Hey guys!
I'm just starting out with this, I'll be honest, extremely addicting art form. Previously (and to this day still) I used a Braun 790cc (which I will say, is fantastic, and will still be kept around for my quick 5 minute shaves when I'm really on the go for college).
I'm only 20, but the reason I'm so serious about the beard is because I have a very very thick, fast growing, rough beard. I know some of you may think yours is thick...but trust me, mine will make you feel better about yourself.
To give you an idea of how thick my beard is, if you were to take a tweezer to my beard and try to pluck one hair out chances are 50/50 you'd pick 2 maybe 3 hairs with it. That's how dense it is. It's so dense, that even with my closest shaves, I will never ever ever be without 5 o'clock shadow (it also doesn't help that I have black Italian hair). It's also very coarse.
On the bright side, it has a very consistent grain!
So I've been using my DE for the last 7 days, and while I'm seeing great improvement (although the quality of shave is no where near the smooth baby's bottom in all directions shave I get from my Braun) in terms of my handling of the blade, I am also beginning to think some of the problems I'm facing are not necessarily in my form, but rather from the brutal nature of my beard.
For one thing, the general idea seems to be if you're shaving right, you shouldn't really be feeling your beard being reduced. The problem is, the only time I don't feel that is if the blade is not touching my face. When it is, I can hear it, I can feel, and very often even with the best angle and lightest pressure I can muster I can sort of feel the blade struggling with my beard.
Here's my equipment:
Merkur Long Handle DE
Merkur Blades
Omega Badger Brush
Proraso Shave Cream
Procedure:
Get up in the mornings, rub some Proraso in, take a 15 minute steamy shower...rinse before coming out...
Put warm towel on face while letting badger brush soak....and whip up lovely lather
Put lather on face and 2 WTG passes, and as of yesterday I also add XTG pass (going across the relative grain in just one direction)
The quality of shave has been consistently improving, and I'm not cutting myself, but it's not anything I'd call smooth, even feeling my face WTG.
But again as I said, I feel the blade sort of having to fight my beard... I also replace the blade after every three shaves.
And one more question, today after doing the wet-shave I also decided to do the Braun too. And gruß gott! That has to be the closest shave I've ever had. It had the normal baby-smooth Braun quality to it, but on top of that it actually started to clear up my always-green face to a lighter shade of green. Does anyone have any experience with a electric-wetshave combo? Would anyone recommend it?
I'm just starting out with this, I'll be honest, extremely addicting art form. Previously (and to this day still) I used a Braun 790cc (which I will say, is fantastic, and will still be kept around for my quick 5 minute shaves when I'm really on the go for college).
I'm only 20, but the reason I'm so serious about the beard is because I have a very very thick, fast growing, rough beard. I know some of you may think yours is thick...but trust me, mine will make you feel better about yourself.
To give you an idea of how thick my beard is, if you were to take a tweezer to my beard and try to pluck one hair out chances are 50/50 you'd pick 2 maybe 3 hairs with it. That's how dense it is. It's so dense, that even with my closest shaves, I will never ever ever be without 5 o'clock shadow (it also doesn't help that I have black Italian hair). It's also very coarse.
On the bright side, it has a very consistent grain!
So I've been using my DE for the last 7 days, and while I'm seeing great improvement (although the quality of shave is no where near the smooth baby's bottom in all directions shave I get from my Braun) in terms of my handling of the blade, I am also beginning to think some of the problems I'm facing are not necessarily in my form, but rather from the brutal nature of my beard.
For one thing, the general idea seems to be if you're shaving right, you shouldn't really be feeling your beard being reduced. The problem is, the only time I don't feel that is if the blade is not touching my face. When it is, I can hear it, I can feel, and very often even with the best angle and lightest pressure I can muster I can sort of feel the blade struggling with my beard.
Here's my equipment:
Merkur Long Handle DE
Merkur Blades
Omega Badger Brush
Proraso Shave Cream
Procedure:
Get up in the mornings, rub some Proraso in, take a 15 minute steamy shower...rinse before coming out...
Put warm towel on face while letting badger brush soak....and whip up lovely lather
Put lather on face and 2 WTG passes, and as of yesterday I also add XTG pass (going across the relative grain in just one direction)
The quality of shave has been consistently improving, and I'm not cutting myself, but it's not anything I'd call smooth, even feeling my face WTG.
But again as I said, I feel the blade sort of having to fight my beard... I also replace the blade after every three shaves.
And one more question, today after doing the wet-shave I also decided to do the Braun too. And gruß gott! That has to be the closest shave I've ever had. It had the normal baby-smooth Braun quality to it, but on top of that it actually started to clear up my always-green face to a lighter shade of green. Does anyone have any experience with a electric-wetshave combo? Would anyone recommend it?
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