What Happened?

[speedwell]

I started wet shaving almost 20 years ago, joined the B&B community 10 years ago, and have received much good advice from many members since then. My shaving life has been pretty good...until recently. It all started a few months back, using familiar equipment that has worked consistently well for a long time. One weekday morning, after my normal there pass shave, I checked results by running wet hands over my face, and to my surprise and mild annoyance things were not my normal near BBS. Slight stubble remained in a few areas that had never given me trouble before. Not wanting to be late for work, I carried on, making a mental note to investigate further with my next shave.

The following morning I repeated my regular routine - the only difference being shave #2 on the same blade, and to my dismay, the same thing happened again yielding for the most part a BBS but only an SAS result in certain areas. The trouble spots were two small triangular sections starting at the corners of my mouth and extending inwards below my bottom lip, a short 1" section of my left jawline just off my chin, and a longer 2" section along my right jawline closer to my ear. Being a stickler for smooth, I suppressed my shock, re-lathered for a fourth and final ATG touch up, dialed down the trusty Mergress to reduce potential irritation, and started in on touch up pass 1, using blade resistance to measure my progress. Feeling satisfied, I ran my hands over the problematic areas, and to my horror, they were still not smooth. Greatly reduced, yes, but very slight stubble still remained. Not to be deterred, I squeezed my brush to extract what little bit of lather remained, applied it strategically with fingertips, cranked up the razor to 5+, and hit the problem spots again using a carefully executed combination of buffing, j hooking, and very short, angle conscious, ATG strokes. Persistency paid off and I got my level of smooth that normally comes with a standard three pass, however, my face was redder than a blushing Santa.

Immediately, I started to wonder what was going on. Two days in a row. Poor prep? Lousy lather? Dull blade? Bad method? No, no, no, and I don't think so. As best I could tell, everything was done exactly as I had always done it. I had to get to work but wanted to solve this mystery.
To preserve my skin for my weekend investigation when there would be more time, I shaved out the work week not trying for anything more that DFS. Saturday morning, I woke up early, consulted old notes on successful blade/razor combos, IM'd a buddy to get his thoughts, and set about my very deliberate preparations. Keeping everything the same except the blade, which was swapped out for a new one of the same kind (GSB), I set about my usual process. At the conclusion of what can only be described as a leisurely weekend shave with all the frills, and taking the time to do things right including an extended brush soak, face wash with a slick glycerine soap, extra facial hydration, use of a favorite preshave oil, and a prolonged face lathering, I had the same disappointing result with noticeable stubble but no irritation.

Brothers, I appear to have lost my mojo. Not sure what's going on. Kindly advise.

 

[Hawkweber]

My guess... Age. Beard hair is changing and getting thicker/coarser in those areas.

 

[Blackland Razors]

Sometimes the best hitters in baseball strike out. Sometimes they strike out for days in a row. They're still good hitters. Don't change anything just yet.

 

[speedwell]

Manny - I think you're onto something. I was at the dermatologist for something else and shared some of the details about what I was experiencing. He's a kid so it took me more time to explain to him what a DE razor is than to tell my story. Had to show him a picture on my phone. When he got over his surprise, he asked "why would anyone want to use something like that?" I told him they work pretty well once you know how to use one and to most they give a close and irritation free shave. Not sure he believes me so now I know who's getting my 34HD PIF!

Once we got through the explanations and justifications, he told me that skin changes appreciably as we age. Mine is apparently on the dry side (according to him) to begin with. He also pointed out that in the time I've been a patient, my facial hair has gone from brown to white, and white hair is known to be coarser and tougher than other colors. Not stopping with his compliments there, he also told me that I've also got more facial creasing (wrinkles) than when I started with him. He would have probably kept going but I told him that was more than enough from him for one day.

 

[Wgg2017]

Manny - I think you're onto something. I was at the dermatologist for something else and shared some of the details about what I was experiencing. He's a kid so it took me more time to explain to him what a DE razor is than to tell my story. Had to show him a picture on my phone. When he got over his surprise, he asked "why would anyone want to use something like that?" I told him they work pretty well once you know how to use one and to most they give a close and irritation free shave. Not sure he believes me so now I know who's getting my 34HD PIF!

Once we got through the explanations and justifications, he told me that skin changes appreciably as we age. Mine is apparently on the dry side (according to him) to begin with. He also pointed out that in the time I've been a patient, my facial hair has gone from brown to white, and white hair is known to be coarser and tougher than other colors. Not stopping with his compliments there, he also told me that I've also got more facial creasing (wrinkles) than when I started with him. He would have probably kept going but I told him that was more than enough from him for one day.

I hope he is more diplomatic with his female patients than he was with you. If not, he will be soon once he gets smacked for being too blunt with a lady of advancing age who isn’t ready to hear those things.

 

[ajkel64]

Thanks for your post. I am finding a similar situation. I shave before I shower and I am finding that when I wash my face again in the shower after my shave I am feeling stubble on my face. I can feel it mainly around my ears and just under my ears. I try not to worry about it but I am to a degree. I wasn’t sure if it was the blades that I was using or the mojo was gone.

 

[Wgg2017]

I shave before I shower and I am finding that when I wash my face again in the shower after my shave I am feeling stubble on my face.

Not sure if you wash your face prior to shaving but I’ve found that helps me get a slightly closer shave. My skin tends to be on the oily side.

For @speedwell, maybe it’s time to revisit razors that were once a bit too aggressive for your skin type. I’d be interested to hear how you respond to them given the less than satisfactory results with your regular razor. Best of luck finding a solution.

 

[Hawkweber]

He also pointed out that in the time I've been a patient, my facial hair has gone from brown to white, and white hair is known to be coarser and tougher than other colors.

Yep. Until this past fall, I was still using cartridge razors, but noticed that I was getting poorer shaves and more irritation from them. (This, of course, after I made a larger purchase of refills, doh!) I have had salt and pepper whiskers for quite some time but have been getting more "salt" over the past year and my shaves had been suffering. It also doesn't help that the blades in multi-blade cartridges are not that great, have no real support, and due to expense are typically used WAY beyond their longevity.

Once I went to DE shaving, I was able to get good, relatively irritation-free shaves again. Several things I have come to conclusion regarding my shaves and beard are that:

1) Not all blades work well for my whiskers. A single-pass with a Derby Extra may work for some people, but 3-passes with that on me will still give a crappy shave. Likewise, some blades that people rave about just don't work very well for me.

2) I need to use a more aggressive razor (read larger gap with neutral to positive blade exposure) to mow down my whiskers. I started with a 34C and got middling shaves. Now I use a Progress on higher setting or my Weber SS, which still has larger gap than 34C, and get better shaves with the same blade. Most recent test case - I'm going through a tuck of Shark SS blades. In the 34C I got an acceptable shave. In the Weber SS (larger gap) I got a better shave - not the best, but better. In the Progress set to 4 (larger gap than Weber) I can get a DFS with BBS on the cheeks. The 34C now resides in my medicine cabinet awaiting the day one of my sons ask to start shaving with DE razor.

3) I can applaud those who can use the same blade for a billion times and still get BBS shaves. Unfortunately, my salty whiskers kill blades pretty quickly. I will ditch a blade after 3 uses. Some question the concept of tossing a blade after an "arbitrary" number of shaves, after all, there might be 1, 2, or even more shaves left on the blade. I have found that out of most of the blades I have sampled, I get diminishing returns after 3. Sure, I could try for a fourth, but why run the risk of a poor shave just to eke out an extra one. Perhaps as I get even older and the whiskers get coarser, I may have to reduce that to two shaves before changing blades. Or join the One-and-Done club.

And by the way, you need to smack that young whippersnapper of a dermatologist around a bit - he needs to learn to respect his elders!

 

[Trollky]

If your stubble has become grey/white then that does indeed make life harder for the razor blade. A few more wrinkles will complicate matters even further...

Having said all that I have myself inexplicably lost my shaving mojo on a number of occasions for absolutely no apparent reason! The good news though is that I rediscovered my mojo equally mysteriously

 

[BigJ]

Great advice above!!

The two key points IMO:
1. Tomorrow is another day! Don’t change your routine until you establish that your observations are repeatable.
2. Keep learning! The great thing about ‘traditional‘ wet shaving is that there are so many options.

 

[mcee_sharp]

I occasionally experience the same, and get mildly annoyed as well. I think it's the easiest, and first reaction, to look toward the hardware, "bad blade", "tired blade", etc...

I usually slow things back down at this point and pay more attention to what type of stroke, in which direction I'm doing on each part of my face. I think my muscle memory gets a little lazy and takes a negligible shortcut here, another there, and it begins to add up to something bigger.

TLDR - I find that being more mindful, and deliberate, for a shave or two is a good reset for me.

 

[Mojo88]

Manny - I think you're onto something. I was at the dermatologist for something else and shared some of the details about what I was experiencing. He's a kid so it took me more time to explain to him what a DE razor is than to tell my story. Had to show him a picture on my phone. When he got over his surprise, he asked "why would anyone want to use something like that?" I told him they work pretty well once you know how to use one and to most they give a close and irritation free shave. Not sure he believes me so now I know who's getting my 34HD PIF!

Once we got through the explanations and justifications, he told me that skin changes appreciably as we age. Mine is apparently on the dry side (according to him) to begin with. He also pointed out that in the time I've been a patient, my facial hair has gone from brown to white, and white hair is known to be coarser and tougher than other colors. Not stopping with his compliments there, he also told me that I've also got more facial creasing (wrinkles) than when I started with him. He would have probably kept going but I told him that was more than enough from him for one day.

I went prematurely gray at 40 for the most part so I never noticed a huge change. What I have noticed is the dry areas below my ears. They shave a little differently and it takes another pass. The bright side is no 5 o’clock shadow.

 

[mcee_sharp]

@Mojo88 My chin and and a stripe down the middle of my neck went grey when I was ~30. Ironically no grey anywhere else on my body.

Thanks to the invisi-stubble I have an inverse Homer Simpson type thing going on.

 

[Mojo88]

@Mojo88 My chin and and a stripe down the middle of my neck went grey when I was ~30. Ironically no grey anywhere else on my body.

Thanks to the invisi-stubble I have an inverse Homer Simpson type thing going on.

Kind of a Pepe Le Pew thing ..When I had hair I had a Bonnie Raitt thing for a while with that grey stripe in the side of my hair. I bet if we were in a room together we would have been roasted.

 

[speedwell]

Not sure if you wash your face prior to shaving but I’ve found that helps me get a slightly closer shave. My skin tends to be on the oily side.

For @speedwell, maybe it’s time to revisit razors that were once a bit too aggressive for your skin type. I’d be interested to hear how you respond to them given the less than satisfactory results with your regular razor. Best of luck finding a solution.

I'm using all the guns in the arsenal and have been for years, including an R41 and Rocnel SE-G. Oddly enough, one that is now working pretty is the OneBlade Genesis.

 

[tejolot3]

Obviously, it's time to grow a beard.

 

[speedwell]

Update: a couple of things that I played around with this morning that may have made some difference. I was off work today so my shave was more like a test lab. I'll experiment some more to test these hypotheses, listed in no particular order:

Heavier razors seem to do better, particularly on the initial WTG pass.

With at least one adjustable, dialing it up to 5 actually gives a worse result than 3.5. I think this might have something to do with the blade not having enough support, so it's flexing/vibrating more due to the greater blade gap. My theory is that this causes it to "skip", varying the pressure against my skin. With coarser white hairs, this won't cut it.

With milder razors and the right blade choice, riding the cap with some pressure actually boosts shave performance. However, this is generally not good technique, so I'm a little reluctant to embrace. Conversely, with what I did today, riding the bar DID NOT work well. Maybe the very steep angle caused to much scraping - it was effective at creating irritation, but not at cutting white whiskers!

 

[speedwell]

Obviously, it's time to grow a beard.

Been there, done that twice. The itching got to me after a while. Catching food was also a problem. Plus, it was so damn white, my family started calling me Santa.

 

[speedwell]

Yep. Until this past fall, I was still using cartridge razors, but noticed that I was getting poorer shaves and more irritation from them. (This, of course, after I made a larger purchase of refills, doh!) I have had salt and pepper whiskers for quite some time but have been getting more "salt" over the past year and my shaves had been suffering. It also doesn't help that the blades in multi-blade cartridges are not that great, have no real support, and due to expense are typically used WAY beyond their longevity.

Once I went to DE shaving, I was able to get good, relatively irritation-free shaves again. Several things I have come to conclusion regarding my shaves and beard are that:

1) Not all blades work well for my whiskers. A single-pass with a Derby Extra may work for some people, but 3-passes with that on me will still give a crappy shave. Likewise, some blades that people rave about just don't work very well for me.

2) I need to use a more aggressive razor (read larger gap with neutral to positive blade exposure) to mow down my whiskers. I started with a 34C and got middling shaves. Now I use a Progress on higher setting or my Weber SS, which still has larger gap than 34C, and get better shaves with the same blade. Most recent test case - I'm going through a tuck of Shark SS blades. In the 34C I got an acceptable shave. In the Weber SS (larger gap) I got a better shave - not the best, but better. In the Progress set to 4 (larger gap than Weber) I can get a DFS with BBS on the cheeks. The 34C now resides in my medicine cabinet awaiting the day one of my sons ask to start shaving with DE razor.

3) I can applaud those who can use the same blade for a billion times and still get BBS shaves. Unfortunately, my salty whiskers kill blades pretty quickly. I will ditch a blade after 3 uses. Some question the concept of tossing a blade after an "arbitrary" number of shaves, after all, there might be 1, 2, or even more shaves left on the blade. I have found that out of most of the blades I have sampled, I get diminishing returns after 3. Sure, I could try for a fourth, but why run the risk of a poor shave just to eke out an extra one. Perhaps as I get even older and the whiskers get coarser, I may have to reduce that to two shaves before changing blades. Or join the One-and-Done club.

And by the way, you need to smack that young whippersnapper of a dermatologist around a bit - he needs to learn to respect his elders!

Very true about the dermatologist. I posted before that I would PIF him my 34HD. More I think about it though, I'm not sure he's shaving yet. He's gotta be in his late 20s, right, with med school and all, but what a baby face.

 

[tejolot3]

this won't cut it

I see what you did there.