Problem with shaving frequently

Hi!

After about half a year of DE shaving I can now get almoast irritation free shaves, at least when I have a lot of time and I hasn't shave for a couple of days. But when I shave day 2 or 3 I really can't shave whitout getting razorburn, and BBS is not to talk about. It feels like the beard is more "shave ressistant" and makes a lot more resistance then usually. First I thought the razorburn was a result of damaged skin from the last time that hasn't heel properly, but after a while I realized that it more likley is a result of bad prepare.

My prep is as follow:
I take a face soap and lather up my face before geting in the shower. Then I wash with warm water properly, and get downstairs (I don't shave at the same place as I shower) to shave.
There I first lather up a pretty wet lather from a soap and lather my face. I use to do this about two times, because after half a minute or so the lather feels dry. I mix a "superlather" from soap and cream before lathering the real shave lather. I let that lather work for a minute or so, and thirly massaging the lather on the face.

Then I shave first WTG, then XTG/ATG (some kind of mode between cross and against that I've found out works the best to me) and some buffering at the end if nessecary (almoast every time at the chin area).

However, when I have shave the last day I have about 5 o clock shadow at the morning (if yesterdays shave was BBS or at least close to), wich means that I can't/don't wan't to go to work/school without shaving, and I have really hard to get a good shave.

So, how can I get a good shave day two? Is there anything on the prep I should do different or should I change the shaving procedur?

//Axel

My first advice is to see if it's a technique issue or a skin issue. Try a week or two with a one pass shave WTG. If that works with no irritation then progress to a two pass shave WTG & XTG. Then move on to the ATG from there. If you notice a significant increase in irritation moving from one phase to the next then your skin may not like that additional stroke. If you can't do a single WTG pass consistently then it may be an irritation from the product. Solving the problem in a quick post is hard. Basically, break it all down and take baby steps to determine at what point you're getting irritation.

A littl more detail on hardware may help too.

BigRich said:

My first advice is to see if it's a technique issue or a skin issue. Try a week or two with a one pass shave WTG. If that works with no irritation then progress to a two pass shave WTG & XTG. Then move on to the ATG from there. If you notice a significant increase in irritation moving from one phase to the next then your skin may not like that additional stroke. If you can't do a single WTG pass consistently then it may be an irritation from the product. Solving the problem in a quick post is hard. Basically, break it all down and take baby steps to determine at what point you're getting irritation.

A littl more detail on hardware may help too.

Click to expand...

Thanks for such a great answer!

First, I think it feels like my beard is a lot softer when I hasn't shave for a couple of days, and that the razor cut the hair much more easy then it do when the beard is short. It feels like each hair is much harder for the razor to cut, and the razor "bumping" more on the skin if I use a little pressure.
It feels allmost exactly like it do when I have cheat with the prep.

And I have trying to let the lather work longer and wash longer/hoter and so on without any result to talk about.

Oh, and the hardware setup is a s follow:

Brush: EJ Best Badger with an EJ shaving bowl.
Razor: An old gillette DE razor, pretty common I think, of the "butterfly" type. Identical to this:



but with other handle. It's a pretty "non agressive" razor I think, but you can adjust that a little by not pulling the blade that tight.

Soap: EJ Aloe Vera
Cream: Palmolive random cream.

And sometimes I use almondoil to get less friction, but usually It's not necessary.

Best Regards
Axel