First of all, thank you to the B&B community, I have learned a lot by lurking around and reading various posts and guides.
Summary
I switched to safety razors about a month ago. Pretty good experience so far, but I'm having trouble with hair on a limited part of my face - mostly along the jaw line.
Background
Merkur Classic 1904 / 1906
Cella Shave Soap Cream
Merkur blades
Badger hair brush
Process
Result
Sideburns come off super clean. This is the biggest improvement over cartridge. All in-grown hair, redness, discomfort, cuts - gone. Amazing.
Above lips - I get tiny, tiny nicks all the time during the ATG part, but I consider it necessary because there is a lot of hair left otherwise.
Chin - doing ok, but get a lot of bumps, and I can't get it close enough.
Jaw line - aRGgrh! Frustration abound. I can feel hair here regardless of what I do. Suggestions please.
The strange thing is is that I can take my old Gillette 3-blade razor, stab my jaw line in various directions for about 10 seconds, and the hair will be gone. No problem whatsoever. But why do I have to keep doing this? And no doubt, these cartridges still have to be replaced - they get dull over time spent wet (although I usually use some isopropyl alcohol afterward to minimize rust), so I hope that I can somehow get this tricky part of my face with just the safety razor.
Here is a diagram, using an innocent man's face off Google, of what I do with the cartridge razor at the end of my shave. No bumps, no cuts, just pure hair-removing heaven. (But the rest of my face does not react well to a cartridge, especially ATG).
The little blue arrow is not a great area of concern, but just to clarify: it's not the side-burn exactly, but the skin that's right on top of the end of the jaw bone, going into below the ears.
Summary
I switched to safety razors about a month ago. Pretty good experience so far, but I'm having trouble with hair on a limited part of my face - mostly along the jaw line.
Background
Merkur Classic 1904 / 1906
Cella Shave Soap Cream
Merkur blades
Badger hair brush
Process
- shower
- lather
- wait ~3 min
- rinse
- 4 passes*: WTG, XTG, XTG, ATG
- rinse
Result
Sideburns come off super clean. This is the biggest improvement over cartridge. All in-grown hair, redness, discomfort, cuts - gone. Amazing.
Above lips - I get tiny, tiny nicks all the time during the ATG part, but I consider it necessary because there is a lot of hair left otherwise.
Chin - doing ok, but get a lot of bumps, and I can't get it close enough.
Jaw line - aRGgrh! Frustration abound. I can feel hair here regardless of what I do. Suggestions please.
The strange thing is is that I can take my old Gillette 3-blade razor, stab my jaw line in various directions for about 10 seconds, and the hair will be gone. No problem whatsoever. But why do I have to keep doing this? And no doubt, these cartridges still have to be replaced - they get dull over time spent wet (although I usually use some isopropyl alcohol afterward to minimize rust), so I hope that I can somehow get this tricky part of my face with just the safety razor.
Here is a diagram, using an innocent man's face off Google, of what I do with the cartridge razor at the end of my shave. No bumps, no cuts, just pure hair-removing heaven. (But the rest of my face does not react well to a cartridge, especially ATG).
The little blue arrow is not a great area of concern, but just to clarify: it's not the side-burn exactly, but the skin that's right on top of the end of the jaw bone, going into below the ears.