First DE shave report

[Drano]

I’ve been hanging out here for about a month, getting great info and making my purchases.
I'm using Mama Bear’s Celestial Waters soap but continued using my Mach 3 disposable for a week so I could get better at building the lather. Man, that Celestial Waters is a treat to the nose.
This morning I loaded up my L-3 Slim w/ a Merkur Super Platinum out of my Sampler Pack, set it to position 1, built up a brush full of lather, and carefully did 2 passes, then quit while I was ahead. I’d say the shave was equal to or slightly worse than my Mach 3, but I was focusing on blade angle, and keeping light pressure. I’ll call the shave a success because I had no cuts/nicks and I learned a lot about blade angle and keeping that wrist locked. Can’t wait for shave #2 tomorrow.

Questions:
1. What techniques work for shaving the point of the chin? The grain there is N/S. Obviously the face curves rapidly there, so I found it difficult.
2. The grain below my jaw line/neck grows left ear to right ear (horizontal) (am I left haired or right haired??). It seems difficult to get blade contact on the WTG pass because of the jaw-to-neck curve. I ended up going XTG w/ N to S passes. Are diagonal grain passes a good option in this case, or what should I try?

Thanks for the help.

[momo360]

Questions:
1. What techniques work for shaving the point of the chin? The grain there is N/S. Obviously the face curves rapidly there, so I found it difficult.

I find blade buffing XTG really helps after 3 reduction passes.

For more on blade buffing and other techniques check out mantic's vid: http://youtube.com/watch?v=TQco5PWc2JU

2. The grain below my jaw line/neck grows left ear to right ear (horizontal) (am I left haired or right haired??). It seems difficult to get blade contact on the WTG pass because of the jaw-to-neck curve. I ended up going XTG w/ N to S passes. Are diagonal grain passes a good option in this case, or what should I try?

before saying this - YMMV. But i find that with a single blade and proper lather there is much less to worry about in terms of direction, but again: YMMV.

[Flaxorca]

I am not sure what other, more experienced shavers think of this, but for shaving the skin on my jawline and the point of my chin I lift the skin up so that these areas come above the jawline. This gives me a flat surface to shave on and works very well for me. I have a little less stretch around the point of my chin but with careful strokes I manage to get it reasonably smooth without nicks or burn. To get it BBS I would have to go ATG, which I tried a few times and found to be rather uncomfortable, so I just accept that I can feel minimal stubble on my chin if I rub ATG.

Something that also was a great help for me, was to revisit the video's and tutorials after a few shaves. It gave me a lot better understanding of angle and pressure and such, after actually having held a razor. In fact I still revisit the info every now and then .

[bjrn]

Questions:
1. What techniques work for shaving the point of the chin? The grain there is N/S. Obviously the face curves rapidly there, so I found it difficult.
2. The grain below my jaw line/neck grows left ear to right ear (horizontal) (am I left haired or right haired??). It seems difficult to get blade contact on the WTG pass because of the jaw-to-neck curve. I ended up going XTG w/ N to S passes. Are diagonal grain passes a good option in this case, or what should I try?

I think you should watch all of Mantic's videos (well, you can skip the straight and method shaving videos for now) but especially Single-Blade Safety Razor Shaving Tips & Tricks might have some good pointers. For the chin area you could try different things, like "the bullfrog" mentioned in the video above, and whatever else you might think of. Just try making some funny faces in front of the mirror and see where the chin skin goes.

My neck hair grows a bit like yours, left to right but also twisting upward on the right side. Leaning your head back will stretch the neck skin and you'll have a flatter area to work on, even so the skin won't be totally flat. I try to go as much left to right as I can and usually slightly upwards as well. Going somewhere between WTG and XTG on the first pass should be doable. To make the skin even flatter you could try to gently stretch the skin with the hand you're not shaving with, don't overdo that though.