Who's Rarely or Never Drawn Blood? Is it Just Me?

I've been at wetshaving for almost a year now; DE, SE a shavette once. I'd say I've got it down, and narrowed down my likes and dislikes of blades, razors etc. after trying a bunch.

I have almost never drawn blood.

Since day one, the worst I have had are a few minor nicks that didn't really bleed, and some razor burn in the early days. And I shave in the shower without a mirror, using a 37C slant Feather loaded.

I am constantly reading here how so and so with such and such blade cut, nicked, weeped, bathed in blood himself and I just can't help wondering, how? Why?

Am I the only one? I'm not trying to brag or anything, I'm just really curious.

Post here and share if you don't have any shaving slasher stories!

It's very rare indeed that I see any blood. Of course with 4 decades of experience I don't expect to. A weeper is to be expected every now and then while you are learning.

I'll occasionally nip the top off of a pimple or catch the corner of a nostril or lip, but that's about it these days.
There was a learning curve to get there, though!

I used to shred my face up pretty good when using Astra SPs which was the first blade I tried. I blamed the blades and moved on. I revisited Astras and now I use them a few times a week with the same razor and I very rarely see blood. Experience and technique cured my "bad blade" issues.

I've been drawing blood once or twice a week for 50 years
I don't think I have ever had a nick using a Krona or a star burst Lady Gillette.

small price to pay,
ken

Wet shaving for about 35 years and I couldn't fill a pea with the blood I've drawn. Never mentioned it because I'm sure I'm one of many. The last time I even had a weeper was trying to get a 6th shave out of a Feather!

At it for almost 3 months now with a DE and 3 nicks. I don't get weepers much, my skin is in pretty good shape.

I rarely get a nick. I can go for months with no issues - no nicks, weepers and no razor burn. But, wouldn't you know it, I did get two nicks just yesterday. I don't really know what went wrong, but I was using a Lord Platinum, and sometimes we do not seem to play well together.

Entire time wet shaving, I have roughly 5 nick/weepers (only about two months). I think my face skin is toughened up because of the terrible things cartridge razors did to my face.

I rarely draw blood. I've been shaving for a pretty long time though. I always retire a blade probably before it's really done. Maybe that helps. I always approach my shaves with a "zen experience" in mind, which makes me slow down. I think a lot of the bloodletting that happens is partly due to the habit of hurrying the shave. That is probably a hard habit for a lot of guys to break.

Greyfox said:

It's very rare indeed that I see any blood. Of course with 4 decades of experience I don't expect to. A weeper is to be expected every now and then while you are learning.

Click to expand...

+1

When first reading the title I thought it was about donating blood... I always get a few weepers each shave but not much blood is drawn...

I get the occasional nick or two when I'm not paying attention but I have never had anything serious happen.

Rushing with new Williams this morning I got a 1 cm nick under my chin. Very superficial and stopped bleeding with a cold water splash. First one in a couple of weeks.

My first DE shave, using a Parker DE with a Merkur blade and Classic Shaving Co. shave soap, almost scared me away from DE shaving forever. I bought these before finding B&B and I would have been hard pressed to find a worse starter kit. I eventually learned better technique and found soaps,razors and blades that I like much more than my initial setup. Thankfully, the past year and a half has been nearly completely blood free. I have learned not to use my most aggressive razors when I am running late. I know which razors are less forgiving of poor technique.

After eight months or so of DE shaving I seldom get razor burn, and almost never get cut. However, the first month or so was raw. Some do very well right from the start, and some never get a good DE or SE shave. I think most have it down after 3 or 4 months.

Nary a cut or nick or weeper in my last 15,000 shaves, Just doesn't happen.

I'd been wetshaving for years with cartridges and was a bit nervous to switch to DE saftey razors about 4 weeks ago. I have very sensitive skin and so far the last few weeks I've ended up with some razor burn on my neck a couple of times, mostly due to a couple of attempts to go ATG and also because I'm running through a sampler pack of blades, some of which are not so good. I don't think ATG will ever really work for me, but I'll continue to give it the occasional try for a while as I work on my technique and experiment with sharper blades like feathers and personna labs/meds.

But so far as actual bleeding goes, I've had like 2-3 VERY mild weepers that closed quickly on their own, no real nicks or cuts, not even with a feather. I am actually a bit baffled by some of the horror stories I've read about mangled faces, even saw a video of a guy that probably had over a dozen bad bleeders from one shaving session... Bottom line to me, if you are having that bad a shave put the dang razor down! Keep some cartridges on hand, if you're having a bad night and can't make it through a shave with a DE then put it down and finish the job the easy way.

I think there's a much bigger learning curve for those going from electric shavers to DE than for guys like me that were doing the cartridge thing for years to finally try DE shaving. Even with my admittedly poor DE technique it's just not a bloody experience so far...

shavervinnie said:

I rarely draw blood. I've been shaving for a pretty long time though. I always retire a blade probably before it's really done. Maybe that helps. I always approach my shaves with a "zen experience" in mind, which makes me slow down. I think a lot of the bloodletting that happens is partly due to the habit of hurrying the shave. That is probably a hard habit for a lot of guys to break.

Click to expand...

I agree, rushing is not conducive to good work... And yeah even though I'm still "finding my blade" and going through a sample pack I don't see much sense in trying to stretch 4-6 shaves out of a blade... especially when you buy in bulk they're pretty cheap... so far in the learning process I'm going about 3 shaves per blade but I can really see keeping it to only 2, honestly. But, whatever works for you.

I manage to nick myself about once every four or five shaves: usually when I try to stretch a blade just one shave too far.