Finally got my first ever irritation free ATG shave last night. I could always get an irritation free WTG & XTG shave but with my thick and coarse hair it always looks like I didn't shave at all. This is actually what got me here in the first place - the search for an irritation free ATG shave. Before last night I was actually thinking I was one of the guys who just couldn't do ATG and was about to stop the pursuit. But I'm stubborn and was willing to put up with some pain to get things figured out - and yes, there was pain on the journey but I'd bet that's somewhat normal.
Here are the cliffnotes of my journey:
Old routine
Prep - get face wet with warm water and smear a very liberal amount of Nivea Moisturizing Face Wash over shaving area. Very liberal.
Shaving cream - Edge Sensitive Gel
Razor - Basic Personna twin blade disposable. Always discarded after one shave.
Technique - Never mapped growth pattern. Staight-up N to S (which tore up my neck and required SWMBO to get the blood stains out of my dress shirt collars on occasion) and XTG chin to ear on my cheeks only. No re-lather.
Post shave - Shower to calm face down and stop any bleeding. Nothing more.
Notes - This is clearly not a good routine but it was the best that I settled on quite some time ago. I never shaved more frequently than every other day because I was always irritated.
New Routine
Prep - My truncated version of Kyle's Prep is similar to what mantic59 does in his prep video. I fill my sink with pretty hot water with a wash cloth in it. I also have my brush and razor soaking in a coffee mug with hot water in it while getting the sink and cloth ready. Once ready I splash my face with the hot water from my sink to get it nice and wet for the lathering to come. For the first lather I use a puck of Col. Conk Amber. I guess any would do but I got this for free and I really don't like the lather I get from this soap and that is exactly why I use it for this stage of prep. With the Col. Conk lather on I take the wash cloth out of the sink, ring it out and apply it to my face. Like mantic59 I found that about a minute is sufficient. After that I take the cloth away and I'm ready to whip up some lather for the shave. As you can see, this process doesn't take very long at all. I find it gets my face ready much better than just showering before hand and it certainly saves time from the full routine for Kyle's prep (which I plan on soing once in a while but not realistic for me as an every day routine).
Shaving cream - Proraso (for now)
Brush - Vulfix s375 - I kind of felt that picking out a brush was the hardest part when choosing my tools for this trade. I can't really say why I chose this one but it was in my budget and was super badger so now it's mine.
Razor - Merkur 34C
Blade - Feather - I was hesitant to start using a Feather so soon but after having bad shaves with Merkur and Astra and feeling that I had most of the other variables down I decided sharper blades may be just what I need (remember I'm talking ATG here, the Merkur and Astra blades would be fine for a shave equivalent to my old routine).
Technique - Two keys for me to get down were taking the pressure off the razor and learning the growth pattern on may face and neck. Paying attention to the grain direction is such an important part to shaving that I feel ridiculous for not having done it long ago. Seriously, just because WTG is N-S on my cheek doesn't mean it's N-S on my neck. Go figure. Anyway, both of these were quite easy to apply so the last bad habbit I had to break was not going over the same stroke area until relathering. This one was hard folks. I got it down but it took discipline.
Post shave - Warm water rinse -> cold water rinse -> whitch hazel -> Nivea Sensitive ASB. This part I'm still tweaking but right now that's what I've been doing.
Notes - This forum has helped me a ton in a very short period of time. I broke a few rules along the way. On my third time I tried a 4 pass shave with that Col. Conk Amber and learned to not be too proud to wipe it off and start over if the lather isn't right (in Xmas photos my face looks like it was sunburned). I told you I was stubborn. It hurt like hell but I wasn't stopping for nobody. I bought some MWF far too soon for my lathering skills and switched back to proraso after one pass with it (I'll come back to it soon enough). I couldn't wait two days for my face to heal and shaved over a sensitive face on a weekend just so I could practice more. I switched to a Feather blade as my third blade. All this and so on. Now? I'm no longer dreading the act of shaving and can do a 4 pass shave followed by some touch up without weepers or blotchy, red skin.
Bottom Line
Do what you need to do to find your sweet spot. I may have only been wetshaving the traditional way for a couple weeks but I'm 31 right now and started shaving when I was 11. With my current routine I've finally been able to experience a pleasant and far superior shave to what I would have ever expected before.
Find your sweet spot.
Enjoy the journey.
Here are the cliffnotes of my journey:
Old routine
Prep - get face wet with warm water and smear a very liberal amount of Nivea Moisturizing Face Wash over shaving area. Very liberal.
Shaving cream - Edge Sensitive Gel
Razor - Basic Personna twin blade disposable. Always discarded after one shave.
Technique - Never mapped growth pattern. Staight-up N to S (which tore up my neck and required SWMBO to get the blood stains out of my dress shirt collars on occasion) and XTG chin to ear on my cheeks only. No re-lather.
Post shave - Shower to calm face down and stop any bleeding. Nothing more.
Notes - This is clearly not a good routine but it was the best that I settled on quite some time ago. I never shaved more frequently than every other day because I was always irritated.
New Routine
Prep - My truncated version of Kyle's Prep is similar to what mantic59 does in his prep video. I fill my sink with pretty hot water with a wash cloth in it. I also have my brush and razor soaking in a coffee mug with hot water in it while getting the sink and cloth ready. Once ready I splash my face with the hot water from my sink to get it nice and wet for the lathering to come. For the first lather I use a puck of Col. Conk Amber. I guess any would do but I got this for free and I really don't like the lather I get from this soap and that is exactly why I use it for this stage of prep. With the Col. Conk lather on I take the wash cloth out of the sink, ring it out and apply it to my face. Like mantic59 I found that about a minute is sufficient. After that I take the cloth away and I'm ready to whip up some lather for the shave. As you can see, this process doesn't take very long at all. I find it gets my face ready much better than just showering before hand and it certainly saves time from the full routine for Kyle's prep (which I plan on soing once in a while but not realistic for me as an every day routine).
Shaving cream - Proraso (for now)
Brush - Vulfix s375 - I kind of felt that picking out a brush was the hardest part when choosing my tools for this trade. I can't really say why I chose this one but it was in my budget and was super badger so now it's mine.
Razor - Merkur 34C
Blade - Feather - I was hesitant to start using a Feather so soon but after having bad shaves with Merkur and Astra and feeling that I had most of the other variables down I decided sharper blades may be just what I need (remember I'm talking ATG here, the Merkur and Astra blades would be fine for a shave equivalent to my old routine).
Technique - Two keys for me to get down were taking the pressure off the razor and learning the growth pattern on may face and neck. Paying attention to the grain direction is such an important part to shaving that I feel ridiculous for not having done it long ago. Seriously, just because WTG is N-S on my cheek doesn't mean it's N-S on my neck. Go figure. Anyway, both of these were quite easy to apply so the last bad habbit I had to break was not going over the same stroke area until relathering. This one was hard folks. I got it down but it took discipline.
Post shave - Warm water rinse -> cold water rinse -> whitch hazel -> Nivea Sensitive ASB. This part I'm still tweaking but right now that's what I've been doing.
Notes - This forum has helped me a ton in a very short period of time. I broke a few rules along the way. On my third time I tried a 4 pass shave with that Col. Conk Amber and learned to not be too proud to wipe it off and start over if the lather isn't right (in Xmas photos my face looks like it was sunburned). I told you I was stubborn. It hurt like hell but I wasn't stopping for nobody. I bought some MWF far too soon for my lathering skills and switched back to proraso after one pass with it (I'll come back to it soon enough). I couldn't wait two days for my face to heal and shaved over a sensitive face on a weekend just so I could practice more. I switched to a Feather blade as my third blade. All this and so on. Now? I'm no longer dreading the act of shaving and can do a 4 pass shave followed by some touch up without weepers or blotchy, red skin.
Bottom Line
Do what you need to do to find your sweet spot. I may have only been wetshaving the traditional way for a couple weeks but I'm 31 right now and started shaving when I was 11. With my current routine I've finally been able to experience a pleasant and far superior shave to what I would have ever expected before.
Find your sweet spot.
Enjoy the journey.
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