Skin Stretching Questions

[Omp]

Hi Folks,
I am now a few months in to DE shaving and am getting some consistency with my shaves. Not consistently great yet but some slow improvement as time goes on.
In an effort to improve, I was wondering about people's views on stretching the skin when shaving. I tend to stretch the skin below the sideburns and on the jawline when shaving WTG and XTG but find I get a bit more burn if I try and do it when going ATG.
Do you stretch your skin all over your face?
Do you change the amount of stretching you do dependant on which pass you are doing?

[mdunn]

Stretch to get nice smooth pieces of face to attack, not too much though.

You'll feel what's right

[Oblique Human]

There are a few blades that work with this technique for me. But with the majority of them, going ATG, my experience is at par with yours. I experience pretty painful razor burn afterwards. I now don't stretch the skin next to the immediate area I'm shaving but about an inch away. It helps.

[ackvil]

I find that with a DE a little stretching goes a long way. I have found that for the areas of my face that are smooth I don't need to stretch. Plus, I have found that by turning my head I can get a mild stretch by my neck area and my using my tongue to puff out my mustache area I can get to those nasty hairs that like to hide. However, I rarely stretch anything while going ATG. Like you found, going ATG is aggressive enough.

[vreddy2000]

I am just a few months into wet shaving myself and nowhere near an expert.
this is knowledge i gleaned from reading here.
the idea behind streatching is to stand hair straight for the blade to slice thru..
imagine hair on their side ...which would be their natural state of rest.
so when shaving WTG if you do not streatch you will be mowing thru hair thats on their side..
when you streatch..you only need to streatch slightly..
so when going WTG..you streatch slightly opposite to the direction that the blade is slicing..and when I say streatch on or two finger tips lifting the skin up ever so slightly is all you need..
overstreatching is counter productive as you might make the hair follicles fall to the other side ..

hope that makes some sense and helps..

[redrako]

I learned early on from a Mantic59 video that we should try to shave with short strokes on small flat planes. As parts of my face are more round, I gently stretch that area to flatten out small areas.

[musicman1951]

My reading seems to indicate that this is more important for straight razors. Why don't you try a shave with no stretching and see what happens?

[BroJohn]

Consider 'stretching' just enough to 'flatten' rounded transitional areas. Use a light touch, and short, deliberate strokes. It just takes a small bit of practice.

-- John Gehman