Asking for help/advice on shaving the neck

[Birds]

I could use some help and/or advice in regards to shaving the neck area which has an increasing amount of coarse silver/grey whiskers. I use a Merkur Progress with a setting of 1.5-2 and either Merkur or Feather blades.

Setup:
Merkur Progress set on 1.5-2
Merkur blades
Feather blades
C&E Best Badger
Tom's of Maine cream
unscented Witch Hazel

Preprep:
Soak brush in mug with hot water
Wet face with hot water for a while
Lather
Shave

As the whiskers become more silver/grey they are getting more coarse and difficult to cut. I can shave the chin, jaw line, upper lip, and checks to my satisfaction because these areas don't have as much grey/silver, but the neck gives me great problems.

The last time I shaved I did a four pass shave (N-S, S-N, and chevrons). My whiskers grow in the direction of one of the chevron passes so I made sure that final chevron pass would be an "against the grain" pass.

As I shared above, I use a Merkur Progress with a setting of 1.5-2. The first three passes didn't appear to do a thing to the silver/grey whiskers. On the fourth "against the grain" pass I could feel the wiskers catch, but they would not cut and instead tore. The end result was not good.

I was using a Merkur blade which had gone through five shaves so I switched to a new Feather, tried a different section, and did another against the grain pass. This time silver/grey whiskers did get cut, but there was still pulling and nicks. Still the Feather blade removed the most silver/grey stubble.

Does anyone have any recommendations for dealing with stiff coarse silver/grey whiskers?

Would a preshave oil help soften them up?

Thanks.

 

[mrob]

Have you tried a blade buffing pass? My neck only gets cleaned with a BB--I turn down my Vision to a less aggressive setting, lather up, and apply numerous short rapid strokes to the offending area.

It usually mows down the remaining growth pretty well.

 

[Birds]

I've tried "blade buffing" a little bit, but didn't notice much difference on the neck area.

What benefit does opening the blade up more (using setting 3 as opposed to setting 2) provide?

Thanks.

 

[mparker762]

Getting old sucks, doesn't it? I had the same problem. Preshave oil didn't help me, but maybe it will help you; plenty of people swear by it.

Back when I shaved with a DE regularly, I dealt with this by (1) angling the blade head like a snowplow (2) making sure the blade was angled as shallowly as possible (3) going slowly (4) no pressure. I finally wound up just doing two passes with the grain and a final pass against the grain, and this worked well as long as I remembered the previous rules.

One of the things that exacerbated the problem with the stiff whiskers was the very thin DE blades seemed to flex and dig in as they hit those stiff hairs against the grain. Going slowly and keeping the blade flat helped a great deal, but I eventually started looking something to give me stiffer blades at shallower angles. The schick injector worked better than the DE (though I disliked it for other reasons), and I eventually migrated through the Feather AC to the old-fashioned straight razor, which gave me a very stiff blade that allowed me to shave that part of my face at a very shallow angle indeed.

 

[AJS]

It seems like I make this suggestion at least once a day for various reasons, but have you tried a GEM Micromatic or Ever Ready Single Edge razor? Like MParker said the thin DE blades have a really tendency to flex when faced with stiff bristles, GEM type blades don't have this problem. As much as I love injectors, I think that GEM's are an often overlooked solution to many of the problems faced by wet shavers.
In the interests of not repeating myself to others:
SINGLE EDGE RAZORS RULE!

 

[TraderJoe]

I could use some help and/or advice in regards to shaving the neck area which has an increasing amount of coarse silver/grey whiskers. I use a Merkur Progress with a setting of 1.5-2 and either Merkur or Feather blades.

Setup:
Merkur Progress set on 1.5-2
Merkur blades
Feather blades
C&E Best Badger
Tom's of Maine cream
unscented Witch Hazel

Preprep:
Soak brush in mug with hot water
Wet face with hot water for a while
Lather
Shave

As the whiskers become more silver/grey they are getting more coarse and difficult to cut. I can shave the chin, jaw line, upper lip, and checks to my satisfaction because these areas don't have as much grey/silver, but the neck gives me great problems.

The last time I shaved I did a four pass shave (N-S, S-N, and chevrons). My whiskers grow in the direction of one of the chevron passes so I made sure that final chevron pass would be an "against the grain" pass.

As I shared above, I use a Merkur Progress with a setting of 1.5-2. The first three passes didn't appear to do a thing to the silver/grey whiskers. On the fourth "against the grain" pass I could feel the wiskers catch, but they would not cut and instead tore. The end result was not good.

I was using a Merkur blade which had gone through five shaves so I switched to a new Feather, tried a different section, and did another against the grain pass. This time silver/grey whiskers did get cut, but there was still pulling and nicks. Still the Feather blade removed the most silver/grey stubble.

Does anyone have any recommendations for dealing with stiff coarse silver/grey whiskers?

Would a preshave oil help soften them up?

Thanks.

A couple ideas I have regard the bold-faced above:

Namely, are you using so much hot water (that is too hot) that you are drying your face out? If the water is too hot and I use too much, it will rob my face of moisture and result in a poor shave. Interesting concept.

Also, describe how you lather or what the consistency is. Maybe it isn't doing its job well enough to soften your whiskers?

Finally, are you pulling the skin taught?

 

[Birds]

Thank you for the additional thoughts and ideas to work with. I'll give them a shot.

The hot water being too hot is an interesting idea I had not thought about.

Regarding the lather... The lather is a good meringue texture with plenty of slickness to it.

Enjoy!

 

[rschul2]

Birds,
Are you a new wetshaver? If not, I would suggest you pick up a Merkur Slantbar with some Feather blades. That combination seems to mow down thick whiskers with the best of 'em. If you are not experienced, the Slantbar can be a bit aggressive so you must take your time.

 

[mrob]

Sorry for the off-topic question. . .

Where would I get blades that work with the Gem or Eveready?

 

[TraderJoe]

Sorry for the off-topic question. . .

Where would I get blades that work with the Gem or Eveready?

Walgreen's carries the Gem blades.