ATG and controlling blade pressure
- Thread starter ChuckTN
- Start date
Grab the razor in the balance point, tilt your head left and place razor on the right chin. This is a reference for 'no pressure' ATG.
You can lie on a bed and hang you head down towards the floor and place razor by holding in balance point on your neck. This will give you a reference for no pressure on the neck.
No pressure is less than you would think, if in doubt use less pressure!
BTW: welcome to the B&B!
You can lie on a bed and hang you head down towards the floor and place razor by holding in balance point on your neck. This will give you a reference for no pressure on the neck.
No pressure is less than you would think, if in doubt use less pressure!
BTW: welcome to the B&B!
- Thread starter
- #3
Hello and welcome to B&B!
Use just enough pressure to keep the blade in contact with your skin,anything past that will be in excess!
Good luck!
Use just enough pressure to keep the blade in contact with your skin,anything past that will be in excess!
Good luck!
Honestly, I'm of the opinion you should never use the razor's weight to control pressure. As nuclearbast said, you want to maintain just enough pressure to keep the blade on your skin. Using the weight of the razor may or may not be the right amount of pressure, so never depend on that. Visualize the blade just skimming the surface, and adjust pressure accordingly.
If you hold the razor at the point of balance you are in effect reducing its weight to very little.
All in all I think we mean the same thing!
Yep, we're saying the same thing. The idea is to remove the weight of the razor from the equation, and just keep the blade riding pressure free at skin level. Now I do still prefer heavier razors, as the mass also gives more momentum to motions in the direction of cutting, which is nice. But I never let those forces work perpendicular to the skin.
I was never able to shave ATG without wrecking my neck until I started wet shaving. When I was using a 4 blade Fusion razor I couldn't resist pressing down and I would end up with all kinds of ingrown hairs and razor burn. With my DE razor I change the blade about every three days so I never end up shaving with a dull razor (I'm not so concerned about the cost of the blades that I feel like I need to use them as long as possible). When I shave ATG I use very light pressure. Like many others on here have already stated, just enough pressure to keep the razor in contact with your skin. You'll get a feel for it after a few attempts. I also think it takes your face a couple of shaves to get used to shaving ATG when you first start doing it.
very useful tips I'll have to practice I'm sure I use more pressure than ideal
I hold my razor with just my thumb and ring finger, lock my wrist and take short razor strokes.
Apparently he didn't mean it this way, but I read the first post as meaning that when shaving ATG, the hairs pull the razor closer to the skin. This would be a concern with a dull blade, or if your hairs are hard enough for even a sharp blade to slide down them before encountering enough pressure at the skin to make it start chopping into the hair.
So, uh...any thoughts on that?
So, uh...any thoughts on that?
I never thought of it this way but this is really sage advice. I'm fond of using the balloon analogy. Use the level of control that you'd use if you were trying to shave a balloon.
About 2 weeks into DE shaving I gave up on atg and finally achieved burn free shaves. At some point, guess I learned technique and pressure w/o overthinking the process. Now I do a final pain free atg cleanup in certain spots, but it wasn't a conscious effort...just came naturally with experience.
Maybe muscle memory kicks in after a while, making all this easier?
Maybe muscle memory kicks in after a while, making all this easier?
I've found my technique improving for no reason I could see more than once. Just yesterday I found myself suddenly able to shave from a little below my jaw on up the face with the 2011 Muhle R41 with no problem--whereas the first few time I tried it, a couple of weeks ago, it did not work well at all on any part of my beard. Yesterday for no reason (apart from having a slightly slicker lather now than then), I just had a feeling it would work...I was unfortunately mistaken regarding my neck, but regarding my face I was absolutely right.
- Thread starter
- #16
Well, I used all the good advice this morning, paying more attention to how I was holding the razor and more conscious of how much pressure was applied (hopefully none). I had a Feather blade, on it's 2nd shave, in my EJ DE89 and ended up with a very descent shave with no razor burn! My first shave with that Feather I had razor burn for about 8 hours, so I was applying too much pressure. And this shave was with a first pass ATG with touch ups in problem areas. I always had to shave ATG with a cartridge to get any kind of a shave. So, once again, many thanks for the helpful posts!
Welcome, OP!!!! I haven't read through all these responses in that much detail, but just to add something that might help you, when going ATG (for the reasons that you mention) I actually find it useful to use a stroke speed that is a bit faster than I use for my other-directioned strokes. Be careful with this at first because you don't want to cut yourself, but I've found that a somewhat faster (and very SHORT) stroke on an ATG pass helps to keep the pressure (or lack of pressure) even. When you are going too slow, the razor can snag/get caught and then as you continue to pull it, it bumps and cuts you.
Overall, just experiment and see what works best for you.
- Badger Bill
Overall, just experiment and see what works best for you.
- Badger Bill
Good to hear!
Sometimes I tend to forget how exciting those moments were. I'm an old fogie who bought my first DE kit in 1980...
Enjoy your shaves and have fun!
I haven't been at this for very long, but as an absolute beginner, the concept of "zero pressure" and "letting the weight of the razor do the work" were very confusing concepts for me because there are really very few areas on the face where you can literally let the razor rest on your face in this manner.
It seems like DE shaving is kind of like learning to ride a bike but is more difficult because the combinations of different faces and hardware applied are virtually limitless. Even though the technique is espoused, I really don't think I use the same amount of pressure on all areas of my face. I think these changes in pressure are very, very subtle, maybe almost unnoticeable through the handle of the razor, but it some areas a little more pressure seems to do a better job there. In other places, virtually no pressure does the trick.
I understand the maxim of "zero pressure" for beginners like me to unlearn old cartridge-shaving habits, but I think it confuses a lot of people and, as it did for me, resulted in some not-so-great shaves in the very beginning.
I learned that as my shaves continued and I made a conscious effort to try different techniques in the "problem areas" most folks probably have, that if a little more pressure in that area worked and I didn't cut myself, then that's what it took to get the job done in that area. You make a conscious decision to make that change there, but after a couple more shaves, you just forget about it and do it automatically and naturally. Shaving that part of your face is now "on autopilot," per se, and you can concentrate on how best to tackle another area where you might find too much stubble when you're done.
As a beginner, I think bosseb's advice in post #2 above is outstanding and is the best description I've come across for new DE shavers to understand what "zero pressure" and "let the weight of the razor do the work" really mean. I just kind of learned that over time, but wish I would have read and grasped that when I first started.
It seems like DE shaving is kind of like learning to ride a bike but is more difficult because the combinations of different faces and hardware applied are virtually limitless. Even though the technique is espoused, I really don't think I use the same amount of pressure on all areas of my face. I think these changes in pressure are very, very subtle, maybe almost unnoticeable through the handle of the razor, but it some areas a little more pressure seems to do a better job there. In other places, virtually no pressure does the trick.
I understand the maxim of "zero pressure" for beginners like me to unlearn old cartridge-shaving habits, but I think it confuses a lot of people and, as it did for me, resulted in some not-so-great shaves in the very beginning.
I learned that as my shaves continued and I made a conscious effort to try different techniques in the "problem areas" most folks probably have, that if a little more pressure in that area worked and I didn't cut myself, then that's what it took to get the job done in that area. You make a conscious decision to make that change there, but after a couple more shaves, you just forget about it and do it automatically and naturally. Shaving that part of your face is now "on autopilot," per se, and you can concentrate on how best to tackle another area where you might find too much stubble when you're done.
As a beginner, I think bosseb's advice in post #2 above is outstanding and is the best description I've come across for new DE shavers to understand what "zero pressure" and "let the weight of the razor do the work" really mean. I just kind of learned that over time, but wish I would have read and grasped that when I first started.
+1
For me, no pressure results in absolutely no cutting at all, whether WTG, XTG, ATG, Derby, Feather, hair shaper, shallow angle, proper angle, steep angle, good lather, awesome lather, no prep, great prep, whatever...I don't know if it's my tough beard or if I'm just better at following directions* than most people so I'm capable of truly producing no pressure. I can feel it skipping over the stubble like driving a car on a washboarded dirt road, and sometimes even the lather isn't removed. I have to give it enough pressure to get down to skin level, but little or no pressure into the skin itself.
*: That same direction-following also manifests in pipe smoking which has a mantra similar to "no pressure" about not packing the pipe too tightly or tamping too often, which I've found I follow too well also.
For me, no pressure results in absolutely no cutting at all, whether WTG, XTG, ATG, Derby, Feather, hair shaper, shallow angle, proper angle, steep angle, good lather, awesome lather, no prep, great prep, whatever...I don't know if it's my tough beard or if I'm just better at following directions* than most people so I'm capable of truly producing no pressure. I can feel it skipping over the stubble like driving a car on a washboarded dirt road, and sometimes even the lather isn't removed. I have to give it enough pressure to get down to skin level, but little or no pressure into the skin itself.
*: That same direction-following also manifests in pipe smoking which has a mantra similar to "no pressure" about not packing the pipe too tightly or tamping too often, which I've found I follow too well also.
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