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Face Mapping

I know that this subject has probably been beaten to death, but being home sick today and not shaving ( I know blasphemy:laugh:) I thought it would be a good idea to revisit. I had done a quick face map years ago, but soon like all good ideas I abandoned it for ease. Well, since my wife was working from home today and I had nothing to do but be sick and bored I asked for her assistance. After a rather long roll of the eyes and a colorful adjective as to my goofy idea, she agreed. Armed with a flashlight, a piece of paper, pen and magnifying glass, she began. It should be noted that she is an engineer, and as such it had to be perfectly done, hence the added tools, as opposed to what I would have done in three seconds.

Now I have a detailed topo map of my face on paper and decided to transfer it onto a photo, via photo shop and discovered that my facial hair growth is very similar to a wind pattern on a meteorological map.:blink:

It did give me some revelations as to why sometimes I would have some irritation on my shaves as my normal 3 pass routine of WTG/XTG/ATG and a cleanup would end in mixed results day to day. I discovered that my WTG pass and all subsequent passes were actually all wrong, causing the inconsistencies.

Now armed with the new geography it should result in better shaves, although the shaves I had been doing were always DFS and BBS regularly, but I would notice some irritation later on in the day.

I have included the picture as a reference for any new guys, or those like me, stuck in a habit, to re- visit your own routine to improve overall shaves

I apologize for the un-shaven hobo look, but I have the flu and really, appearance today was not a priority:lol:

Cheers to my fellow B&B Gentlemen & Ladies and NyQuil is the best:thumbup:

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That looks like a easy fix to better shaves. After some practice that is. Any suggestions. I have a tight spiraled cowlick on my neck. It looks like a tropical storm just before the upgrade to hurricane status and hits land. Lol. I may never get an irritation free shave on my neck.
 
I'm usually try and talk people out of face-mapping diagrams, because I think it adds too much complication and confusion to the shave.
While its a useful learning tool in barber school, learning to shave other people, it has little practicality for the man shaving himself at home.

What happens when you're trying to drive a car while simultaneously reading a paper map. CRASH!!!

Shaving is not like brain surgery, where everything needs to be planned out in excruciating detail and a minor slip means a fatal mistake.
Shaving should be an easy, fluid, natural operation. The more you have to concentrate, the more likely you are to screw it up.

Sure, knowing which way your whiskers grow is important, but you can learn that just by feeling around with your free hand to see what results you get after each stroke. I'm just opposed to drawing the map on paper.

With that being said, I think you're on to something here. Taking a picture of your beard and photo-shopping the arrows brings the time-honored barber's map into the digital age. KUDOS TO YOU, SIR!

While I'm still opposed to teaching newbies to draw out their beard on paper, I think what you have here is a valuable tool for the more experienced shaver, either to help diagnose a problem area or show off an advanced technique like J-Hooking, and its a great way to visually show things about one's beard that are hard to describe in words, and it will make a forum reader instantly understand what's going on instead of scratching their head and saying "Huh? What is he talking about?"
 
What jumps off the page (off your face?) to me is that you have a similar pattern near your Adam's apple as near mine. I have not done a beard mapping. Rather, I have done as dpm802 suggested and simply felt around through the lather with my fingers. Doing so, I just recently discovered that little eddy by my Adam's apple, and I'm now getting my first DFS+ shaves in that area.
 
I'm usually try and talk people out of face-mapping diagrams, because I think it adds too much complication and confusion to the shave.
While its a useful learning tool in barber school, learning to shave other people, it has little practicality for the man shaving himself at home.

What happens when you're trying to drive a car while simultaneously reading a paper map. CRASH!!!

Shaving is not like brain surgery, where everything needs to be planned out in excruciating detail and a minor slip means a fatal mistake.
Shaving should be an easy, fluid, natural operation. The more you have to concentrate, the more likely you are to screw it up.

Sure, knowing which way your whiskers grow is important, but you can learn that just by feeling around with your free hand to see what results you get after each stroke. I'm just opposed to drawing the map on paper.

With that being said, I think you're on to something here. Taking a picture of your beard and photo-shopping the arrows brings the time-honored barber's map into the digital age. KUDOS TO YOU, SIR!

While I'm still opposed to teaching newbies to draw out their beard on paper, I think what you have here is a valuable tool for the more experienced shaver, either to help diagnose a problem area or show off an advanced technique like J-Hooking, and its a great way to visually show things about one's beard that are hard to describe in words, and it will make a forum reader instantly understand what's going on instead of scratching their head and saying "Huh? What is he talking about?"

What jumps off the page (off your face?) to me is that you have a similar pattern near your Adam's apple as near mine. I have not done a beard mapping. Rather, I have done as dpm802 suggested and simply felt around through the lather with my fingers. Doing so, I just recently discovered that little eddy by my Adam's apple, and I'm now getting my first DFS+ shaves in that area.

Well, Being home sick with the flu, bored and on Nyquil probably casued me to do this when I may not have done other wise, but it did show me where I could probably be having some issues Ive been DE shaving for about 25 yrs, left for awhile and joined the Cartridge army, then back again for about 3 yrs then found B & B I had mapped my face by feel and adjisted my shaves accordingly, but now that aI have seen this from an impartial and third party, it was quite revealing

Oh the things we do for a better shave LOL - Thanks Gents
 
I have the same beard grain. I do one pass WTG and a 2nd mini-pass under my jowls XTG. I never shave ATG as they didn't in the old days and I as well don't want ingrown hairs.
 
As a relative newbie (1.5 months or so of concerted effort) and thus climbing the steep part of the learning curve, and as one generally inclined toward the knowledge-is-power concept, I think that mapping effort is fantastic! I attempted to map things out around week 3 as I began to understand how much I didn't know about the nuances of my own hair growth, to seemingly limited benefit. There's just enough goofiness in my pattern, with small areas of distinct difference very near each other, that it was tricky to get an accurate representation even with that dedicated stab at it.

What has been considerably more helpful (and honestly more fun since it's performed with razor in hand, lather on face) is in-shave experimentation. Despite my regular resolution to chase the goal of comfort/closeness balance, most days I can't resist going for a little more gusto than I had planned, and the aural/tactile feedback of actually cutting hair using a constantly-shifting angle (across the face, not of the blade) of attack, followed by examination-through-faceturbation throughout the day, clearly leads to a much better picture of things that registers more deeply than the chart did.

Interestingly I notice there are elements of the results that I'm resistant to -- I want there to be some symmetry in my shave for example (for some strange reason), but in fact the_nooch Left and the_nooch Right are two different worlds. In the end I feel I'm developing a little face-dance of unique choreography, and learning the steps through trial and error is oddly satisfying every day I get one new bit right.

And just in case it's helpful to anyone, yesterday I made strides with the whirling landscape of my more-sensitive-than-elsewhere-neck (like most I presume?) by limiting any given swipe to the most excruciatingly short (and pressure-free of course) strokes. Definitely encourages me to shift directions more frequently and find small surprises. Together with some J-hooking as a strategy for finding the precise grain direction by sneaking up on it obliquely, the resolution of my (mental) Map becomes greater by the day.

How I've gone on... Thanks skypsyd for the sharing your project! I hope in 25 years I too am still motivated to seek greater understanding!
 

mswofford

Rest in Peace
Sure, knowing which way your whiskers grow is important, but you can learn that just by feeling around with your free hand to see what results you get after each stroke. I'm just opposed to drawing the map on paper.

With that being said, I think you're on to something here. Taking a picture of your beard and photo-shopping the arrows brings the time-honored barber's map into the digital age. KUDOS TO YOU, SIR!
I agree with kudos; Very interesting approach and well done! That said, here's a quick way that I used:
1. Lather up.
2. Just before your shave stroke, run your finger and find the ATG
3. Shave accordingly in direction you choose for that pass
Soon you will KNOW your "beard map"!
 
Like you my beard goes in numerous directions, particularly on my neck area. In addition, I have a swirling pattern on various parts of my neck so shaving WTG is next to impossible. What I generally do is find the pattern that is most prevalent on my neck and make that my WTG pass. Originally, I would change directions on various parts of my neck but that became tedious. I have found that by keeping a light touch I can get the job done with no irritation and use j hooking/blade buffing on touch ups to get rid of the stubble that I miss.
 
Well. 1st shave using the new map and other than changing to a 4 pass shave + clean up, no irritation at time of shave or 6 hours into it BBS, but that was after 3 days growth, so we will see how tomorrow goes. just adjusted the angel a bit, and as Jim said just took the most prevalent and went with that. switched up some of the passes and it worked out. I know that rubbing your hand is a very easy way, but with my "Polar Vortex" that BSA pointed out:w00t: and with lather it is not quite as precise, so this worked for me. thanks for all the comments folks and if it assists one person other than myself then it is a win win. Will update after tomorrows shave.

Cheers
 
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