How do you know if your face is too sensitive for an against the growth pass versus your technique/razor/blade is bad for your face?

[RayClem]

I have a coarse beard and sensitive skin. Unfortunately, I also have a fast-growing beard so that I have to shave every day or two. I never go more than 48 hours between shaves as I find that waiting longer makes shaving more difficult. Fortunately, I do not have an issue with ingrown hairs, so I usually do a four-pass shave: WTG, XTG, ATG and a clean-up pass. You might find that increasing the frequency of your shaves might make shaving easier. It is worth a try. If you shave every day, a two-pass shave might be just fine.

Since you have an issue with ingrown hairs, I suggest your passes with WTG and XTG rather than WTG and ATG. Also make sure you "map your beard" so you know exactly which way the hairs are growing. You may find that hairs grow in different directions on different parts of your face and neck. For example, on my cheeks, the hair grows downward, but when I hit my jawline, the hair grows sideways from chin to ear, so I have to change shaving direction when I reach my jaw.


Although I like the sharpness of Feather blades on the first couple of shaves, my coarse beard destroys the Feather edge. I cannot even make it through the third shave using Feather blades. However, if you are only doing a two pass shave, they may last a while longer. However, if you only shave 2-3 times a week, the first pass of the shave is going to be really hard on the blade. Other blades that are very sharp that you might want to try are: BIC Chrome Platinum, PermaSharp Super, Nacet, 7 O'Clock Super Platinum Black, and Personna Platinum (formerly from Israel, now also from Germany). I also love the Dorco Prime Platinum STP301 blades from Vietnam. Be sure you get the blades listed as "Prime Platinum" not the ST300 or ST301 blades.

Some people have recommended Astra SP blades. While they work quite well with those who do not have coarse beards, I find that they are not sharp enough for my coarse beard. If you have a coarse beard, they might not be sharp enough for you. They are pretty cheap, so you are not risking much if they do not work for you.

Although those with less coarse beards may be able to shave before showering, if you have a coarse beard, showering first is probably helping to hydrate and soften your beard. Still, you might want to try a shave or two before showering just to find out.

You might want to check out some other soaps. MWF is a good soap, but it takes some time and effort to lather, as you have learned. Once lathered, it does an excellent job. Stirling is a very good soap, but there are better soaps available for those with sensitive skin. Since it sounds like you tend to use a lot of short, buffing strokes as part of your shaving technique, you need to find a soap with excellent residual slickness and excellent cushion. Just because a soap has great primary slickness, does not mean that the slickness will be maintained after you scrape off the initial lather. Some soaps that I highly recommend for sensitive skin (in alphabetical order) are:
Ariana & Evans Kaisen base
Declaration Grooming Milksteak base
Gentleman's Nod Cardinal base
Grooming Dept both Kairos and Nai bases
Highland Springs Soap Co. tallow base
Murphy and McNeil Kodiak base
Oaken Lab V3 base
Wholly Kaw Siero base
Zingari Man Sego base

Any of these soaps will be a lot easier to lather than MWF and will produce a more protective lather than Stirling. They are lots of other good soaps available, but these are the best I have used. They might not be as economical as Stirling, but for those who have problems with irritation, it is worth checking out these elite level soaps.

 

[PintoPlain]

To get my angle set, I start with the top cap perpendicular to my skin and I gently angle the blade towards my face until I feel it touch the hair. That's the angle I try to maintain.

It's not easy when I get to the jaw area. I have a skinny face so my skin goes up and a little inward as I round my jaw before it flattens out and that's area for me to keep my angle consistent.

As has been mentioned, it sounds like your angle is off where you're having trouble.

You might want to try skin stretching as used by straight shavers. This has the effect of moving the natural curve of say your jaw to a flat area like your cheek or neck. Combined with short strokes, this might help in keeping an angle that works for you.

Good luck.

 

[gwsmallwood]

Controlled experimentation. Try one change at a time and stick with it long enough to decide how that change affected things (3 - 5 shaves is usually enough).

Some of us just can't comfortably shave ATG. I don't bother to try any longer.

 

[samhain666]

I didn't read any responses, so maybe my response will be redundant
I believe you should ditch the mild plates and go for R4 at least, I tried R3 at first and got more iritation that from R4. Also get rid of Feather and get yourself a sampler pack. There is a vendor on ebay that has a lot of different blades and you can build your own sampler

And yeah it could be that you have skin that is just not compatible with ATG. I can't go ATG on my neck since my skin there is senstive as heck and also growth goes from throat to ear. Almost impossible to cut it like that xD

 

[JCarr]

...Much more often than not, things boil down to 1) too much pressure and 2) going over them same spot over and over again, almost subconsciously. This is especially true if you practice those multiple short strokes. It feels natural, but this is the worst habit and IMHO #1 cause of irritation, as you scrap the skin. ...

This is so true. I learned the hard way. You feel around for stubble and you find spots that aren't perfectly smooth and you just keep at it until...it's too late. What you end up with is red/raw spots right where your difficult cleanup areas are. Above all, with multiple passes, you have to let the razor do the work...applied pressure can be devastating. You also have to be careful about the number of passes you make. It can't be done in a limitless fashion, going over it again and again and again until you're satisfied with the feel. You have to learn what the limit is for you...will be different for everyone. I made this mistake once with a new razor. Result was BBS, but with severe red, rawness on my neck that lasted a week. It looked bad. I really had to take it easy on those areas and nurse them back to health.

 

[stoof2010]

Couple ideas for you to try.
If the lather looks good it doesn't always mean it's as slick or as protective as it looks.
Do some hand lathers so you can actually feel the lather. Keep adding water like you would and see where the slickness and thickness falls off but maybe still looks good.
When I started I would hand lather every time then will on face and then use brush on face.
Many times before that the lather was looking good but still didn't work well and a guy told me to do the hand lather thing.

Also, if you're new, stay away from ATG passes and don't chase BBS. If you had irritation yesterday and shave again today, 90% of the time you'll have irritation again even if your technique was good.
What I did was only shave every other day if I got irritation. That way I started with healed face.
If you can stand it just do WTG one pass every day for a couple days and work on technique. If your technique isn't the best you can still get through a 1 pass without irritation. That way the next day you aren't just re-hurting your face over and over.

Every time the razor touches your face you should have lather there. What I mean is if you made it through your whole cheek to your mouth if you started by your ear then try and go back over where you started by your ear without lather, you can get irritation. That's also where the hand lather helps because you can just swipe more from your hand wherever you want to go back over.

Blades make a big difference too and no 2 people have the same exact tastes of all blades

If you want to try some different blades you can PM me your address and I'll tape a bunch to paper and mail them to you free of charge (as long as you're in the US) and only costs me a stamp or 2.
These are what I have plus new Derby's, derby premium, derby USTA, gillette 7oclock yellows sharpedge and green super stainless.
If you're interested and are living in the US shoot me a message and I can get them sent to you.
Also, after seeing you're using feathers I definitely recommend other blades. They are wicked sharp and not forgiving.