I have an issue.

[Delawareguy]

Greeting Gents,

I just finished with Straight Razor May during which the participants only used straights for the entire month. I was a great experience and by the end I was getting decent shaves. However I have an issue that my prevent me from continuing with straights if I can't fix it. I get terrible results when I try to shave my chin and mustache area. I have not been able to get these areas smooth and when I try I usually end up cutting myself. What can I do to improve?
Thanks.

 

[hillbilly]

Watch some youtube vids and pick up some pointers. Also details of your razor and setup will help. Does your razor shave these areas smoothly with no tugging? Or just not getting as close as you like?

 

[Slash McCoy]

STRETCH the skin and watch your angle. Use a tighter angle when shaving highly contoured areas like the chin. lead with the heel a little to add a small slicing component to the razor stroke. Put the razor in motion just before t touches the face. Mostly it willl be the stretching that will help, I am guessing.

 

[Slash McCoy]

oh and when doing te moustache area pull the lip down over the teeth using the facial muscles while you manually pull the nose up or to the side. After two WTG passes, flatten rhe angle way down tight against the face for the ATG if you are rocking that.

 

[Delawareguy]

Watch some youtube vids and pick up some pointers. Also details of your razor and setup will help. Does your razor shave these areas smoothly with no tugging? Or just not getting as close as you like?

I have a Whipped Dog razor and Poor Man's strop. It does tug when doing the mustache. I don't get the tugging when shaving other parts of my face. It's also not getting as close as I want. It's usually pretty rough.

 

[Delawareguy]

STRETCH the skin and watch your angle. Use a tighter angle when shaving highly contoured areas like the chin. lead with the heel a little to add a small slicing component to the razor stroke. Put the razor in motion just before t touches the face. Mostly it willl be the stretching that will help, I am guessing.

Stretching the skin in those areas is something I'm having a hard time figuring out. Especially the area just below my lower lip. I do go ATG on my chin but it feels like the blade is going over the hair without removing it.

 

[global_dev]

Imho, its no longer sharp enough.

 

[mwhitcraft]

Imho, its no longer sharp enough.

+1

 

[Attila]

Imho, its no longer sharp enough.

+2 and watch your angle. Spine should be 10 to 15 degrees or less, in my oppinion.

 

[BillC]

I'm only three weeks into straight shaving so I'm speaking from where you are - not the perspective of years of this. My first few shaves the mustache area and chin were the big problems. I shaved them with an injector at first, took several days to get comfortable shaving them with a straight.

For the mustache area, the big issue for me was just getting some finesse in handling the blade - particularly being comfortable setting it down at a steeper angle and immediately getting it moving and transitioning to a better angle as soon as there was room to do so.My whiskers grow right up to the bottom of my nostrils so I've got to work the blade very close there. For the rest, the skin there stretches easily from just facial contortions and a smooth shave comes pretty easy for me.

With the chin, I have a prominent chin and the skin there is pretty fleshy. The only two nicks I've had so far have been there. Two things made a big difference for me. First, aggressively stretching the skin by putting the web between my thumb and index finger on my throat and pulling down hard. This really helps mitigate the 'soft, fleshy' skin that moves under the blade otherwise. The other thing was using the middle of the blade. I had been trying to come into the crease of my chin with the toe of the blade. When the blade came to where my chin juts out the point would dig in and cut me. Using the middle of the blade and a very light stroke the blade can 'ride' through that little valley without catching when it starts back up.

Good luck with your shaves.

 

[AjaxLepinski]

+1 to Slash's suggestion for using the heal of the razor on the tough spots. I have a tendency to use the toe and middle of the razor only.

Also, I believe it was Noah Pictures who suggested, after a WTG pass on the upper lip, "trim the tips" using an ATG pass.
A WTG Pass leaves diagonally sliced tips on each whisker. Trimming the tips involves a light stroke with a closer angle - it removes the diagonally sliced tip left behind by the WTG pass.
It may not be the end of your issues but, I find that this technique of tip trimming gives a closer shave, on the upper lip, with less chance of nicks.

 

[BillC]

I figured something else out when shaving my chin. doing a N-S stroke under my lower lip I kept having problems nicking my chin as it transitions to where the chin protrudes. Using the heel/middle of the blade helped some as the toe was digging in. But I also realized I was doing the exact wrong thing with the blade angle. When I'm worried about cutting myself I instinctively move the spine closer to the skin to reduce the angle. In this case, that's just driving the edge into my chin. Instead, I've been increasing the angle. It means I have to use a light touch and the cutting is less efficient but I don't slice into my chin anymore.

 

[Lmarkow]

Chin and upper lip were the last areas for me to get comfortable shaving. It took more than one month for me, and I'm still capable of sending myself to the styptic in these areas ~5 months in (. . . I'm a slow, scarred learner).