"Is that your third attempt at shaving?"

[grouse79]

I was away this weekend with my brother and a few of his friends on his Stag Weekend (some time with the guys just before marriage). Took my Tech, a pack of Feathers, Ingrams cream and my boar brush along figuring I really needed to shave at least once. Did so in the early evening before we headed out, using the sink that was in the hostel room we were sharing. One of the guys came out with the remark in the title line when I was on my third pass. I said something jocular about having extra heavy stubble.

It did make me wonder why most guys now don't bother re-lathering even with stuff from a can. Did this technique stop when DEs fell out of fashion or was it the introduction of canned foam that did it?

At least that was the only possibly negative comment I got. My brother has pretty much accepted this strange "shaving hobby" of mine.

Incidentally, none of the other 6 guys as far as I could tell put a blade to their face once the whole weekend.

 

[jsrdrnr]

I've always relathered before I stared DE! And that is on legs.

 

[Tzar]

I can understand your friend's remark. I had never relathered when using canned goo and multi-blade cartridge monsters. Just one pass all the time. I guess that's how most men do it. No wonder my girlfriend always felt some stubble was left behind, but since I knew nothing better, I had no idea I could be shaved much better than this.

People who want their shave to be done as fast as possible will never get into DE or straight razor wet shaving. Although it can be done reasonably fast when used to it, you don't do traditional wet shaving to save time.

Incidentally, none of the other 6 guys as far as I could tell put a blade to their face once the whole weekend.

Not surprising. Most of my friends are the same. Modern shaving is a curse to most men (like it was to me), so any opportunity or excuse is good to skip a shave.

 

[bandit82ta]

A curse changed to an enjoyable start or end to my day. I only used to do a single pass with touch ups with sensor/mach3/fusion till I turned to DE and occasional sensor use with multi passes.

Bonus the wife really likes the smoothness and dislikes facial hair.

 

[WhosYerBob]

I never used to do multiple pass shaves; didn't even know what they referred to when I first heard the term. Now I do three on most of my face and many more on my neck.

 

[delmonte]

I always used to relather and do a total of 2 passes plus touch ups when I used cartridges. One pass with a cartridge (or anything) is nowhere near enough, so I just did another ATG pass instinctively.

 

[wedwards]

I never used to think about re-lathering with canned foam either - usually 1 pass was enough to destroy my face....wasnt going back for another crack.

Cant deal with not shaving the whole weekend though - I get to about 1.5 days of stubble and start getting itchy and cranky and my wife now tells me to go shave.

Just cant stand the feeling of not having a nice smooth face anymore. I used to be the complete opposite until I started shaving properly.

 

[Cheech]

I didn't shave until boot camp. And you better believe it was at least two passes. I always relathered before each pass. Just seemed like common sense.

 

[Johnnie Walker]

I never used to think about re-lathering with canned foam either - usually 1 pass was enough to destroy my face....wasnt going back for another crack.

I hear yah!!!

 

[valmara1971]

I never used to think about re-lathering with canned foam either - usually 1 pass was enough to destroy my face....wasnt going back for another crack.

Cant deal with not shaving the whole weekend though - I get to about 1.5 days of stubble and start getting itchy and cranky and my wife now tells me to go shave.

Just cant stand the feeling of not having a nice smooth face anymore. I used to be the complete opposite until I started shaving properly.

+1 on that brother I have some pics of when I grew a gotee boy I looked so much older with it on

 

[Sodapopjones]

I never used to do more than one pass till I met the DE honestly.

When people for whatever reason want to watch me shave with a DE as if its some magic wand of sorts, they always freak on me when I re-lather and do another pass.

 

[BruceK]

The only way I could ever get a smooth shave with my Mach 3 was relathering for two or three passes and shaving against the grain. I used to shave in the shower, razor in one hand and shave gel (or foam, if I didn't read the label carefully and bought it by mistake) in the other.

 

[LittleJon]

I never did more than 1 pass also. I did not look forward to shaving before I found this site. I always got irritation, skin felt horrible...etc.
I learned alot about technique here. I suppose if I went back to cartridges and goo I would get a BBS shave but that's not happening soon.

 

[ShaveAddict]

Back to cartridge days i never did more than 1 pass.
The irritation i had whit the first one always told me to stop there.
Now whit a DE i make 2 pass plus some touch-ups.

 

[DJSneak]

I never used to re-lather with my cartridge. Now that I use a DE, it's absolutely necessary. The blade just doesn't do anything without lather on my face.

 

[jpkunst]

I did two passes when I used a Mach 3, but I never thought of of relathering for the second pass. I figured that the ensuing razorburn was normal.

B&B gave me the idea of relathering before each pass.

 

[ia_james]

I only made a second pass if absolutely dead serious about a close shave (inspection, funeral, wedding).

 

[brg]

I used to do a kind of "3 in 1" pass (down/up/down) without re-lathering . I just didn't know better...

Thinking about it, re-lathering using gel or foam is kind of counter-intuitive for most people. You will have to get your hands wet and "dirty" again, so what's the point?

That, gentlemen, is what the shaving brush is for!

 

[Ookla The Mok]

Re-lathering!?! When I used an sensor and M3 I never lathered in the first place. Water and go 1 pass.

 

[gurana]

Until last christmas ('08) I was using either an m3 disposable, or an electric I had. When my wife got me a kit that included a brush along with some soap (razor was for m3 carts.) I had to look up how to use the things This was my first introduction to wet shaving... though I was still using a cart, I figured that at least some of the techniques might work... such as using multiple passes. The thought never really occured to me. Actually it had, but it seemed wrong. I mean, if you had to re-lather and go over where you had already shaved, you were doing something wrong, obviously. This was only confirmed by my dad who said to NEVER shave against the grain, and also by shaving commercials where one quick swipe wtg yields BBS results. So from that point on I started doing two pass shaving (wtg>atg), until I got my first DE, and learned about xtg, 3-4 pass shaves, and touching up trouble spots.

No one besides my wife has witnessed my shaving ritual... So I'm not sure how any of my friends might react to a multi-pass shave. For all I know, they all do it, and I'm the one that's been in the dark all these years. The closest thing I've gotten in terms of comments is a friend of mine that had commented on a picture I had posted to flickr! He warned me of the evils of shaving against the grain, and I said, "well, it's really not a bad thing, as long as you get a good lather and don't try it on your first pass." He did seem a little weirded out by the implication of the term "first pass", but didn't follow up, so neither did I.