my secret to shaving off a really tough beard on a daily basis

[Xonic]

I loved this post and I'm so glad you found your own winning combination.

I guess we must be brothers from a different mother because I am cursed with the same beard. It literally shreds new bed sheets and pillow cases within 2-3 weeks unless they are percale weave cotton, or 100% linen. I also can't wear wool sweaters which are half-turtle or full turtle neck because they are destroyed with one wearing.

Depending on the brand of blade, I may have to switch to a fresh blade half way through shaving with a DE. With a shavette, I need to change blades up to four times during a single shave. Feather and Astra SP will last me one entire shave but, even with those, on the last few strokes the blade edges are compromised.

My beard map is asymmetrical and complex. On the right side, the entire jaw line grows diagonally upward from bottom of ear lobe to nose, the cheek hair above the diagonal growth grows from top to bottom, and the neck under it grows up from throat to chin. On the left side, the jaw line grows sideways from ear to mouth, with the cheek hair above the diagonal growth itself growing diagonally downward from eye to ear lobe, and the neck hair growing sideways from throat to ear. In the deep groove between my bottom lip and chin, there is no sebum - only tightly packed, exposed hair roots. It is a very dangerous and difficult area to shave.

As you can imagine, any long stroke that I make (for example from top of ear down to bottom of throat) will traverse three different growth directions. For this reason, I need to make lots of short strokes and shave in what appears to be a very disorganised manner. Even with the short strokes, on a one-day growth, my R41 open comb clogs with every few strokes and I need to keep burning hot water running constantly to melt the stuff out between every pass. Rocca is a bit easier in this regard

I also have enough money that I can buy and try whatever I want without worry, but I don't like to accumulate extra of anything due to space constraints (buy a bigger house, get more stuff, repeat). I currently have five Stirling soaps and I think they are pretty OK, but when I bought a tub of A&E Pamplemousse with K2E formula I immediately noticed that it is next-level face-friendly compared to Stirling. There was simply no question. Today I ordered a Merkur Futur to see how that will fare against my sandpaper face. Should be here tomorrow, so let's see.

Wow, dude that beard sounds incredible. My beard doesn't actually break things other than my wife's face if I've not shaved in a couple of days. I mostly shave every other day actually now but will and can do it every day if I need to with the method from my original post. Have you tried the Konsul? I really really would give it a go, having tried what I think are if not all then 99% of the slants out there. The Konsul is just in a league of its own. I am not a Rex salesman I promise but that, plus Trumpers Skin food, bye bye beard. In a way it's a bit sad now, I feel like there's nothing else for me to try. For my wife though she is very relieved, no grumpy Ed covered in blood and no more enormous packages of shaving soaps, creams, brushes, mugs and other gubbins clogging up our house

 

[Ron R]

Another way to soften a tough beard is a soap that is slightly alkaline like Tabac. Tabac tallow soap softens my beard and the results are great, one of the best soaps for shaving and has been around for some time and the lather qualities are exceptional.
The scent for some reason bothers some folks but to me it is a flowery clean scent and just works. Most shave soaps are slightly alkaline on the PH scale but Tabac might just be slightly more from articles I have read. Triple milled also and it lasts for some time and I recommend it if other soaps are not doing the job of softening the whiskers for easy slicing by your razor blade!

Have some great shaves!

 

[Xonic]

Yeah I've tried tabak and various other soaps, honestly for me I've noticed very little to mno difference in softening the beard, it's just that the lather seems to prevent me getting right up close to the skin and shaving. Eucris shaving cream is probably the best shave I've managed to get if I use a product other than the skin food. Tabak weirdly enough burned my face if I wasn't careful.

 

[Mitzie]

Exfoliate with a hot flannel/wash cloth, facial scrub, hot flannel again, then rub beard shampoo into the stubble. Hot flannel again. Use a pre have oil then 'super lather' (rub in shaving cream with shaving soap mixed on top). Iif this doesn't soften tough stubble nothing else will !

 

[podz]

Another way to soften a tough beard is a soap that is slightly alkaline like Tabac. Tabac tallow soap softens my beard and the results are great, one of the best soaps for shaving and has been around for some time and the lather qualities are exceptional.
The scent for some reason bothers some folks but to me it is a flowery clean scent and just works. Most shave soaps are slightly alkaline on the PH scale but Tabac might just be slightly more from articles I have read. Triple milled also and it lasts for some time and I recommend it if other soaps are not doing the job of softening the whiskers for easy slicing by your razor blade!

Tabac doesn't make tallow soap anymore.

 

[podz]

Wow, dude that beard sounds incredible. My beard doesn't actually break things other than my wife's face if I've not shaved in a couple of days. I mostly shave every other day actually now but will and can do it every day if I need to with the method from my original post. Have you tried the Konsul? I really really would give it a go, having tried what I think are if not all then 99% of the slants out there. The Konsul is just in a league of its own. I am not a Rex salesman I promise but that, plus Trumpers Skin food, bye bye beard. In a way it's a bit sad now, I feel like there's nothing else for me to try. For my wife though she is very relieved, no grumpy Ed covered in blood and no more enormous packages of shaving soaps, creams, brushes, mugs and other gubbins clogging up our house

It's a beard that resembles a wire brush and I hate it. I would laser the whole damn thing off permanently if it were possible, but I have light hair.

I've been doing pretty good recently with the Merkur Futur using setting 3 for the first pass WTG, removing the blade and flipping it over, then setting 1 for the second pass WTG with a touch of XTG on my lower cheeks. One thing I have proven repeatedly is that my face can not tolerate ATG no matter what combination of voodoo I do, so it's 2-pass for me forever.

For pre-shave, recently I've been testing PAA The Cube (menthol) and it has been nice.

 

[Ron R]

Tabac doesn't make tallow soap anymore.

I have not used the new formulation Tabac soap but it will not be a whole lot different I'm thinking. Might be worth a try because it is not a expensive soap IMO.

 

[podz]

I have not used the new formulation Tabac soap but it will not be a whole lot different I'm thinking. Might be worth a try because it is not a expensive soap IMO.

It will be the difference between a tallow soap and a non-tallow soap. I don't use non-tallow soaps, so I may never know how a shave with Tabac tallow feels unless some kind soul here hooks me up with a sample some day.