Neck irritation and rediscovering shave angle

[Donm668]

I'm new to wet shaving (5mo.) and will never go back to a cartridge. Still pretty new at this, but generally do really well with my shaves.
*But* I've always had an issue with the neck area right below the jaw line. That 1" little strip, always irritation. Tried everything I could from preshave, aftershaves, different blades and soaps, mapped hair growth, no against the grain etc. A good friend gave me two razors he hasn't used in 20yrs (flair tip, and a G2000) and thought ah-ha must be the razor. Nope, same issue.

So after reading a bit I revisited the angle of my blade. Held the razor 90deg to my face and slowly added angle while letting the razor slide until it started to cut. So much shallower than I have been using! Seems I may have been "digging in a bit" at too much an angle causing irritation. Results now with proper angle... Three shaves and no neck irritation what so ever!

It it may not help everyone but adjusting my blade angle has done wonders for my face!

don

 

[SpaceCadet1]

Glad to hear it!

Any luck with bullfrogging?

Josh

 

[ncfyrfyter]

Congrats on solving the issue! Sometimes it's just a matter of going back to the basics!

 

[Highspeedlane]

Good news and thank you for sharing!

 

[justino_14]

I'm new to wet shaving (5mo.) and will never go back to a cartridge. Still pretty new at this, but generally do really well with my shaves.
*But* I've always had an issue with the neck area right below the jaw line. That 1" little strip, always irritation. Tried everything I could from preshave, aftershaves, different blades and soaps, mapped hair growth, no against the grain etc. A good friend gave me two razors he hasn't used in 20yrs (flair tip, and a G2000) and thought ah-ha must be the razor. Nope, same issue.

So after reading a bit I revisited the angle of my blade. Held the razor 90deg to my face and slowly added angle while letting the razor slide until it started to cut. So much shallower than I have been using! Seems I may have been "digging in a bit" at too much an angle causing irritation. Results now with proper angle... Three shaves and no neck irritation what so ever!

It it may not help everyone but adjusting my blade angle has done wonders for my face!

don

I fixed pretty much the same problem recently, my angle wasn't correct which was causing a lot of tugging. When you say starting from 90deg you mean the razor cap touching your face right? I get mixed up between shallow and steep.

 

[Donm668]

Hey Josh, bullfrogging really helps me. Stretching really only made it worse.

Yes Justino, I started with the cap on my face and slowly rotated the handle down until the blade just starts to cut the hair.

Don

 

[FireDragon76]

Angle is the hard part. Time is not a guarantee you'll really "get" DE shaving. Aside from the Gillette Tech and the Krona, I find most DE's difficult to shave with because the angle can be so tricky- especially the twist-to-open models. The razor will let you scrape your face something fierce if you let it, unless the razor is very mild.

 

[YellowFever77]

Any luck with bullfrogging?

Bullfrogging changed everything about my jawline shave! No longer a source of irritation at all. Ever.

 

[imcndn]

bullfrogging?

 

[Fiend606]

bullfrogging?

Lowering your chin and pulling back some. It pushes out the sides of your neck changing the angles.

 

[peterwinkle]

I had a lot of neck irritation starting out as well. As I've gotten better I've noticed that I tend to push a little harder through the neck area, which is what caused the irritation. I now go a little slow around the neck and watch my pressure, It's pretty much stopped all neck irritation for me. I have no idea if you do this as well, but something to pay attention to along with your blade angle.

 

[BSAGuy]

Sounds like you experimented and solved your own problem. Good work.

 

[jcs266]

Great to hear!

 

[DVPremo]

I love a happy ending!

 

[Donm668]

Thanks guys! Every little bit of improvement makes the shave just that much better.

(So am I the only one that gets the Zen like calm when you shave?)

 

[imcndn]

Lowering your chin and pulling back some. It pushes out the sides of your neck changing the angles.

Thank you! I've seen PaulHFilms on youtube do that, but I didn't know what it was called. Makes sence now though!

imcndn

 

[dionesius3]

What your doing is using the "shallow" angle. and it is the way to cure ingrown, and irritation. Also some razor designs are better suited to the shallow angle. Most three piece razors do very well since the top cap is so thin on most. Some TTO razors are thin enough to do well with the shallow angle as well. Nice that you finally found what works for you!

 

[garak7]

So glad you brought this up. Whenever I get razor burn, I grab a post-it note with "ANGLE and PRESSURE" written on it, and stick it on the mirror. So easy to forget those basics and slip back into my old bad habits. Thanks and glad to hear that you've had your own breakthrough. DE shaving can be a real challenge at times.

 

[portamenti]

This tip has helped me improve as well. I had a completely irritation free shave by focusing on this aspect this morning.

 

[zip_cypher]

This thread came along just at the right time for me. Yesterday I had to take a day off to let irritation heal. First shave on a new Personna lab blue. Tore my face up, esp. the neck. Week before, got best shaves yet with an Astra SP blade. I'm just starting my fourth week DE shaving. Dorco blade first week then Personna lab blue second. Couldn't judge results due to still learning technique. But after things clicked with the Astra blade week 3, I wanted to revisit the Personna. Bad results had me blaming the blade.

Then I read this thread. So today I focused on angle and got as good a shave as I did with the Astra SP. It does come back to checking technique before blaming hardware. Thanks, Gentlemen.