Long post, just go to the bottom for what I need help with. For a little background - I started wet-shaving around 2 months ago for the sole purpose of achieving BBS shaves. I just had my first daughter and I've really been enjoying snuggling her, her favorite spot in the whole world is either laying on my chest or snuggled up in my neck region - she's actually in the former while I'm writing this! I want to get a BBS every time since I started wet-shaving so she could hang out in her spot without running her hand over my face or rubbing her face against my neck and inevitably start crying when she feels the sharp stubble (to be fair, if someone touched my BBS face with coarse tiny needles I'd be crying too).
Before this, I used traditional barbers trimmers and would go WTG once and ATG once to get basically as smooth as a shave as you can get with a traditional cartridge with 0 irritation. I don't really have super sensitive skin, but I do have very coarse and thick beard hair. It doesn't grow very fast, but in terms of coarseness, it can't get much higher. I do want to mention before I go into detail about the issues I'm having; even though wet-shaving hurts my skin way more, is more expensive than how I used to shave, takes more time, and I'm not getting the results that I originally started the hobby - I think this will be how I shave for the long haul! It's absolutely the most relaxing and enjoyable part of my day in terms of me-time.
So as for my shave, I got a starter set from Maggard with their V3M head and using a tallow based soap. I got 25 blade samples and I'm working my way through them one new blade at a time (I don't use 2 new blades from the same pack, saving samples for any future new razors). Here is the list of the blades I have used:
Anything with a closeness rating of 8, I got a BBS on cheeks. 9: got BBS on Cheeks and chin, haven't gotten it yet but 10 is BBS on Cheeks, chin, and neck.
My pre-shave: I always take a shower and I've tried 4 types of preshaves; Proraso pre-shave, Trumper skin food, my wife's leave-in conditioner, and baby oil. Surprisingly, the conditioner and baby oil perform the best! They don't really help me a ton though, I'll explain why in the shaving technique portion.
My lathering technique: I face lather. I load as much as I possibly can, add water, and check lather with brush by lightly slapping my face until peaks begin to form. At that point, I slow down and add 2 or 3 drops at a time until I get a very shiny look while maintaining the peaks. Once I have both of those, I've started to run my finger with medium pressure over where my sideburn ends to check slickness. I don't have anything to compare my lather to, but it feels very slick! almost like rubbing motor oil between your fingers.
My shave technique: First pass WTG, I've found that varying the V3M angle through the shave lets you adjust how close the blade gets to the skin. Because the razor is so mild, I basically go with the angle of blade contacting skin as perpendicular to your face as you can get for the first 2 passes (3 if I go 2 XTG). I get absolutely no irritation, but it's not very efficient. 2nd pass I go XTG, at first I did 90 degrees, but now I'm doing closer to 120 (if 180 is ATG). Again absolutely no irritation and it's closer to a smooth shave. After my second pass, I'm past the smoothness of any shave I've gotten before wet-shaving, but it's definitely not BBS! The first 3 or 4 days I did another XTG for 3rd pass, it helped remove some, but didn't improve overall smoothness much. Finally, I go ATG and start my postshave - detail on ATG at end of post.
My post-shave routine: I use an alum block all over my face and then a styptic pen to seal any weepers the alum didn't get (this is what I'm basing the comfort number in the table on) then apply Vikings sandalwood balm liberally.
When I go ATG, no matter how slick my lather is, no matter how sharp the blade is, I will get issues with skipping. I've tried adjusting the angle from more aggressive to tilting from the cap down until I make blade contact instead of the bar so the blade is cutting more up and down, and that helps the skipping, but increases tug and pull a lot. I've tried adding skin pulling to reduce razor tugging, and it helps marginally. Inevitably to help get through the hair, I'll start applying a bit more pressure and I think this is what creates irritation and nicks for me so I'm making a conscious effort to stop doing that. But then I end up with a very patchy end product due to the skipping. I have no clue what part of my routine or setup I need to improve upon to fix this, but it has been the case for literally every blade I've tried. I haven't even attempted to go ATG on my neck because of this. I do manage to achieve BBS in some cases at the end of the day (look above for 8s and 9s) but I'd like to fix this skipping/tugging and hope this helps improve both comfort and smoothness. Any suggestions would be really helpful!!!
Before this, I used traditional barbers trimmers and would go WTG once and ATG once to get basically as smooth as a shave as you can get with a traditional cartridge with 0 irritation. I don't really have super sensitive skin, but I do have very coarse and thick beard hair. It doesn't grow very fast, but in terms of coarseness, it can't get much higher. I do want to mention before I go into detail about the issues I'm having; even though wet-shaving hurts my skin way more, is more expensive than how I used to shave, takes more time, and I'm not getting the results that I originally started the hobby - I think this will be how I shave for the long haul! It's absolutely the most relaxing and enjoyable part of my day in terms of me-time.
So as for my shave, I got a starter set from Maggard with their V3M head and using a tallow based soap. I got 25 blade samples and I'm working my way through them one new blade at a time (I don't use 2 new blades from the same pack, saving samples for any future new razors). Here is the list of the blades I have used:
| Blade | Razor | Closeness | Comfort |
| Gillette 7 O'Clock Super Stainless | V3M_MR11 | 4 | 4 |
| Derby Extra Super Stainless | V3M_MR11 | 6 | 2 |
| Astra Superior Platinum | V3M_MR11 | 7 | 6 |
| Shark Super Stainless | V3M_MR11 | 6 | 7 |
| Astra Superior Platinum | V3M_MR11 | 9 | 4 |
| Voskod | V3M_MR11 | 8 | 4 |
| Rapira Super Stainless | V3M_MR11 | 8 | 8 |
| feather | V3M_MR11 | 7 | 1 |
Anything with a closeness rating of 8, I got a BBS on cheeks. 9: got BBS on Cheeks and chin, haven't gotten it yet but 10 is BBS on Cheeks, chin, and neck.
My pre-shave: I always take a shower and I've tried 4 types of preshaves; Proraso pre-shave, Trumper skin food, my wife's leave-in conditioner, and baby oil. Surprisingly, the conditioner and baby oil perform the best! They don't really help me a ton though, I'll explain why in the shaving technique portion.
My lathering technique: I face lather. I load as much as I possibly can, add water, and check lather with brush by lightly slapping my face until peaks begin to form. At that point, I slow down and add 2 or 3 drops at a time until I get a very shiny look while maintaining the peaks. Once I have both of those, I've started to run my finger with medium pressure over where my sideburn ends to check slickness. I don't have anything to compare my lather to, but it feels very slick! almost like rubbing motor oil between your fingers.
My shave technique: First pass WTG, I've found that varying the V3M angle through the shave lets you adjust how close the blade gets to the skin. Because the razor is so mild, I basically go with the angle of blade contacting skin as perpendicular to your face as you can get for the first 2 passes (3 if I go 2 XTG). I get absolutely no irritation, but it's not very efficient. 2nd pass I go XTG, at first I did 90 degrees, but now I'm doing closer to 120 (if 180 is ATG). Again absolutely no irritation and it's closer to a smooth shave. After my second pass, I'm past the smoothness of any shave I've gotten before wet-shaving, but it's definitely not BBS! The first 3 or 4 days I did another XTG for 3rd pass, it helped remove some, but didn't improve overall smoothness much. Finally, I go ATG and start my postshave - detail on ATG at end of post.
My post-shave routine: I use an alum block all over my face and then a styptic pen to seal any weepers the alum didn't get (this is what I'm basing the comfort number in the table on) then apply Vikings sandalwood balm liberally.
When I go ATG, no matter how slick my lather is, no matter how sharp the blade is, I will get issues with skipping. I've tried adjusting the angle from more aggressive to tilting from the cap down until I make blade contact instead of the bar so the blade is cutting more up and down, and that helps the skipping, but increases tug and pull a lot. I've tried adding skin pulling to reduce razor tugging, and it helps marginally. Inevitably to help get through the hair, I'll start applying a bit more pressure and I think this is what creates irritation and nicks for me so I'm making a conscious effort to stop doing that. But then I end up with a very patchy end product due to the skipping. I have no clue what part of my routine or setup I need to improve upon to fix this, but it has been the case for literally every blade I've tried. I haven't even attempted to go ATG on my neck because of this. I do manage to achieve BBS in some cases at the end of the day (look above for 8s and 9s) but I'd like to fix this skipping/tugging and hope this helps improve both comfort and smoothness. Any suggestions would be really helpful!!!
