Thread: How to Resist the Urge to Shave

I am very new to shaving with a straight and therefore have been experimenting with different angles and directions. I have irritation on my neck and have had these ingrowns for about a week. Should I take a day off? I am typing this right now and have not shaved since yesterday and I am going to go crazy. I want to shave, it is my favorite thing I do during the day. Will taking a couple of days off help me? It all started to go downhill when I shaved XTG on my neck and it resulted in many ingrowns and redness. Is shaving everyday bad if I have irritation? How long did it take you guys to learn how to shave your neck?

To answer your question about a break- YES!!!!

Give your skin some time to heal or it will just get worse or take WAY longer than it needs to.

It's fantastic that you're really having fun while learning this sport, but one of our Senior Mods, Glen (gssixgun) has a saying I believe holds true in all areas of shaving with a straight (and many parts of life, too):

"Slow is smooth; smooth is fast."

Learn to take your time and be patient, and you will be rewarded with an enjoyable, comfortable shave that you can repeat again and again. The key here is to have fun while doing this, and if your face is sore and burning, that's not gonna happen.

Slow down and just enjoy the ride.

Yeah, take a day or two off. I used to practice making lather to help the urge pass...

Try shaving only with the grain for day to day, and master that.

TAKE A BREAK! I remember starting out with a DE and wanting to shave, shave, and then shave some more. The truth is being new to this, you probably lack technique, maybe using to much pressure, using bad angles, and going over the same area doesn't help. My face hurts just thinking about those first shaves, my face was on Fire, all day long! Of course it gets better, because you will get better. I still take breaks from shaving. In my mind your skin needs a break & wiping three days of growth away with a straight is some how even more satisfying...

Yep give your face a rest.

When you go back, try shaving every other day or shaving in less passes. Give the ATG a break, it will help. I get a much closer shave with two days growth than with one, as do many of us, however I do love to shave every day. If you choose to shave daily try two passes WTG and XTG, When I do this I can still feel stubble when I run my finger ATG but to anyone else I look cleanly shaved. I call this comfortable shaving and I do this when I get dry skin or I irritate my face. Another thing I learned is never shave if there is no lather. it's tempting to keep hacking but in the beginning just don't. As you get more experienced you will learn what you can get away with but for now just don't.

My face was red raw and full of nicks when I started but it didn't take long before I mastered the light touch and the skill required. Just look at this time as part of the learning curve, and you'll probably avoid what has caused you to stop for a day or two. I hacked at my face for hours when I started trying to remove every last hair, but now I do as little as possible to get the job done skilfully and comfortably, and thats where the joy is. With straight shaving there are many ways to get a good looking result with out damaging your skin, but these have to be learned and experimented with. Remember your face is different than other peoples, and it will need to be treated differently. This won't take too long to achieve if you listen to your skin, its teaching you what it likes and doesn't. It's telling you now to take a break.

I think this is what so many of us have various acquisition disorders relating to shaving. It gives us something shaving related to do while we are not shaving…

Enjoy

I would say take a break.

I've had problems with my neck that sound similar to yours. If I continued to shave, I would just keep irritating the same spots and making it worse. If I take a break for two or three days, everything seems much better.

Also, for me, I notice this usually happens when I get in a rush and don't stretch the neck skin enough. The skin hair follicles seem to raise which causes my razor to irritate and even cut them. Really concentrate on good skin stretching in the sensitive areas and go slow. Hope this helps.

I've found that since starting to shave with a straight that I only need to shave every second day. It is a rare occurrence that I need to shave more often, and it usually results in irritation. One of the joys of the straight is that it shaves so close that you don't need the extra razor time..you need to resist the urge to shave

I shaved yesterday after taking a break since Thursday morning. My neck seemed healed enough and ready to be shaved. Everything above the jawline went very well and I had no irritation. My neck, on the other hand, is red and has many bumps. I only did 1 pass WTG and made sure to use the lightest pressure I could. What would happen is I were to shave with a dull blade? I know I am a beginner but the razor is not gliding no matter what angle I use. Could a dull razor leave the neck irritated? Here is a picture of what it looks like today.

Hello to another Chicagoan! I don't know if you've seen that there are plans for a Chicago-area meet up this Saturday February 1st. If it's too short notice for this one, maybe another time; this will be my first, and I'm looking forward to some honing tips.

I've looked through this thread and the other one about the neck, and it occurs to me that we haven't asked you who honed your blade. Was it honed by someone whom is known to be a real "honemeister" who can be counted upon to deliver you a genuinely shave-ready blade? Even if so, it's at least possible that the edge has been turned over by a slip in stropping or maintenance.

When I received my first Dovo, it was from a vendor who said "shave ready" but really meant "machine sharpened and hand-honed assembly-line style". It caused me a good bit of irritation, made worse by my own beginner's attempts to hone it further myself.

You might try turning it over to one of this site's trusted honemeisters and see if the results correct the problem. They should be able to make sure that the blade is not only sharp (with a well-set bevel) but also finished to a nice smoothness (no "teeth" left from the honing stones, just a mirror-smooth bevel).