Shaving Secret Weapon

Peace and quiet. No exhaust fan. No music. Just the sound of the razor. My life is pretty noisy and the peacefulness is something that makes my shave infinitely better.

Mine is just showering with hot water before every shave. My face is super prepped and ready to go.

Peace and quiet. No exhaust fan. No music. Just the sound of the razor. My life is pretty noisy and the peacefulness is something that makes my shave infinitely better.

That sounds great! For some stupid reason, in my bathroom the lights and exhaust fan are both wired to the lone switch on the wall, so I never get the total quiet. It's annoying and I need to fix it for sure.

Everything else matters more than a razor's aggressiveness. This is a secret that I've noticed over many years of shaving that is counter-intuitive. It's just common sense that a more aggressive razor will shave closer right? I've noticed that it isn't true -- at least for me. More important is matching the right blade to each razor. More important is the choice of shaving soap. More important is proper technique, both for creating lather and shaving. As it turns out, everything is more important than how aggressive the razor is. I can get as good a shave from the completely mild Merkur 34C or a Gillette Tech as I can from my Gillette Slim set on 9 or even one of my straight razors -- if I have the right blade in the razor, have a really good shaving soap properly lathered and use good technique.

Two things really changed my shaves:

1. actually identifying the pattern of my beard growth. I had no idea.

2. learning to properly generate/hydrate a lather, which includes both a profound load and steady addition of water. Soap can take more water than most think!

Two things really changed my shaves:

1. actually identifying the pattern of my beard growth. I had no idea.

2. learning to properly generate/hydrate a lather, which includes both a profound load and steady addition of water. Soap can take more water than most think!

The water thing is something I have noticed. I have yet to put too much water in a lather.

The water thing is something I have noticed. I have yet to put too much water in a lather.

I don't do it so much anymore but on receiving a new soap I used to test lather and take it to the point of no return- just to get a feel for how thirsty it was and also just see when it would "break".

Two things really changed my shaves:

1. actually identifying the pattern of my beard growth. I had no idea.

2. learning to properly generate/hydrate a lather, which includes both a profound load and steady addition of water. Soap can take more water than most think!

The water thing is something I have noticed. I have yet to put too much water in a lather.

I have used "too much" water, but it's pretty easy to remedy...just go back to the puck!

Most of the time, I can adjust the lather depending on what I'm trying to accomplish. Especially with the straights, I have found slickness to be vastly more important than cushion, so I tend to whip up my lather a little thinner with a little extra water, just to give that extra glide...

With the DE or SE, I like the cushion of a thicker, yogurt-y lather, but with the straight, that glide is the most important thing. You don't want razor skips with a straight. In the words of Steve Irwin(RIP), "Danger! Danger! Danger!" Skipping blades bite...

Danger danger danger, haha that made me lol!

For me - skipping the WTG pass all together with a safety razor. I go straight into a XTG pass on my face and neck with the first pass, then ATG+buffing on my second pass. For my head, first pass is more XTG/ATG then ATG+buffing on the second. (But with straight razors, I skip XTG - just WTG and ATG.)

One day I decided to jump right into a XTG pass and realized I didn't need WTG. I didn't have to beat up parts of my face that only need two passes.

That and - as others have mentioned - making sure my lather is as slick as I can get it