so ... i'd been wet shaving five or so weeks ... lots of reading, video watching, and general research before and during. several times, i'd hear or see a 30 degree angle being mentioned ... at least as the starting point for the new guy. all faces are different and razors are different. so, it seems like 30 is used as a good starter angle. HOWEVER, the starting position does make a difference. for some reason, i was starting with the handle plumb/vertical ... and moving the handle up about 30. after five weeks of irritation and frustration with a few nice shaves mixed-in, i pulled up a video where (mantic59, i believe) the guy actually demonstrated the starting position ... level/HORIZONTAL... !?!?!?! ... epiphany i followed up that video with searching all TSD threads for 'angle' ... and confirming what i had just watched. for five weeks, i'd been 30 degrees off ... 30 up from vertical ... instead of 30 down from horizontal ... leaving 30 in between. 30 degrees up from vertical ... just the right angle for the blade to scrape, scrape, scrape my skin ... all the way from north to south. now, for a week and 1/2, i've been starting from a new 'home' position. my face appreciates it, and i appreciate it. ahhh, where would i be without the interwebs, youtube, and TSD ... ?!?!?
When you hit the correct angle, you will hear and feel the razor "sing" as it starts to cut the bristle..Its quite distinctive and that tells you the blade is at the correct angle and cutting. Once you start to hear the "noise", you can then fine tune the angle by altering it slightly to get the best cutting effect/most noise. The window for fine tuning is quite small to you only need to change the angle by a fraction, but you will soon feel/hear the correct point.
Time, technique, practice and patience are all you need to get great shaves. I'm happy to see your shaves are getting better and better!
As a new wet shaver the only thing I feel is missing from this post is a link. Please share. I'd love to be "epiphed" as well. Thank you.
Gave yourself a nice, spa dermabrasion treatment too. Now you can start fresh wetshaving a brand new face
angleLink#1 ... while the whole video is good stuff, the angle is at about the 5:35 mark angleLink#2 ... about the 2:30 mark
Pretty soon you'll be shaving at the proper angle without even giving it a second thought and that 2 pass+ BBS will be a daily ease.
Well, a couple weeks after watching the video, and putting it into action my face is loving it. I am getting a CCS with two passes with no irritation at all. I can do two more passes to get a BBS but with some red spots where I always had rough razor burn with a Fusion. I probably should have watched these videos months ago.
You would have found it eventually. Tune in to the "singing" of the blade as it mows down the whiskers.
