Is there some way of telling your hairs are soft enough BEFORE you start lathering up?

We agreed on something....woo! @Bama Samurai will love this too.

 

I did try Shave Secret preshave oil. Couple drops on a wet face before lathering. Didn't seem to help my results, smelled faintly of Bay Rum, and I discontinued use. Fortunately it was inexpensive and caused no ill effects.
Rather than add steps, I've reduced all the unnecessary motion & products. Shaving should be simple and I'm pleased it's become enjoyable.

 

Yes. Still a technique thing.

@wchnu

 

The only times I get tugging is when the blade I use has gone past it's use, or if it isn't a good blade to begin with. And in my opinion, cold shaves don't have that effect on shaving, and I use cold water all the time.

 

I know this isn't the answer you want but I have to be the fourth or fifth to +1 this sentiment
I get better shaves right after a shower but the difference is minimal I could only imagine the softness being a huge issue if you're shaving off a full beard or something like that.
That being said if you think it helps spend an extra five minutes in the shower just to be sure no harm no foul


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

That last line is most important. If you think it helps you by all means proceed along the path!!

 

It's probably also not what the OP wants to hear, but I personally haven't noticed much (any?) difference between a 2 minute shower and a 15 minute shower on the cutting experience of a razor. What _does_ make a difference, is how clean the hair and face are beforehand. I don't think that 'softening' does much except on the very outside edge of the keratin scales. Since they overlap, the core would stay just as solid as ever. Of course, I don't recall ever shaving right after a swim meet or lifeguard practice, so I can't say if an extended soak would make any difference either.

Sharp blade, good razor, good angle, and clean face. That's all that seems to make a difference _to me_. That's the main thing. DSFDF. (Different Strokes for Different Folks. Definitely not YMMV)

 

Apparently too much showering not good for skin. I do not shower before shaving. However , I have a pre shave wash with glycerine based soap which seems to get whiskers ready for shaving.

 

OK, the reason I think it might have been the length of the shower that determined the hair softness for me is that I think I have noticed differences between when I have brief showers and when I have really long ones when I'm pretty sure that I keep everything else the same. At first I thought I may be changing other things but then I realized I may have just been overthinking those other things. (And I doubt even small distances in the quality of lather would make such a dramatic difference to the softness of the beard).

I suppose the other possibility, that you have mentioned, could be the sharpness of the blade. I think there could be inconsistencies in the sharpness of the blades that I have been using, which I think I have mentioned in another thread. I had inconsistent shaves when using derby blades after all, so getting some dull blades and some sharp blades could be possible when they are a generally poorer quality blade, right? That might explain why sometimes the blade glides through and sometimes it tugs and catches (I was replacing them either every few shaves or after every shave). However, moving over to Polsilver SIs didn't really help (and they also caused more irritation, I think), although that may be because those blades are not right for me.

I haven't DE shaved in a while. (I have been doing electric shaving for a while, but I want to stop that now as I think it's irritating my skin). Next time I shave I could go back to the Derbys and if I get tugging just immediately take the blade out, try a new one, continue the shave, and then just keep replacing the blade if I keep getting tugging. If I am getting tugging with every single blade, then I can probably say with some certainty that it isn't the inconsistency in terms of blade sharpness that's causing the tugging. (Although it could still be that all of the remaining blades in that pack are blunt). I'm not going to shave for several weeks though because I am trying to let my skin heal from perpetual inflammation that I am causing by shaving. (I went without shaving for about three weeks and the inflammation seemed to go down a bit, but then came back when I resumed shaving everyday again, so I'm thinking if I don't shave for an even longer period of time it might heal completely).

 

I tried the hot towel approach a few times, used a homemade PSO, Cornhusker's Lotion and finally decided that simply washing my face with soap and hot water is what works best for my face prep. If a blade tugs, I change it and I normally get 6-10 shaves from a blade. I think face lathering does a good job of prepping my whiskers for shaving.

If your face is anything like mine, I get quite a bit of itchy irritation if I don't shave at least every 3-5 days. Whiskers growing into an itchy scruffy beard seem to just eat my face alive for about 3 weeks. When I started with DE as an adult, I was shaving every other day for about a week and making 3-5 passes. Soon I was shaving every day with 3 passes and now I shave almost everyday (except summertime) using 2 passes. I try to remember to change my blade every Monday morning, but sometimes forget.

 

Still sounds like a technique issue still most likely blade angle.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Yes, I do get a bit of itchiness sometimes if I let my hair grow as well, but the inflammation I have does seem to heal if I let it grow.

I also noticed that it wasn't until I started shaving every day (just one WTG pass) that I started having more problems. After a break, the first shave would usually be fine, but the shaves on the consequent days would usually be bad in terms of irritation, and perhaps in terms of tugging. I think my skin needs more time to recover from a shave. After I start again, I will probably go back to shaving every other day or every 3 days.

 

OK, I will try experimenting with blade angle.

 

I have read on the forums that 3 minutes of soaking under a hot towel or whatever is the optimum time.

Therefore I would think 3 minutes in the shower would do the deed nicely.

Experiment with 2, 3, and 4 minute showers and draw your own conclusions.

 

Do you mind if I ask how long you have been traditional wet shaving? I don't know that I saw it in the original post? If you haven't been at it very long, have you tried going through the 30 Day Rule? If not, I would strongly recommend this. I think most of us had a lot of inconsistencies when starting out so that we would have good shaves then bad shaves. I know I would often blame equipment, soap, prep, insert shave related variable here. When I really just spent a month focusing on technique, I got much more consistent shaves.

What you describe about getting good shaves and bad shaves sounds more like you are not using the exact same technique every shave, which is very common in the beginning. Join us on the 30 Day Rule thread, which is all about helping to dial in technique.

 

Just in case anyone's interested, I tried DE shaving again after about a 2-month hiatus.. In that two months I had retried electric shaving, which made my inflammation in places that I've shaved even worse and it was also giving me multiple ingrown hairs, so I stopped; then I took around a 3-week break from shaving again so that the inflammation could heal a bit, which it did a bit, and I used that time to think more carefully and prepare for another trial of prep and DE-shaving.

I had a long hot 10-minute shower (where usually I kind of have luke-warm to warmish showevers), and towards the end of the shower I cleansed the areas where my facial hairs grow with a bar of mudsoap that I forgot I had and that I am told is apparently fine to use as a facial cleanser. Then I checked the hairs before jumping out of the shower. I swear my hairs did actually feel really malleable and manipulable where usually they don't quite as much, so maybe it is possible to detect softness of the hairs (or whatever it was I was feeling). Whatever it was, they felt completely different than usual (I have never tried feeling the hairs after a shower). This could have been the hot shower, the fact that I cleansed the hairs, or both. What do you think?

Then I rubbed in some cold-pressed jojoba oil that seemed to absorb quite nicely (my skin didn't stay greasy like it does when I use rosehip oil). I have been reading that it is a good way to lock in moisture to make a more comfortable shave. I then created a thick lather out of a really cheap palmolive lather shaving cream that I like from the supermarket. Just a side note, the day before, I was practicing building up lathers with different shaving creams, and I dropped the glass bowl that I usually use and it smashed in the sink, so I had to use something else. In my flat, there are these little plastic bowls that are the perfect shape and look just like a shaving bowl with slanting sides, except perhaps a bit smaller. The glass bowl I had always been using had vertical sides. I never really thought about this because I didn't think it would make much of a difference, but I am absolutely amazed at the difference something as seemingly insignificant as the angle of the side of a bowl has in making a lather. In the previous days when practicing with the glass bowl, it was taking a huge amount of time to make a lather (I'm talking several minutes). And even then it wouldn't have a very thick consistency, it would still have some small bubbles, and not seem particularly good and would stretch quite thinly on my face and not cover it properly. However, with the slant-sided plastic bowl, I am able to get a nice thick lather out of that same cream in under a minute that spreads really nicely and evenly across my face, and my arm isn't aching after making it lol.

The lather went into the beard much more nicely as usual. I used an Edwin Jagger DE86 with Derby blades. I went really slowly (I'm talking at least around 10 to 15 minutes), tried to use absolutely no pressure, tried to use the correct angle, and only did a WTG pass (I can't see myself ever doing XTG or ATG ever again because my skin is so hypersensitive, and I don't care because I got a desired very close shave with the prep I did here anyway). The blade was going through the hairs way more easily than usual. I usually have to go over the same area multiple times but I was quite surprised because in many of the areas of my face it seemed like I only needed to go over that area once to remove most of the hairs. I didn't really have any tugging except in a few places on my beard and above my lip, so in these places it could just be a technique thing like people here mentioned, given that I assume that the correct angle is probably harder to get right in those places.

But final verdict was that I had literally zero irritation, and no ingrown hairs. However, I have noticed that last time I went multiple weeks of not shaving I didn't really have any irritation either (even though I had more tugging then and a much worse shave), so the lack of irritation could have something to do with just not shaving for a while. So, I will do everything the same in a few days time and then see if I get the same results as I just got. I am trying not to raise expectations. In any case, the shave was much easier and I didn't have any ingrown hairs.

Tl;dr:
- My hairs do seem to feel soft and malleable after a hot shower (if that's possible, although it could be the fact that I cleansed the hairs with some mudsoap). Also, it could all be in my head.
- I have learnt that a shaving bowl with slanting sides makes all the difference in the world in terms of being able to create really nice thick lathers, and that it ends up taking a fraction of the time compared to using a bowl with vertical sides.
- I had an irritation-free shave with no ingrown hairs when I had a hot shower, cleansed the facial hairs with mudsoap, used jojoba oil as a preshave and was careful with using no pressure and trying to use the correct blade angle. The blade seemed to go through the hairs much more easily and, in most places on my face, I didn't have to go over the same areas multiple times like I usually do. The lather was probably better as well due to using a slant-sided bowl to create the lather. However, the lack of irritation might just be because I have gone so long without a shave. So I will do the exact same thing again and see what the result is.

 

SlaveShaver, thanks for the story. To distill it down, you believe that by feeling the whiskers you can determine when they are soft enough to shave. Am I correct?

 

Yes, possibly. Although it was much easier to test it because my hairs were really long. I want to try doing the same again but it will probably be a lot harder to test now that my hairs are so short.

 

I agree with others that you need to concentrate on technique; if the hair on your head gets soft during your shower, I would expect that your facial hair becomes equally soft. In fact, I can get my facial hair prepped without showering if I wash my face with soap and water and then use the pre-soaked brush to wash off soap on my face. I also face lather for 1-2 minutes and that all helps in beard prep. Ride the cap with Derby, Bic, Astra, whatever name brand blade. If you experience tugging, focus on light touch and angle.

 

+1
For me, good technique trumps ALL other variables. They are extremely minor in comparison. I will, however, say that Derbys are the only blade with which I have ever experienced any tugging sensation. I tossed mine early in my journey and see no need to revisit them. If you are finding most other blades too harsh, that is almost assuredly a technique issue. Not to sound like a broken record, but the 30 day focus thread transformed my shaving. I can now get a good shave with any blade, any razor, any soap, any temperature, prep or not, etc etc.