Yeah, yer doin’ it wrong. Here’s how to do it right:
Shave in the shower. A mirror is absolutely unnecessary–you won’t cut yourself. After soaping up (using a loofa, and running it over your face), put some pre-shave oil on your face and let it dot it’s thing while you rinse your body. Then, apply a good shaving cream out of a metal tube with a beaver hair shaving brush. Shave using short strokes, rinsing after each short stroke under the shower head. Feel your face to make sure you haven’t missed any spots.
You use a loofah on your face before you shave and he’s doing it wrong?
Personally, I have never understood the shaving-in-the-shower thing at all. I live in a rainforest area and don’t have a water bill, but I still find it incredibly wasteful. It takes about 10 minutes to get a nice shave - that’s about 25 gallons of water, if you’re standing in the shower. I use less than a litre to get smooth every morning, and can’t really get my head around the idea of using more than a hundred times that, even if I could get used to relying on touch.
I hate shaving and now that I’m retired, I only do it about once a week. Luckily, I have a very light beard. Anyway, I’ve been shaving in the shower for about fifty years now without using any kind of shaving cream or gel. Like I said, I’m lucky in that regard.
Use hair conditioner instead of shave cream/foam. I discovered this by accident when I ran out of shave gel once - and I’ve never looked back. It softens the bristles, moisturises and lubricates the skin and it helps the gunky cut bristle stuff to be rinsed or tapped out from between the blades.
And just use a twin blade razor - any more than that and the blades are so closely-packed that they clog easily.
Same here, pretty much. I have a Quattro and Mach 3 whose blades I haven’t replaced in, oh, well over a year now. (I’m not kidding. And I don’t think my facial hair is particularly thin or soft.) Been meaning to get around to it, but it still works. For me, the key is to get the face nice and hot. If I try shaving too early into my shower, it feels like I’m going to rip off my face with the razor. It hurts. But wait a few minutes for things to get nice and steamy and hot (it has to be a fairly hot shower–doesn’t work with lukewarm water), and the blade, as old as it is, goes through those whiskers like butter. And I use bar soap as lather, too.
I tend to put the kettle on before I step into the shower, and then when I get out pour the recently-boiled water over my flannel and apply to my face. It’s either that or turn on our hot water taps (they’re all on separate systems) just for a shave.
I also use a single-blade safety razor, mainly for economic reasons. Once you get the angle right, it’s a great feeling.
My shaving tip: try Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soap instead of shaving cream / gel. The peppermint scent is particularly nice for a brisk shave. Just put a small dollop of the liquid soap on wet hands, rub them together, and then smooth it onto your face. It’s slick as heck, forms a nice sooth lather easily, and keeps the blades (and thereby gunk) nicely lubricated. I stopped using commercial shaving goop over a year ago and haven’t looked back.
I shave my pubes but am often lazy about it (only get around to it when I have a good length of stubble). I have the same ‘problem’ as the OP but it’s easily taken care of by rinsing/brushing the hair off the front of the razor every couple swipes. Maybe it is the razor he is using?
I use a Gillette Fusion which has 5 blades and I rarely find it necessary to replace the cartridge. Stubble rinses right out the back too.
I got a Gillette Slim adjustable double edge razor for 35$ on Ebay. A badger hair brush cost me 40$. I’ve found Astra blades to be both smooth and sharp while costing 0.15$ to 0.25$ each. A good bar of shaving soap will cost you 10-15$ and last you a year.
It’s more of an investment up front but it ends up being cheaper than the multibladed razors and foam cans while being more comfortable and close. I’ve found that after some practice, it’s also faster.
If you want to start cheap before spending more, get a 10-15$ non-adjustable double edge razor and sampler pack from Ebay (25$ for about 100 blades) then go to a drugstore and buy a synthetic brush (6-8$) with a Williams mug soap (2-3$).
The nice thing with buttlerfly razors is that you can easily and quickly take the blade out, rinse it and put it back in.
I use a single-edge safety razor (well actually, there’s a blade on either side, but only one can be used at a time). If you decide to try a safety razor, I’ve learned a couple of things from my barbershop, where they occasionally finish off a haircut or goatee trim by straight-razoring the back of the neck or cheeks/chin respectively.
First of all, don’t hold the blade at a narrow angle with respect to the area being shaved. Nearly perpendicular works better. Knowing this has saved me from countless blade cuts.
Secondly, if you use soap and a shaving brush, make sure the brush isn’t shedding its bristles. If it does that, it will leave stray bristles on your face when you lather up, and those will get caught and lie transversely across the business edge of the razor, resulting in an ever so slight cant of the straight and true. I used to cut myself very frequently because of that. I’m not sure if there’s a good way to use shaving soap without the brush; maybe a sponge would work.
Aye, this is how I do it. I love my Mach 3 razor for just this reason. And I’d love the Mach 5 except for the superfluous 5th blade that I find useless for anything except inflicting random cuts and making handling the razor more hazardous than it needs to be.