Always trying to keep an open mind, this morning I took my Rimei RM2003, which has a slightly positive blade exposure, and shaved using the steep-angle technique. To recap, this technique keeps the razor's guard against the face, using that contact as a pivot point. By then using this pivot point to reduce the angle of the razor handle to the face, and thereby increasing the angle of the blade to the face (hence the name, steep-angle shaving) one gets more of a scraping cut of the blade edge against the whiskers.
I had never considered trying this steep-angle (of the blade) approach before, because I was concerned about the scraping action of the blade leaving increased irritation in its wake.
But since I'm mister question everything, I figured that I should test even my own pre-conceived ideas.
The bottom line on this one is that my intuition was correct in that there was more lingering irritation after the shave. However, as I also suspected, much like a wood worker uses a hand scraper instead of sandpaper to get an ultra smooth finish, the slightly-more-scraping action of the edge on the beard also gave me a close shave in two passes (with grain, then against grain), with very few wounds -- just a couple of tiny weepers. The ability to pivot the shaving angle on the blade guard also gave me good control of the blade edge against skin.
In fact, this has caused me to once again rethink the use of my Gillette Slim Adjustable. I may just pull that out of the shaving box in my closet, set it to a fairly generous blade exposure, and give it a go using this steep-angle technique.
Hmmm. I guess an old dog can learn new tricks!
Happy shaving!
I had never considered trying this steep-angle (of the blade) approach before, because I was concerned about the scraping action of the blade leaving increased irritation in its wake.
But since I'm mister question everything, I figured that I should test even my own pre-conceived ideas.
The bottom line on this one is that my intuition was correct in that there was more lingering irritation after the shave. However, as I also suspected, much like a wood worker uses a hand scraper instead of sandpaper to get an ultra smooth finish, the slightly-more-scraping action of the edge on the beard also gave me a close shave in two passes (with grain, then against grain), with very few wounds -- just a couple of tiny weepers. The ability to pivot the shaving angle on the blade guard also gave me good control of the blade edge against skin.
In fact, this has caused me to once again rethink the use of my Gillette Slim Adjustable. I may just pull that out of the shaving box in my closet, set it to a fairly generous blade exposure, and give it a go using this steep-angle technique.
Hmmm. I guess an old dog can learn new tricks!
Happy shaving!
I don't think it's for every part of the face, necessarily, but I found I liked it for my moustache before I even knew what it was. Bony places with a nice layer of soft flesh over them.
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