Please Help. Newbie to the forum and going desperate for some help

Hello. I had to let my face rest last week because of the bad cuts and irritations I had. I was supposed to shave yesterday but over the weekend I ended up cutting my right thumb and it got infected

You will improve over time. Read the tips on here, articles & YouTube vids etc. Occasionally I get a nick, I know instantly when it's happened, before the blood, and get cheesed off as I know it's gonna bleed some and take a good few days to fade away. It's a reminder to take it easy and treat your shave with respect. My last one was when I used my face muscles to stretch my moustache area, for no apparent reason, cut the bottom of my nose and it's only just fading now. I've had a couple where I was so annoyed that I'd have a couple of cart shaves afterwards. Then I remembered how after a cart shave, it either feels like I haven't shaved at all, or I overdo it and then have a sore face for hours. Keep at it and please ask any questions
 
Hello guys thank you so much for your reply's.

Right now I'm using a Gillette Tech razor, Tabac Soap, and razorock synthetic brush. I don't think it's a reaction of the soap because I have been using this soap with the voskhod blade that was the only time it went well for me. I think the lather is quite good. I've worked really hard to get a slick lather practicing on my hand on Off shaving days. I also shave with cold water because I felt with the voskhod that it helped with the irritation on the chin. I also have a merkur 34c and a fatip grande. I bough those razors from other suggestions. I do have other soaps besides tabac. I just wanted to keep with one soap and not change that much just to see which blade would be good for my skin. I can chance to whatever other soap you guys recommend.


Here is my routine:

PRE-SHAVE

• Put Brush in Mug with WARM Water
• Shower with WARM water
• Wash face with warm water in shower
• Don't towel dry the face after shower
• Start Preparing your Lather (I use “another cut above vídeo lather)
• After the shower soak face with cold water
• Apply remaining's of lather soap on face with hands and gently scrub face with hands
• Apply REALLY COLD TOWEL on face and leave on for 1-2 min
o Take off lather with towel
• Apply Pre-shave Cream PREP Original

• Start 1st pass lather


POST-SHAVE ROUTINE

• Rinse Face with Warm Water

• Rinse Face with Cold Water
• Apply Alum Block with Cold Water
• After 1 min Rinse Off Alum block with Cold Water
• Dry Face gently with towel
• Apply The Cool Fox to help with irritation
• Apply Moisturize Balm Nivea sensitive skin
• Keep moisturizing between shaves as needed


Apply Thayers or similar.

Dial it back by 80%, a 90 minute shave is frankly ridiculous but thank you for your honesty.
Looking at your pics, it seems to me you're over shaving those areas and that will be down to technique/pressure rather than equipment.
Whatever kit you chose try not to swap between shaves and stick with the same setup for at least a couple of weeks to aqcuire some familiarity. DONT BUY ANYTHING ELSE except a bottle of Thayers/witchhazel based toner, it doesn't look like you need to moisturise as much as you are. Forget trying to achieve the immaculate finish just aim for no irritation and an OK shave for now, the finish will improve as your technique does.
 
Just one more thing to add, although I think your lather looked ok it's just another element of the wet shave I suspect you're spending too much time on trying to perfect unnecessarily in my view. If you're UK based grab a tube of Palmolive cream from your local Tescos for a couple of quid, it's not sexy but it's very forgiving and dead easy to lather especially if you don't get it quite right it'll still provide plenty of glide and lubrication.
 
How about this; Pretend you're still using whatever you used to use and just shave. When I switched to vintage the only change I made at first was the razor, I still used canned goo. (Barbasol) The very first shave with DE (Gillette OLD type) was the best shave I had ever had.
 
Hi mate,
Looking at the pictures was like looking in a mirror 6-8 months ago for me.
It does seem to get better all of a sudden, well it did for me.
Some of the things I found that helped me was the following:-
1. Use a Pre Shave Cream/oil. Let it soak in. (apply it then brush your teeth or do your hair etc) (Nuage Menthol Pre Shave Oil is cheap and I regularly use ut)
2. Just try only shaving the chin area once or twice but only WTG, don't try 3rd passes.
3. Somthing I'm confident that really helped me was using Witch Hazel mixed with a post shave oil. Apply liberally and leave to soak in before attempting any Colognes or EDT's

Hope all goes well over thext few weeks.
Keep us up to date with your progress, we are all happy to help here.
I second CjH's Point 2 most definitely. My first pass is WTG (all my beard), second and final pass XTG (most of my beard but not my chin). In the first pass on my chin I take it slow and easy, short buffing strokes, doing my best to follow WTG where possible. Any touch-ups I do, I don't include the chin.
 
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