Skip to content

Adam's Apple?

Listen to this article

“Thanks for the videos, they are very helpful. I just have two questions for you. First of all I grow facial hair like an ape apparently, so hair grows all the way to the base of my neck (which I like to shave off). I always get redness and irritation inferior temporal to my adam’s apple. When I use a DE I hack the heck out of my neck down there. Any advice?

Also, I’ve been using a Merkur HD and I was curious how tight I should screw the top on? Should the blade bow when it is tightened? Thanks for the help!”

For the adam’s apple, try swallowing and “holding” the swallow. You won’t be able to really hold it of course, but it will briefly flattent the area enough to get a decent stroke through it. For the Merkur DE, screw the top all the way down. Yes, it will bow the blade slightly; its designed to do that (you should see how it bows the Merkur Progress!).

Author

Shave tutor and co-founder of sharpologist. I have been advocating old-school shaving for over 20 years and have been featured in major media outlets including The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and Lifehacker. Also check out my content on Youtube, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest!View Author posts

2 thoughts on “Adam's Apple?”

  1. Myself I don’t care for the swallowing method. I watched a very good straight razor barber tutorial where you can pick up some very good tricks. Not all of them are directly applicable to shaving with a DE, but a good one I picked up immediately was this: Press your fingers into the skin around your adam’s apple and move the skin to the right or the left of the adam’s apple. Then you can shave that area of skin on a smooth plane, without having to navigate it over the bumpy area directly over the adam’s apple. It’s usually having to go over that bump that makes the razor skip and cut into your skin. Also for most guys, those whiskers in that area tend to grow upwards rather than downwards. It’s different for everyone, but generally you want to shave upward in that area for at least the first pass so you’re not going against the grain.

  2. Glodomar Nunes da Silva

    I am newbie and I have a lot of trouble when I shave, actually my problems are related to flat the area I´m shaving, ´cause I´m very thin.
    If it´s possible I´d aprreciate some hints.

    Thanks a lot.

Comments are closed.