Razor burn on my neck every single shave, face is fine. What am I missing?

Three months into the safety razor life after 15 years of cartridges. Cheeks are honestly the best they've ever been, smooth, no irritation, converted for life.

My neck is another story. Red and stinging by lunchtime, every shave, without fail. Left side under the jaw is the worst. And I feel like I've tried EVERYTHING the beginner guides say: fresh blade (tried three different brands of blade now), proper warm-up in the shower, decent lather, shallower angle, going slow.

The only thing that "works" is not shaving my neck, which is not a look I can pull off. What's the thing the guides aren't telling me?

Have you actually mapped your neck grain? Not guessed, mapped. Let it grow two days, then run a credit card edge or your fingertips across it in different directions and note where the resistance is.

Reason I ask: everyone assumes hair grows downward, and on the neck it very often doesn't. Mine grows sideways towards my throat on the left and swirls into a circle low on the right. For two years my "with the grain" pass was actually against the grain on half my neck, which is exactly your symptom, fine cheeks, burning neck. Drew it on a rough face diagram once and it looked like a weather map.

Fix the map first and everything else you're doing right starts to count.

Pressure. Nobody thinks it's pressure, it's always pressure. The razor weighs enough on its own, especially on neck skin. If you can hear it scraping rather than a soft crackle, you're pushing.

One more thing to rule out: pass count. When I got my first straight razor last summer I was so nervous my hands were practically vibrating, and I compensated by doing three full passes chasing perfection. My neck was raw for a month and I nearly quit. Went back to two passes (and calmed down generally) and it healed within a week or so.

A slightly stubbly comfortable neck in the evening beats a perfect one that stings all day. Took me embarrassingly long to accept that.

Good thread, and the answers above cover most of what I see in the chair. To pull it together for anyone landing here from a search:

The neck fails for three reasons: unmapped grain (Rob's point, and the most common), imported cartridge pressure (Graham's), and over-shaving (one pass too many, or re-shaving the same patch dry because it "doesn't feel done"). Two more barbers' tricks worth adding: stretch the skin gently flat with your free hand, because the neck is loose and a rippling surface guarantees burn, and drop your angle even shallower there than on your face. Finish with a cold rinse before anything else touches it.

The site's guide on shaving the neck and tricky areas walks through all of this with the diagrams. And the standing caveat: if a patch stays sore or bumpy for weeks whatever you change, that's a skin question for a pharmacist or doctor, not a technique question for us.

Reporting back after six weeks because this thread fixed my neck.

Mapped the grain properly, and Rob called it: left side under the jaw grows almost horizontally towards my throat. My "with the grain" pass there had been against the grain for three months. Redrew my passes, dropped to two, started stretching the skin like Marcus said.

Two weeks completely burn-free now. The answer was never the blade. It's always the map. Cheers all.