How do you DE shave a neck with skin tags and a raised mole? I keep catching the same tag and it bleeds forever

Three months into DE shaving and mostly converted, but my neck is turning into a crime scene on a weekly basis. I've got a scatter of small skin tags under my jaw on the right, plus one properly raised mole along the jawline, and I keep catching the same tag. Three times now. It bleeds like I've done something serious, takes ages to stop, and I've turned up to work in a plaster twice this month looking like I lost a duel.

Cartridge razors sort of bounced over them. The DE does not bounce. So what's the actual technique here, do you shave over the small ones, around all of them, what? Or is a safety razor just the wrong tool for a lumpy neck and I should stop pretending otherwise?

Wrong tool? No. Wrong approach, probably. Two things fixed this for me. First, map them BEFORE you lather, because once the soap's on you're shaving blind, the lather hides every landmark. I do a slow thumb sweep of my neck while the brush is soaking and I know exactly where my three troublemakers are. Second, the finger guard: fingertip of the free hand parked flat on the tag while the blade works around it, then short strokes that approach the spot and lift off before they arrive. Never one long confident stroke through the postcode where a tag lives. Sounds fiddly, adds maybe thirty seconds, ends the bleeding era.

Confession from the impure: I keep a cheap foil electric in the drawer purely for the tag cluster under my jaw. DE everywhere else, five seconds of electric buzz over the lumpy bit, done. Zero blood since I surrendered. I decided a hybrid shave beats a weekly reenactment of a horror film.

Second confession, offered as a warning. A mate of mine got sick of his and tied one off at home with dental floss because a bloke on the internet said it works. It went a colour I won't describe at breakfast time and his doctor was spectacularly unimpressed. Whatever the answer to tags is, it isn't the bathroom and a length of floss.

Data point on hardware: same neck, same tags, my mild low-exposure razor never touches them, my open comb draws blood almost on principle. More blade exposure means the edge follows every contour, including the ones you don't want it following. If you've got an adjustable, dial it down for the neck pass. Also try stretching the skin sideways across the tag area with your free hand. Small tags flatten out under tension and the blade rides over the top instead of catching the overhang.

Straight answer: around, not over, for anything raised enough to feel with a fingertip. Flat moles that are level with the skin you can shave straight over, they need no special treatment. It's height that changes the rules, not colour.

What we actually do in the chair, and it's close to what Rob described: map by feel before lathering, because lather is camouflage. Stretch the skin so the lump sits as flat as it will go, exactly as slantcurious says. Park a finger over the spot as a guard and use short strokes that approach from each side and lift off, rather than passing through. Over a dense cluster, honestly, a foil electric wins, and Graham shouldn't be confessing anything, mixed kit is what half the trade uses on their own necks. When you do nick one, a tag has a proper little blood supply for its size, which is why it bleeds so theatrically; alum or a styptic pencil shuts it down in seconds, and the difference between them is covered in alum block and styptic pencil.

Now the part I give every customer with your neck, Mikey. A tag you're cutting weekly is worth showing a doctor: removal is a quick, minor job and beats a year of plasters, and it should always be a professional, never the floss trick, both because of infection and because you want someone qualified to look at the thing before it's removed. Moles have their own rulebook. Nicking one does NOT cause cancer, that myth can die here, but a mole that keeps catching, bleeds without being cut, or is changing needs a clinician's eyes on it. The checklist worth memorising is the ABCDE rule: Asymmetry, Border irregularity, Colour variation, Diameter over 6mm, Evolving. Any yes means doctor first, razor second. And for completeness, active acne is the temporary version of the same around-not-over principle, with its own guide in shaving acne-prone skin. Spots at least have the decency to move on. Tags and moles are permanent residents, so build the route around them once and it's yours for life.

Three weeks of the full programme: thumb-sweep map, sideways stretch, finger guard, mild razor on the neck only. Blood spilled: none. Turns out the answer was route planning, not bravery.

Also took the homework seriously. GP froze off the tag I kept catching (two minutes, barely felt it, why did I wait months) and had a proper look at the jawline mole while I was there. Verdict: boring, keep an eye on it, come back if it changes. Between the map and the plaster budget I'm saving, this thread owes me nothing. Cheers all.