Taking six weeks of beard off tomorrow. How do I get it down to skin without shredding my neck?

Grew a beard over the summer, hated it by week five, and it's coming off tomorrow morning. Problem is I've only ever used my DE on stubble that's a day or two old, never on anything like this.

It's properly long now, past the point where I can see my neck under it. My instinct is to just go at it with the safety razor and a lot of lather, but I've got a feeling I'm about to clog the razor solid and then panic halfway through with half a beard.

Do I need clippers first? And is there a sensible order, or do I just start somewhere and work round?

Clippers first, absolutely, no debate. A DE razor is designed to cut hair that's a few millimetres long. Feed six weeks of beard into it and you'll jam the head after about four strokes, then spend the next twenty minutes unscrewing it, rinsing hair out, and reassembling it with soapy fingers. Ask me how I know.

Take it down with clippers on the shortest guard you have, or no guard if you're brave, then treat what's left as a normal shave. It turns a horrible job into an ordinary one.

Adding one thing Rob didn't mention: your grain map is going to be wrong.

Whatever you learned about your growth direction from your pre-beard shaving days, check it again once the clippers have been through. Six weeks of growth trains hair to lie in a direction, and mine sat differently on the jawline for a good fortnight after I took a beard off. First shave after a beard is not the shave to be confident about direction on.

Rub the back of your fingers over the clipped stubble and re-map before you lather.

I've done this three times and got it wrong the first two, so here's the version that works.

Clippers down to the shortest guard. Then shower, or a warm towel for a couple of minutes if you're not showering, because clipped stubble under a beard has been living in humid conditions and the skin under there is softer and often a bit sensitive. Then lather generously and take ONE with-the-grain pass over the whole face and neck. Rinse, look, and stop.

That's the bit I want to underline. After a single pass you will not be smooth, you'll be evenly short, and every instinct will tell you to go again against the grain and finish the job properly. Don't, not on day one. The skin under a beard hasn't had a blade on it in six weeks and it has forgotten what that feels like. My first beard removal ended in a neck so raw I couldn't wear a collar for two days, entirely because I chased smooth on the first go.

Do a second pass the next day, and by day three you're back to normal shaving. Nobody looking at you can tell the difference between one pass and three anyway.

mikeyc44 said:

is there a sensible order, or do I just start somewhere and work round

Order that saves grief: cheeks, then jaw, then neck last, and re-lather before the neck rather than shaving through whatever survived the first two areas. The neck is the part most likely to punish you and it deserves fresh lather and a still-sharp blade.

Also fit a new blade before you start. You're asking it to do more work than a normal shave even after clipping, and a blade that was fine yesterday will feel tired halfway through your jaw.

Reporting back. Clipped it down first, which was obviously right, the pile in the sink was ridiculous. One with-the-grain pass, stopped when I wanted to keep going, and I was patchy-looking but fine.

Second pass next morning, third the day after, and I'm back to my normal two-pass shave now with no burn at all. Slantcurious was right about the grain too, my jawline hair was growing forward in a way it definitely wasn't in June. Weird.

Only casualty was one weeper on the chin where I forgot there was a mole under all that. Nothing dramatic.