My take,
Prep is shower including some kind of face wash, currently a goat milk and charcoal bar. Plus, if I bloom (soak/wet) the soap, I’ll rub that into my whiskers before loading and lathering up.
Pretty much always two pass shave for me. If going ATG it’ll always be for the third pass, and very carefully executed. I’ll quickly know if it’ll work, all depending on skin condition, equipment, lather, etc. I am able to plan for a very close shave for eg a wedding or something, but in general, chasing BBS is rarely a good idea for my skin.
I too have some omnidirectional growth on my neck it seems, but I disregard it and go with the majority. WTG for the first pass is N-S save for a belt across my lower neck which is S-N. XTG for the second pass on my face is ear to nose, the lower belt of the neck is always WTG again and the upper either WTG or ATG. I also have a trouble area on the chin/jaw, my right hand side, from a little above to a little under the chin/jaw bone. May need some more buffing but again, chasing is a bad idea so I mostly leave it a tad messier than the rest.
More importantly, however, whereas I in the beginning of my wet shaving career had to skip a day sometimes for the sake of my skin, I now shave every day and my skin is the better for it. Took a break recently for a few days during childbirth etc, and while the first shave after in essence was good, my skin had somehow lost its resilience or defence against the blade and suffered for four or five days. There is something to getting the skin used to the frequency of shaves, is my experience, which can only be achieved over time. If you’re going to up the frequency, I’d skip the ATG pass, at least until the skin is ‘hardened’.
