Well, I survived my first shave this evening!! I'm am very pleasantly surprised.

The shave was with the Double Arrow I received from Utopian (Ron) today. Thank-you, Ron, for your help and generous offer. Also on tap was a superlather of Tabac soap and Wars cream. Man, is that a heady scent. B&B essential brush and a Dirty Bird Pottery brush scuttle round out the set up.

Now in the past month I have received two straight "shaves". One at a barber college I've been checking out. I couldn't shave for three or four days after the visit. I figured, hey, these folks have to learn somehow. Really red and sore. Major razor burn.
The other from a barber shop in Indy. Pretty good shave, actually. Not as good as me with a Gem, but not bad. Really cool shop right in downtown Indy.

My shave today is still more comfortable than the Indy shave. O.K, yeah, there are a couple cuts that the barber didn't throw in on his shave, but hey....

I told myself, "Just the cheeks.....just the cheeks". Wellll sh*t, you know how that goes. Cheeks went better than I'd thought they would. Down the top half of the throat. Alright, this is going pretty good.

Hey! What was that!?! OOPS.

So, all told, a complete shave. A few cuts. But while typing this about a half hour later I am really pleased with the comfort. I've gotta tell 'ya, this is as good as some of my daily shaves.

All the noobs say thanks all the time. But this time it's my turn.

Thanks to the forum members for your leadership, patience and advice. I don't write much or ask a lot of questions (yet), but I've been reading the heck out of you guys.

Thank-you Ron for the razor.

Thank-you Lynn for the video. For the other newbies who think you don't need the video, think again. I almost didn't buy it, either. I thought that since I'd been shaving with DE's and a Gem, that would be good enough. WRONG !!!! You're buying all this other stuff, anyway. Go ahead and pop the bucks for the dvd also. You' ll be glad you did. Ain't that much, anyway.

Well, gotta go. Supper's ready.

Happy shaving,

Kevin