I wanted to share my story so far and my setup. Thanks to all of the help and guidance I've received in these forums. I spent a LOT of time on the wiki, and youtube trying to perfect my shave and stropping.

I've always had trouble with ingrown hairs - I'm of german decent, fair haired, and only shaved 3 times a week. I always blamed the shave cream for my problems so I kept trying new ones. I found that the CC Bigelow tubes from BBW worked great for me! After 6 months of using the Proraso tube (CC Bigelow) and applying it by hand my friend got me to buy his old EJ Best Badger. It turned out that my friend had a hidden addiction - he liked to collect and experiment with different shave creams, blades, brushes, oils, etc..then I find you guys and now I'm an addict too!!

So now I have a decent badger brush and he talks me into ordering a tube of 1805 - now I'm HOOKED! My problems with razor burn are all but gone and my ingrown hairs were much less frequent. I then got a Merkur DE and found that my ingrowns were gone.

Next I get lucky and am given an old Craftaman ERN blade that's in pretty darned good shape considering it's age. I send it to Max for a restore - and WOW. He spiffied it up and replaced the scales. Like everyone else I did NOT heed the "just do the one cheek" advice. I tried the whole face. I've never had razor burn so bad!! The next few times I just stick to one cheek..then on to two...then onto multipasses on each cheek. I've been doing it for over a month now and I can do my cheeks no problem - BBS. Everything else is still a mess. I can shave with the grain on my neck, but any other pass leads to pretty bad razor burn and it's not a very close shave. I have to finish with my DE. It seems that short strokes help reduce the burn, but there are some parts of my neck I can't reach.

Stropping - I think I'm finally getting it. I got the SRD Premium II, and I also got the learning strop from KRUP. I've only made a small nick or two in each and I'm slowly getting my speed up. I actually like the draw/feel of the cheaper strop - someone once describe proper draw as feeling a vacuum between the blade and strop, and that's what I feel. I think I'm stropping ok - my cheeks don't get razor burn. I lead with the spine but find myself putting press on the tang that forces the edge down closer to the leather - is this dangerous?

1) How can I get better with my neck? Would a preshave oil help? I'm stretching my neck out as far as it can go, but to slide the blade against the grain means dragging it from my ear/jaw down towards my adams apple - and that's freakin difficult to maneuver! The blade tends to drag when I'm near my adams apple - this means I'm going at a bad angle, right?

2) I've always worried that I'm not getting the soap/creamater ratio right. The lathers are all great and frothy, and they spread well - but they seem to dry out on my face quickly. During the second pass I usually have to rub water onto my face, or put more water into the scuttle and whip it up again. I'm soaking my brush for atleast 10mins before lathering.

3) When I used the fusion cartridge my aftershave was (for the last 15 years) Seabreeze. The first time I used a DE I splashed on some SeaBreeze and then screamed just about every profanity I know - it H-U-R-T. The next time I tried good ol' Limes & Peppercorns from Ogallala and it still hurt pretty bad. Now I'm restricted to Dickinsons or Thayers witch hazel - they don't hurt. Am I doing something so wrong that normal ASs won't work?

My setup:
Merkur DE - I can't use the derby's. I found that the feathers work the best for me.
Craftsman SR - awesomely restored by Max - new scales and all.
Strop - SRD Premium II and RupRazor's The Filly.
DirtyBird 1.5 Scuttle - lather is still hot on the last pass.
Creams - Cella, TOBS Avocado, T&H 1805, Trumpers Coconut, Proraso tube and sensitive tub. I could sit and smell the creams all day long - hell, I could eat some of the Trumper's Coconut!!
AS - Ogallala all kinds, Thayers Witch Hazel, Dickinsons, SeaBreeze
AS Cream/Balm - l'Occitane, Earth Science balm, Lucky Tiger, Organic Grooming Dusk, Burt's Bee's. The Earth Science is really affordable and is as cooling/calming as l'Occitane and Lucky Tiger. the last two are merely ok.


I'm sure I'll have a million more questions in the future. Thanks for everyone's help so far!!

John