I posted information on my first two days in this thread http://straightrazorpalace.com/begin...t-shave-b.html

Today was the third day and came with a small epiphany. I decided to do my stropping last night, mostly because I wanted to play with my new toys. Once done, I took the razor and attempted to shaved some of the hair on one of my knuckles. You guys that only have to shave every three days have NO idea what I'm talking about, but this hair is similar to whiskers. At first, the razor would push the hair back and then cut it off as it scraped across the bent hair. Not really the result I expect. Then I made sweeping "cut" with the razor and the hair came off clean at the skin with no resistance. Ah ha!!

I immediately took the razor to my face and made a similar sweeping cut at the sideburn (yes, completely dry) and the razor glided across my skin and left it slick.

I went to bed looking forward to my shave.

This morning I stuck with the rule I previously laid out, which was no goatee area or neck under it. The difference was incredible. The sweeping motion eased any pressure I had felt on the razor before and the shave was so much easier and much less irritating to my skin. The end result was a decently close shave with no irritation. I even exhibited a little self control and didn't push it. Finished up with the old cartridge and headed to work with almost no razor burn. Sure, there a few missed spots and one tiny nick, but color me stoked!

Am I onto something here, or headed for disaster? When I say "sweeping" I'm talking a bout an almost imperceptable circular motion. Like a circle with a 16" radius. That's sort of what I see the barber doing in the video of the Japanese woman being shaven. The razor seems to sweep across the face rather than drag in straight lines.

--David