4th and 5th: I'm totally addicted
So, you stay up late at night, night after night. Try to read all you can, see all the reviews, dream of more razors, preferably the pretty and expensive ones. You faceturbate a lot, and worst of all, you have to let everybody now how smooth you shave :mexwave:
You find out there's more to it than just a simple razor and a brush with soap. redneck scuttle, moss scuttle, schwarzweiskeramik scuttle? Dang, I need to have it all, but then again, I'm doing fine at the moment with my $3 ikea bowl :)
I just can't wait till my next shave, even though my face lets me know it's probably better to wait another day. Too bad for my face, it's not the face that's in control, but me. So out comes the razor, slap the thing to the strop, lather up and get ready for the ride.
It's absolutely an awesome experience and I'm thinking about the next one the moment the current one finishes.
my 4th was good, not as good as the third though and I could feel that my skin was getting too much of a good thing. I did a cold shave again. I had to be very careful because my daugher was walking around the room singing and dancing, a big distraction. But even though this goes against everybody's advice, I did not get rid of 'the distraction' and it worked out fine. The neck was protesting going ATG. So I took it easy and for the first time used alum all over the place before putting on the aftershave balm. Nice feeling.
In the meantime, between the 4th and the 5th I'm constantly on the brink of buying new stuff. I actually bought all of the proraso line from preshave to aftershave between the 3d and 4th shave :)
So now I'm looking at more strops (as I said, I love sharpening), razors by thiers issard (which I plan on getting anyway), mugs etcetera etcetera. So much cool stuff to choose from.
Today was supposed to be my shaving day off. But since I'm at home all day today, I just couldn't resist. I bought some glycerine at the pharmacist yesterday and was dinking around a littlebit with a soap bar by "de vergulde hand" and the proraso, making about 4 lathers to practice a bit. Adding the glycerine inspired me to just shave anyway :)
Another very nice shave. The lather is great, but I'm not sure the glycerine helps, the proraso is thick and creamy without glycerine also. I bought a metal bowl at the ikea for a couple of bucks and put it in hot water to get the feeling of hot lather. I found out about this while checking out the diverse scuttles out there. Warm lather is very nice, another good new experience. As probably everybody does, I started with the cheeks which has a very high 'quick gratification' factor. Then for the more difficult parts, the chin, which I find goes well when I do it XTG and the moustache. Even though I put the blade against the skin just a tiny instant, it cut me above the upper lip. But the rest went beautiful. Long strokes seem to be part of my skillset now, and quick strokes are good for around my adam's apple.
I tried the trick where you backtrack with the blade against the skin so you smear the lather from the blade back on that spot. That definitely helped me to pick a spot multiple times. Very nice trick! My skin didn't feel sore after the shave and thanked me after a double niveau balm treatment. I seem to get the hang of it to get my cheeks verrry smooth.
Tomorrow is my older brother's party and of course, I can't go if I'm not cleanly shaven ;) So I'm already looking forward to both events.
I have to admit it gentlemen: I'm totally addicted to str8 shaving!!!
