Had my 7th shave tonight, probably took me about an hour.

tl;dr version:
Razor: John Williams Damascus Sheffield. 3rd shave with it.
Stropping: 50 on the linen, 100 on the leather.
Beard prep: Using MWF. Lather in shower, conditioner, lather post shower, relather a few times during shave.
Shave: Better stretching, experimenting with opposite hand, left chin alone as still has some shave rash.
Issues: Lather is drying out, razor seems to dull down by end of shave.

Reader's digest version:
All right. GF (girlfriend) is off at work, last shave was 2 days ago, so time to go at it again. I decide to stick with my John Williams, give it a solid stropping and see what I can do with it. It doesn't quite have the edge the dovo does, as the razor is about 100 years old and the dovo is brand new and honed by Lynn. It still has a decent edge (I've been looking closely under a lens) so I want to see what I can do with it. I know my stropping technique needs work (which newb's technique doesn't?) so I really focus on my grip and keeping the right pressure. I gave my strop 100 hand strokes to warp it up first, and then go to town. I think I may be pulling the strop a bit hard, as that hand gets tired after a bit. Mostly I'm focusing on my grip and proper pressure as I strop. I find that as I start a stroke, I'm not quite done with the rolling of the razor, and since I bring the edge down softly it doesn't actually make contact with the strop until I'm half way threw the stroke. I feel I'm getting the pressure right so instead of trying to get it contacting faster, I just do extra strops to make sure its done proper.

Stropping done, I gather my equipment. Boil some water and put it in my scuttle and let my brush soak while I hop in the shower. I shampoo my hair, and rub some in by beard as well. Rinse that out, grab my badger brush, whip up some MWF lather and work it in my face for a few minutes. I then rinse it off and rub the conditioner in by hand really good and let that sit while I proceed to wash the rest of my body. Last thing I do in the shower is rinse the conditioner off well, I hop out, dry off, get some pants on and start to work up the lather again.

I'm unsure if I'm really working the lather up properly. I tend to get a good bunch of lather in my bowl quickly and start working it into my face, where the lather really thickens up. Problem is, the lather seems to be drying on my face within a few minutes. By the time I'm done with my right cheek, the left side (while still lathered) seems to not be as moist. So next time I'm going to try and make a wetter lather and see how that holds up. I ended up relathering more frequently, not because the lather was gone, but it simply didn't feel wet. I added some water to the lather and worked it around with the brush, but it still seemed to dry out quickly. I also noticed that as time went on, more of the shaving scum was sticking to my razor and that it wasnt' easy to rinse off. I got it off with light stropping on the towel, but I think that is a sign that my lather really wasn't wet enough. I may try the Kissmyface soap next time and see if that holds the water better.

So anyway, to the shave. I think my angle really has been closer to 45 degrees than 30 degrees, so I really lower it down. Keeping a super light touch and making short strokes with the super stropped John Williams gave me a nice clean shave. As before, the short strokes allowed me to more frequently adjust the hand I used to stretch my skin and this equated to a better shave. Another thing I did different was use the opposite hand for my lower cheek. This didn't necessarily give me better control over the razor (wasn't really worse either), but what it did allow me was better stretch of the skin.

I've been adopting the attitude that of each aspect of the shave, I can make it better. Before I was thinking, "my skin is tight enough this way," but now I'm trying to figure out ways to get it tighter. I thought I had a light touch before, but now I'm really trying to have that razor barely touch my skin. I figure I can get complacent and think that I'm doing good enough, or I can take the attitude that there is always room for improvement. Of the two, the former will get me no-where, the latter will make me better.

I did my whole face except the chin, which still had some remnants of the shaving rash (read here). I started to work around the bottom lip a little, as I did shave the top lip and thought it would be a shame to have a stubbly bottom lip for kissing the lady.

I also noticed that the razor seemed to be dulling by the end. It was getting a bit catchy at times. In that other thread I was advised to keep the shave comfortable, that its when it is uncomfortable that your are doing damage to your skin. So I just took my time and just made tiny strokes getting just a few hairs at a time. There is a desire to want that ultra sharp edge that will simply slice threw all hair in one whack, but the reality is I don't have the skill to keep that kind of edge for the whole shave, so by the time I get to my lips I need to just take it easy. This realization put me at ease and I was able to finish up comfortably, even though I had to take more time. By this time I was also adding lots of water to my lather, and having to relather a lot.

So anyway, I finish up around my lip and rinse off with nice cold water. I gave my razor a good drying with tissue paper, then gave it a quick 25 on the linen, 25 on the leather to make sure the edge was free of moisture and/or shaving remnants. I splashed on the bay rum (OUCH!) and sat down to write my update.

I did think of an analogy though that I feel is apt. In the past, I have spent a lot of time painting buildings. There is a saying in the painting business that 95% of a job is prep, and the last 5% is the actual painting. It seems the same applies to shaving. While good technique during the shave is of course important, it is more important that you have prepped well before hand; A razor properly honed and stropped, good lather with a good soap and brush, softened beard hair from a nice shower or hot towel. The shave itself is what we all look forward to, but we cannot ignore or rush through the foundation of a good shave to get to it.

So, till next time!
Lather well my friends