Thread: jmreeves journal through SRP

I am going to try and follow suit of some of the others here and hopefully get some thoughts out to help others and also to set of bells and whistles in case I am doing something wrong.

Equipment:
Boars hair brush, walgreens and ugly: $5 bucks
thoughts: wish I had atleast sprung for a $20 dollar badger but it works

walgreens shaving soap:~$1.00
thoughts:Wow what a better feel than gillette foam. Marketing has the world labeled as SUCKERS. That being said I have mamabears soap on order and can't wait to get it.

coffee mug: way to big and hurt my wrist when lathering. ditched it
Ordered a basic $20 dollar mug from SRD. LOVE it

SRD strop and blade set: boker 5/8 king cutter and red 2" strop.~$130(with mug)
thoughts:scroll down

phase I: I initially purchased just a brush and soap and I have been "wet shaving" with disposables for about a month. I will try to recall this month and summarize it.
first week: lather was crap. way to little water and I basically had cake on my face. way to much water the next time and I basically had a big glob of soap over my chin while the rest was bare.

thoughts:this is harder than it looks, hope I can get past this stage. My wrist hurts, surely not everyone else goes through this pain everyday. My wife thinks I am nuts but my 5 yr old now lathers up with me! cool...if only she was a boy.

the biggest issue it seemed was figuring out how much water to leave in the brush. I think I learned alot this last month and have gotten pretty good and making basic lather. I also learned to simply slow down when lathering. mamabears video on her home page really helped my lathering skills.


Phase II: shaving
Ok. I had my first shave yesterday.

Prep: brush soaked in hot water while showering. worked face well in shower with soap and bristle brush.

shave: boker king cutter 5/8". instructions from SRD claims no stropping necessary on first shave. 2 minor cuts that I would label 1 out of 10. I made a pass on both sideburn areas and made a pass on the mustache. I was not able to get the cheek area between sideburns and mustache as I could not figure out the angle. it seemed that I was going to slice my nose off and for some reason my chin just didnt want to line up.

post: C. bigelow aftershave lotion. no burn but wish it wasen't in lotion form as I prefer the "cologne" style aftershave.

thoughts: It helps holding the blade once you realize that the blade can go past 180 degrees. Holy crap this sucker is sharp. Why can't I see my face and I wonder what my blade is doing. Angle? hell Ill be lucky if I can get contact with my face and not cut off limbs...it looked so easy online. Jockey is crazy how do you scoop the mustache, what kind of angle is that?