Thread: After a month...

Good Morning, All,

Figured that I'd kind of report my experiences so far back to the group, along with what has worked for me (and NOT worked), in the hopes that it will help someone else:

1: As much as I wish I could take the time to do a half an hour shave every morning, I have to rush along on work mornings. It is possible to do a nice, comfortable shave in about 10 - 15 minutes.

2: Work on yer lather. Experiment. For me, I'm still trying to find a balance between making the lather wet enough that it doesn't dry on my face, yet still creamy enough to lubricate correctly. As of now, I'm leaning towards making a creamy lather, and just re-lathering frequently.

3: Holding the razor - Paraphrazing JimmyHAD's signature: It's much easier to hold the razor too tightly than too loosely. Plus, one of the things that I've learned from my martial arts studies - if your muscles are tight or tense, it is impossible to exercise fine motor control over those muscles. They HAVE to be relaxed if you're going to be able to exercise fine control over your razor.

4: Shaving - This is the one area where, so far, I disagree with Lynn's video. He suggests switching hands when going from one side of your face to the other, but I guess I'm just too strongly right-handed to be comfortable in switching hands to shave the left side of my face. Amusingly enough, I frequently get a better shave (particularly ATG) on the left side of my face using my right hand than I do on the right side of my face.

Also, I've noticed that it is possible to shave too closely, which surprised me. I've had to dial it back a little bit on the bottom of my chin, as, if I actually try to take it all the way down to BBS, I get a lot of irritation later on that day as the hairs start to grow and break the skin again.

As a corollary to that: when I started, I was trying to go all the way down in one pass. Don't try it. I'm now shaving every day (and wishing my beard would grow faster so I could practice more), and I usually do two full passes on the cheeks, and 3 (or more) on the chin.

5: And this was a surprise for me - Clear the scents with the spouse. After a couple of weeks, I found that I needed some sort of aftershave cream, as my face was getting a little irritated. I ordered some of the Truefitt & Hill Sandalwood Aftershave balm from SRD, and I loved both the texture of the cream itself, how it made my face feel, and the fragrance. However, after I wore it the first time, I was shot down in flames by my wife. It seems that the fragrance reminded her of a scent an ex-boyfriend of hers used to wear. So, she's willing to bear with me until the bottle's done, but I'll have to find something else after that.

Continuing to experiment...

Brian