I just yesterday afternoon stopped by our neighborhood Rooster's, where I've been getting haircuts for a while now, and let them give me shave as well. It was educational (and fantastic!)

After my cut and wash was done, Anita put a wet towel over my eyes and another wrapped around my face. This was the first of three or four hot towels my face was treated to. Pre-shave oil, some sort of shaving cream applied by hand and I could tell she was taking a lot of time to map out my beard growth pattern or was just giving me a fantastic facial massage. Probably a bit of both.

She shaved me with a cartridge-type razor and made at least two passes, checking her work with her hands as she went. My neck is especially problematic for me but it was for her as well, and some of the bits that I just absolutely can't get BBS no matter how hard I try were still a bit rough when she was finally done too.

More hot towels followed, as did some aftershave cologne, then a moisturizer of some sort that really hung with me for a long while, and a cold towel in there too near the end. Rooster's calls it a 7-step shave and I honestly wasn't counting. I almost fell asleep several times it was so relaxing & restful. When she sat me up at the end, she commented that I had a really coarse beard, which I had suspected but thought it was unlikely to be true and was probably just something I was doing wrong in my honing technique that kept dulling razors. Maybe not. I'll have to read up more around here on how to deal with coarse, tough beards.

So while I would have preferred a shave with a straight, I thoroughly enjoyed every other aspect of having my face shaved by a trained barber. I'd recommend the experience to anyone who has $30 and a Rooster's nearby, or to anyone who doesn't have access to a good barber who still believes in straight razors.