Sunday's disaster - SOTD

I can admit it... I'm an idiot some times. For Sunday's shave, being that I was going to have a pleasant night with my lovely wife (rare opportunity with 4 active kids), I wanted to get the closest shave EVER! Doh!

To start out, I still had a little razor burn on my upper lip from Saturday's shave (truth be told, my upper lip has been very tender ever since I shaved my goatee off... it has had hair on it with no razor contact for over 10 years, so I can understand it being shocked lately), but it wasn't really that bad. I had a few ingrowns, but all in all I wasn't in too bad of shape. Today, I thought, I'm going against the grain for the ultimate BBS shave... stoopid.

I kept to my technique that I have been following this past week which was working well for me. Essentially identical to Saturday's shave as far as equipment and technique, but I decided to put in a brand new Merkur Super Platinum blade to avoid nicks and tugging. I'll spare you the boring (by now) prep and lather babble (again, it was just like Saturday's). Instead of WTG, XTG, XTG, XTG cleanup heavy areas, stop... I decided to go WTG, XTG, XTG, ATG. I was trying to use very little pressure, but I found that, especially on the ATG pass, the razor was skipping and hopping a lot. I thought a new blade would cure this, but my guess is (now) my face just wasn't ready for how aggressive I was getting with my razor path in conjunction with the growth of my hair. The blood started flowing from a lot of areas.

After it was over, while my face and neck were very smooth with no stubble, everything was very red... especially my upper lip! In fact, almost 48 hours later and my upper lip is still bright red and there is discomfort. I am going to need to possibly give my face a 3rd day off or more just to let it heal from the razor burn. Whew... I hope I don't make this mistake again.

Though... one thing popped into my head today (also after foraging some of the newbie forums)... I wonder if part of the problem is the Merkur Super Platinum blades?? I mean, I don't think I EVER have gotten a shave yet without at least 2-3 nicks, and that's without going against the grain. I kept blaming my technique and prep, but I may just try a different blade and possibly even razor (one of my new Fat Boy's), but changing too many things really is not scientific at all or at least impossible to tell which made the difference. I do want to try my Fat Boy though. ;-)