Wednesday... better - SOTD

Well, I gave my face a rest before trying again and it seems to have paid off. Although, I switched two things... actually, more than two things, but two major things that I think attributed to my pain on Sunday. Instead of the Merkur Vision 2000 and its Merkur Super Platinum blade, I chose to try my new (to me) Gillette Fat Boy and I also decided to try a Personna blade in it.

I decided a two-pass shave was in order, again to let me face rest a bit. At first I set the Fat Boy on 1, the least aggressive setting for the razor, but it hardly seemed to cut the hairs at all. I was being very mindful of blade angle this time, but it almost seemed easier with the Fat Boy razor head than it did with the Vision. I'm starting to think that the Vision should be put in my closet until I start to master my shaves, and only then be brought out again.... but I honestly think I did too many things wrong in the past with that razor. For one, I think I may have adjusted the razor too aggressively... partly by accident, partly because I thought I needed to get a bit more aggressive. The problem I have with the Vision is that the adjustment knob does not click solidly into different blade angles, but rather turns with infinite degrees. For a beginner such as myself, this is not helpful. I am sure that once I am an expert I will enjoy this ability... but for now I see myself as too green and too stoopid (being aggressive too soon, etc). So I am going to put it away for a while... besides, I really like my new Fat Boy.

The shave was truly wonderful, and I LOVE the feel of the Fat Boy in my hand and guiding it around my face at all the angles... better than both the Vision and Super Speed (so far). It never "got in the way" of trying to get the right angles and felt easy to use. And the girth of the handle and weight were equally wonderful. In addition, it gracefully glided over my skin with ease, but I think this had more to do with the following things:

1. Blade angle - I made an effort to hold the blade more parallel with the area of my face I was shaving instead of dragging the blade across my skin.
2. For my lather, I did not use the Super Lather, but rather just chose to use the Proraso shaving cream.
3. I diluted the Proraso Pre shave cream MUCH more this time. I'm not sure if this had an impact.
4. The Personna blade - I am wondering if the Merkur Super Platinum blades are just too sharp or something. This feeling may have more to do with the next bullet.
5. Lower blade setting - I think this had the most to do with it. The blade was very close to razor, so it was practically impossible to drag across my skin.

Anyway, not going for the closest shave had a lot to do with it I'm sure. Only two passes, so I wasn't really killing myself. I only did a WTG and XTG trying to get perpendicular to the grain as much as possible in all areas.

I had read some stuff on the shaving forums and found that some people really enjoyed the Proraso Pre/Post cream as an aftershave. I realized the alum block was causing the cream to damn near curdle, and THAT was why I didn't like it at all. Plus, this time when I applied it as a pre-shave cream and diluted it a lot with water I saw that I could definitely like it as an aftershave... so I decided NOT to use the alum block since I wasn't going for an aggressive shave, and try the Proraso cream very diluted as an aftershave. I liked it quite a bit... but I still felt like I needed a moisturizing ASB and used my AoS Lemon ASB which makes my face feel nice and supple.

Equipment:

• Gillette Fat Boy
  
• Personna blade
  
• Proraso Pre-shaving Cream (before first pass only, diluted by having very wet face and using less cream, let sit for about 2 minutes)
• Proraso (green) Shaving Cream (before first pass I let it sit on for about 2 minutes)
• Edwin Jagger Super Badger Brush
• Pinaud Clubman Liquid Nick Relief
  
• Proraso Post-shaving Cream as an aftershave
• Art of Shaving Lemon Aftershave Balm