What Common Wet Shaving Techniques don't work for you?

Shower first, or apply a hot towel to your face before shaving. I get more weepers and irritation if I do either. Instead a quick face wash with soap, and cool water, face lather with cool water, shave with cool water gives me the best shave.
What have you found thru trial and error that works better than the usual reccommendations for wet shaving?

 

I'll say that blooming my soap doesn't really do anything for me. Maybe super hard soaps but even then don't see the big deal.

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Shaving with Astra blades ;-)

 

I've been a face latherer and/or canned foam user for about as long as I've been at this, 6+ years now. Early on, there were a few (not on this board) who seemed dead serious that those preferences (and they ARE preferences!) as just plain wrong -- if you used no brush, mug or scuttle, you somehow weren't a "true" wetshaver. Same attitude popped up from time to time about various carts. But I've been glad in recent years that that kind of attitude, against all mere matters of preference, has largely fallen by the wayside.

(personally I've never understood people who identify WHO they are by WHAT they do...even when something as relatively insignificant as shaving...so anyone who chooses to do differently from what they do, somehow calls their very personhood and identity into question. Anyway, that's what I've always suspected lies at the root of such narrowness...either that or unscrupulous shills who are trying to drum up business for this or that product at the expense of other products. It happens.)

 

I don't know that pre shave oil helps my shave at all. I use it a fair amount in the winter, but my skin is so dry this time of year I also dunk my head in fryer grease for a post shave.

I seldom use it in the warmer weather and I really don't notice.

 

Using Alum.
It actually increases my irritation. I appreciate the feedback it gives me, but it just doesn't seem to jive with my skin.

 

I have given up on the bowl, soaking my brush, and hot water.

 

What doesn't work for me and where my preferences lie are two distinct things. The longer I am at this, the more I realize that hardware and software choices really dont matter all that much. I can get a good shave from just about any razor/blade/soap/ etc I try (some may take a slight adjustment). Of course I have preferences, but I can't really thing of much that doesn't actually work.

 

Croap stropping is also overrated, imo.