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Today I had planned to do a shootout between the red tip and the standard flare tip, but since I'm fighting the beginnings of a sinus infection, I decided to stay home from church today. As such, the worry of showing up looking like I'd been in a fight with a bobcat was alleviated, and the call of the straight razor became stronger and stronger. So, my non-focus focus became a bit unfocused as I went off the trail for another straight razor shave.
Many Straight shave revelations were the result!
1. I tried face lathering for my first pass. Unfortunately this produced lather that was a bit too thick and not slick enough for my liking. Going forward it will be bowl lathering only with straights (at least for the time being).
2. I made the transition from shaving with the goal to "not cut myself" over to the goal of shaving "to remove facial hair". This seems like a subtle mental change. It is not. The results bore that out.
3. This change required me to realize it is OK if I nick or cut myself and recognize that it's just part of the learning process. Shaving to avoid nicks and cuts is an obstacle to learning.
4. Deciding to back down and go for only one WTG pass was also necessary in order to learn. Slowing down and taking it step-by-step is very difficult for me. Although I'm extremely analytical, I'm still kind of a "man the torpedoes", "charge the hill" kind of guy when I take on something new. Deciding to do only a WTG pass and focus on hair removal, allowed me to focus on technique with a very limited group of problems to solve (without adding the problems incurred by shaving in multiple directions at multiple additional angles).
5. Limiting myself to the WTG pass also allowed me to realize that I could do a second WTG pass to double up the learning on this limited group of problems. So, today's shave was two WTG passes with the straight, and an ATG and clean up pass with the red tip. I'm pretty sure I made more progress this way, learning from the first pass and improving a bit on the second pass. The DE on the third pass covered up any errors in hair removal.
6. At the end of three passes I applied lucky tiger AS, and realized I still had some cleanup to do. Remembering
@wchnu's tip about using AS instead of soap for his cleanup paid off here with great results.
Was there irritation from the first two passes? You betcha! Do I have a lot to learn to properly shave my chin area? Yeah buddy! Were there nicks involved? Affirmative! Was all this worth it it for the advanced education of today's shave? Yes Sir!
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