Hey Cash! I'll give you credit, you stuck with it! The Shave Den now has positive Cash flow! Welcome!
One of my high school english teachers loved to always say that... "Cash or Credit?" Did I mention that my last name really is Cash?
I should probably tell you all some of my shaving background... Like @Bird Lives said in an earlier post I have been wet shaving for a while. My main motivation was to save money on blades, and I had also read an article saying that shaving using a more traditional wet shaving technique was better for your skin and usually resulted in less razor burn and bumps. It sounded way more enjoyable vs. pressurized shave gel and cartridge razors too. I started shopping around for a good DE safety razor and was about to buy a Merkur 34C when instead my wife bought the Merkur Futur set for me for Christmas: That Futur set has been my "shave den" for the most part from 2007 until just a few months ago. Over the years I've tried a few different shaving soaps (Classic Shaving brand, Williams, VDH glycerin based) and one shaving cream (TOBS St. James). I like them all, but generally prefer soap. A couple of years ago I bought some melt & pour shaving soap to experiment with adding different essential oils to try and figure out what fragrance combinations I like the most. Then I got it in my head that I could learn how to make cold process (CP) soap at home and have complete control over what goes into the soap I use to shave. I've made one batch of CP shave soap so far. That is my soap in the above photo. I've never tried a pre-shave oil, and I mostly have not used any aftershave or post shave balm until a few months ago when I decided I wanted some Bay Rum aftershave to go with the homemade Bay Rum scented CP shave soap I had just started using. I went to a drug store and picked up VIBR, and I really like it! Not long after I started using the aftershave I was talking to my neighbor @Bird Lives and he told me about TSD so I came to check it out. This place is really cool. I had no idea there was an online camaraderie of wet shaving like this. I like it, and I have gotten re-inspired by talking to @Bird Lives and looking at some of the threads to start trying out some stuff that I have not already tried. I didn't even know about single edge blades until talking to @Bird Lives and then he PIF'd some to me: Now I can't help, but wonder what all I've been overlooking.
You've been overlooking a lot. By the way, there isn't one wet shaving community, there's about five or six. This one is my favorite, but I also participate at the Shaving Room. It's a U.K. based site, but because of the time difference, people are active on it when I'm posting at 4 in the morning.