Pre-shave: Brush into hot water. Teasp of water on the Taylor Lavender soap. Self into hot shower. Shave: Ole stinky (the brush) produces copious amounts of lather with negligible effort. Obviously the instructional vids are excellent and well worth the time. Merkur 23C and Crystal blade do a credible job. Three passes and baby butt smooth except for right neck under the jaw. No idea what happened there. Shave the same direction twice? Maybe. Tried a fourth pass under the neck against the grain (up), bad idea. Very bad idea. Razor burn city. I can see this under the neck, upside down, against the grain is an unnatural act and will take considerable practice to master. Post-shave: Problems encountered were mainly due to years of flying through a shave with a trac 2 while operating on automatic pilot. Slowing down and a bit of practice should help with razor burn. Overall I call it a success.
Sounds like you're doing well. It can take some time before things just "feel right". Keep at it, and I bet things will fall into place. Don't feel the need to push yourself all the way to the absolute perfect shave while you're feeling things out.
Once you have achieved that Perfect shave, totally comfortable and completely smooth, it will be a Red letter day for you, and it will happen. Then you can wrack your brain the following day to try and remember exactly what and how you did it just the day before. Sometimes it works, sometimes not, but it's sure fun trying! Then you will hit a 2 or 3 day success and you say, "Viola!". Then the AD kicks in and you begin all over. Enjoy!
