shave update

I thought I'd do a quick update of the shaving today.

Last time I posted I think I was basically at the stage of using the DE blade, doing the prescribed 3 passes for each shave.

Well I'm not currently doing that.  Unfortunately the results were not all I'd hoped for and the time issue became a real pain.

I mean, the results were okay - I could get a reasonable shave doing the 3 passes (with, across and against the grain) - the problem was that it was giving me a lot of razor burn.  I'm not sure of the root cause of this - when I did with and across I was getting little burn, but then I wasn't getting a particularly close shave.  As soon as I added against the grain I got lots of burn (a lot more than with my Mach3), though the shave was acceptably closer.

It could of course be technique, but I was rather unsure how to really improve the technique.  It worked okay with 2 passes, but not with the third one.  Also I found that adding the third pass seemed to eat through the blades - if I used them for 3 shaves I would get nicks.  Now, to be fair, this is not a new phenomenon, as my beard is so tough it basically kills any blade.  However, it did mean that the cost wasn't quite as much of an improvement as it could have been.

The other issue was time - it was taking ages to do 3 passes.  2 took long enough, but adding in the third meant it seemed to take a small ice age.  I actually tried switching so that I just did across and against, but this gave poor results (yet still with burn!).

As such, I have basically switched back to my Mach3.  I still do a 3-pass DE shave on Sunday mornings when I have plenty of time and can take a very long shower to help soften the beard further.

I may still have another go at the DE blade, but for now I'm happy with the Mach 3.

What I think the DE shaving experiment has done is improve my technique.  The additional beard prep and just generally how I hold and manipulate the blade and the way in which I shave my face has been considerably improved, I think.