Shaving without cutting my throat, part two

So, ready for part two of my shaving journey?

I have all my supplies, it's the start of the day, I have whiskers, now what do I do? Well, a quick survey shows that there are many ways to go, but here's the daily routine I've found:

1. Shower and wash: The whole idea here is to wet shave, so showering in hot water is a must. I also make sure to use a facial wash - right now I'm trying Clean Jack's Mint (thanks Target). I don't know if this actually helps, but I truly have lousy skin, so every little bit helps.
2. Shaving oil: Not a lot of folks do this, but after a few filets of the face I found a little lubrication helps. I first tried a dedicated oil with menthol, which was quite nice but didn't last nearly as long as promised. Now I'm trying good, old baby lotion - which seems to have more staying power but leaves me smelling like, well, a baby. Big surprise. Will go for the industrial sized, no scent version next time. Unless I find some manly but affordable alternative, of course
3. Lather up: Now the fun begins. Grab the aforementioned brush and shaving cream and start working up a lather. Originally I would soak the brush in hot water, grab a bit of cream on the tips, and lather directly on my face. However I found that sometimes this resulted in lather that was too thick and dried out while shaving. Now I have a cheap, open cereal bowl (again, Target) that a put a bit of water into and work the lather in. This way I can add water if need be and get a smoother, more slippery result. Warning to newbies, this will seem watery next to cream from a can. Just work up a nice lather with fine soapy bubbles; I like it just opaque enough to cover my skin in white.
4. Short, light strokes: Here's where the learning begins. The classic advice is to only apply the weight of the shaver to the skin at an angle as close to perpendicular as you can find. A bit of a trial and error process. Just remember there things. First, the idea is to slice of a bit of hair; you're going to be making a few passes for a good shaven, so don't even try and get it all off in one stroke. Second, keep the strokes short - whenever I try to make a long stroke more than a half inch or so, blood appears. By keeping the strokes shorter, you can concentrate on the angle of attack for that part of the face. Finally, you'll know a good angle by it's sound. Two shallow and you'll smoothly remove shaving cream but not much else. Too steep and you'll need band aids. So ease into the angle - you'll hear when the whiskers start parting, the just stay in that zone.
5. Repeat: Yeah, this isn't the fastest way to shave, so you end up sacrificing time for quality. I find myself using a minimum of three passes - one with the grain, one across it, and one against it. For the first two passes I choke up pretty high on the razor; luckily there's a little groove where my fingers seem to go. The last pass forces ,e to move my hand down the razor to get the right angle, and suspiciously there's a groove cut there too. Use more lather with each pass, and I also use oil on the second pass (with the baby oil, there seems to be enough residue to skip it on the third try).
6. Splash and moisturize: Okay, time to rinse everything off, including yourself. Switch now from hot to cold water; while the hot water softened the beard and opened the pores, you want to now seal the pores up. So splash away. Now is also a good time to tend to any wounds. Many would reach for the styptic pen, but I'd search Amazon for an alum bar. Basically, it's a block of mineral that you can wet and rub across the face to seal up raw spots. I started using it regularly, but ow that I'm getting accustomed to it all I only reach for it when I feel razor burn threatening. And moisturize at the end - you just finished scraping a layer or two of skin away!

Thats about it. And I honestly assert that the shaves have never been closer, nor lasted as well through the day. Nor is the razor burn as bad; once I feel a bad shave coming (about five to six days on a blade for me), I retire the blade and get a new one. And since it cost pennies rather than dollars, I don't mind retiring a blade at the first hint of trouble. Once you get your technique down, a bad shave usually means a bad blade, so act accordingly.

Furthermore, I do actually enjoy the experience more. That extra bit of time shaving is my time, a time to concentrate on doing one thing slowly and with purpose. While it would be too generous to call it meditative, it does force me to be in the moment, rather than rushing ahead to work or languishing behind in bed. Oh, and the ladies don't mind a smooth face, or at least not the one I'm married to...