I've been wet shaving for about a week now. Every day I look forward to my shave, making sure that I give myself plenty of time to get everything just right. I shower first, prep the lather to the best of my abilities using the wet brush method and a bowl or my palm, wash my face with some razorock glycerin pre shave soap, and begin to shave. Usually I make 3-4 passes, WTG (and a second WTG if needed), XTG, ATG. The shaves aren't perfect yet, but they are far better than with the old cartridge razors.

Not today.

Today I still really wanted my shave before work, but getting my kid out the door took longer than expected so I was in a rush. The shower was quick. I tried a new soap sample that I've never used before (Trumpers lime), with a dry brush method, which I've never tried before. The lather was good at first, but partway through the shave I realized that it was apparently too dry. I skipped the glycerin pre-shave to save time.

The shave: First pass was WTG. No major problems there, wasn't paying enough attention to blade angle so I left a couple rougher patches. I got a really good shave in yesterday so I wasn't dealing with a lot of stubble to get rid of. I can skip one pass right? Yeah, let's just skip over that XTG pass and move on to ATG. Shit, that was a bad fucking idea. Time to wash up and apply alum. Oh, that's the burning that people talk about...

Its about 2.5 hours post shave now and my neck still feels raw. Clearly i need to get up even earlier, and give myself plenty of time to get this dialed in right. Don't skip steps until I know I can. Plus, rushing it took all the joy out of the experience.

Lesson learned.