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The challenge

Marco

B&B's Man in Italy
This morning I wanted a good shave and I had at my disposal no shaving brush, no shaving soap/cream and no quality blade. But again, I wanted a good shave. I woke up at 5:30 AM and at 6:30 AM already was in the hospital to stay with Joey, my baby born five days ago. I spent the entire day in the hospital, until 10:30 PM. I was allowed to see my son only at certain hours and, therefore, had a lot of “free time” with nothing to do. My wife, who is also in the hospital these days, had in her beauty case a Lavender bar soap and a Gillette Sensor 3 disposable razor. These were the sole tools at my disposal. But, after almost 17 years of wet shaving and over 5,000 DE/straight shaves under my belt, I was confident in my skills and wanted to accept the challenge. Hence, I went in my wife’s bathroom and got ready to shave. First of all I gave my beard the best prep possible, running the whiskers under the hottest water I could stand for about three minutes. Then, I soaped my face abundantly with the bar soap and started to “lather” the soap using the fingers of both my hands. With roughly two minutes of vigorous circular motion I tried to emulate the lifting/softening action of a shaving brush, taking care to move my fingers XTG and ATG. No thick, creamy lather was actually built, but on the face it felt pretty slick. After that, I took the disposable razor and shaved. I proceeded super slowly and with a super light touch, as when using a straight razor. The first pass was WTG and XTG, the second pass was ATG. After the shave a refreshing cold water rinse. It was all good and I was satisfied. My friends, this experience does teach a lesson. You really do not need expensive brushes, luxurious soaps or decorated razors in order to get a quality shave. You simply need to learn a proper shaving technique and do the best you can. The most powerful tools are those you gain with time, practice and knowledge. And the greatest challenge is the one you are able to face and win against yourself.
 
You are right that experience and technique are the most important tools we have, and not just for shaving, Marco! On the other hand I am also very happy I don't have to shave day in and day out with the set-up you described! Luckily there are a lot of affordable products that will provide for a shave just as good as with the fanciest stuff though.

I hope all is going well with your wife and son!
 
Marco,

Cordiali felicitazioni per la nascita della vostra splendida creatura.

I hope Joey's beard grows in one direction!
 
Five days and your son is still in the hospital -- I sincerely hope he isn't sick with something. Here in the US mothers take their children home from the hospital after staying less than 48 hours.

Marco, I wish you the best as you start your new life with your wife and son. May he come home soon and grow up healthy.
 
Congratulazioni Marco! Now you will have additional time to further explore the mastery of brushless shaving during night time when your wife returns home. Which I hope will be very soon. :001_smile
 
Great post Marco. Hope your wife and son are doing well and return home soon. Thankfully the hospital is only 10 minutes from my house so I could sneak home to shave when my son was born.
 
Before I made the switch to wet shaving it was a mach 3 and water for all my shaves and I always got bbs without razor burn. Never experienced any burn till switching to a de in fact.
 
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