Steve,

When I heard you express frustration with your shave routine the other night, I thought of a fella I ran into some years back. His name was Charles Roberts; he created shaving products and sold them in his store at 6th and Congress. He has since passed on but his YouTube videos are still up.

His method of shaving developed a small following around the country and he said people came from all over to buy his products. They were certainly the best (and most expensive) shaving products I ever used. He kept trying to get me "back in the lab" where he could "show me what's really going on". I never went into his lab, wherever that was, but I did spend several hours chatting with him over a few years and my mornings are better now because of it.

I now shave with oil and cream. Shave oils are common these days, but I use Jason brand vitamin E oil because it sounds like it's good for the skin and is available at HEB. The bottle of shaving cream I've been using is Burt's Bees. It was ok, but I'm trying a different type when I run out. I apply oil first, then cream and put hot water on my razor.

The thing is the razor. You're only supposed to shave each patch of skin 4 or 5 times per day, tops. If your razor head has 5 blades, that's 5 times per pass! So I use a double edge razor. I order Feather Platinum blades on Amazon and replace them every other day. I think it costs much less than the fancy blades from the store, but the razor itself might have been 80 bucks 15 years ago.

Anyway, here are some videos of Charles teaching you how to shave. 

Mastering Method Shaving: Cutting Form 1

Mastering Method Shaving: Cutting Form 2

Mastering Method Shaving: Cutting Form 3

I have a little recovery bit I do with a shaving analogy. I'd love to hear what you think of it sometime.

-Wil