Step 3: Shave If you pay attention to what you are doing, this should be an easy and enjoyable process. As noted in a previous blog entry, the most important and greatly overlooked aspects of wet-shaving are the blade angle and the pressure applied on the razor. The shaving blades are also very important. Blades can be sharp, dull, forgiving, smooth, cheap, expensive and overpriced (whenever you have a dull, expensive combination). The sharpest ones are the Japanese Feathers, with the Swedish Gillette's , Derby and Dorco platinum tied for a close second. After that, you have the mild ones: Personna Super +, Astra, Regular Dorco and Treet Platinum. Finally you have the rather dull blades: Merkur, 7A.M, Red Personna, Lord, Sputnik and the list goes on. Here it has to be noted that a sharp blade doesn't necessarily translate into a smooth shave. You can get a good shave with a very mild blade as long as you prepare your beard properly and your stubble is not made of copper wires (I unfortunately, am not as lucky).

Step 4: Clean and Moisturize After you finish shaving, using warm water, you should remove the remaining lather and immediately follow with some cold water to close the pores. Some will use an alum block. They say that it will tell them how good the shave was. I guess the eventual nicks and stubble spots aren't enough proof of a crappy shave. Your skin has to suffer even more from the burning inflicted by the alum block to convince you that your shave sucked. Joking aside, an alum bloc is a very good way of closing the pores and sanitizing your freshly shaved face. Next, you can apply the --sometimes extremely expensive-- balm or aftershave splash. I wouldn't use aftershaves that are very heavy on cologne and alcohol (some alcohol is OK though). This for the simple reason that it will dry and harm your skin.