[mlayne]

I shaved down first, then up, then across. My beard grows down on the cheeks and across on the neck and bottom of the chin. I was pretty careful about the angle but I may have used too much pressure. I tried to hold 2/3s of a 45 degree angle and sometimes dropped below that angle. I think a combination of not stropping and too much pressure was the most likely culprit.

I didn't shave Saturday and I think I'll hold off on shaving Sunday until late in the afternoon. We're in Palm Desert this week and I'll be playing golf in the morning so a nice hot shower and then the full on hot towel extravaganza should be ideal. I may go nutz and use some conditioner.

I picked up the Crabtree & Evelyn weekender kit with some very nice Nomad shave cream and balm etc and I have a Caswell & Massey Mach III head razor, a badger brush and Sandelwood soap down here that was a Christmas gift several years ago so I should be ok for supplies. I brought down a shave ready Dovo that I got from Rene in Nederlands (Thanks Rene) and a TM strop (Thanks Tony) so I'll carefully strop that puppy 50-60 times and have at it again. I managed to hang the strop in front of the crapper so I'll have something to occupy my hands.....

I'm gonna try one pass with the grain this time with a lighter touch and see how it goes.

I ended my day sitting on the Patio with a friend smoking a Montecristo and watching the moon over the Santa Rosa mountains. Looks like a great weekend and I hope yours is equally nice. More tomorrow night.

Regards, Mike Layne