I love the feeling of a nice smooth shave. That's main reason why I stick with my DE razor and try new blades and products. A perfect 10/10 for me would be BBS with zero nicks, weepers, irritation, or missed areas. Ideally I'd want that every time, but that's obviously unrealistic, especially as a relative noob. I can get a CCS with no weepers and minimal irritation if I skip going ATG. Or if I go ATG, I can get (depending on the blade) a BBS or DFS, but with a few or lots of weepers, varying degrees of irritation, and usually but not always still imperfect on either side of my Adam's apple.
So what I'm wondering, from experienced DE shavers, is how often you're able to achieve an irritation-free BBS shave? 90% of the time? 10%? What's a reasonable expectation for when I get good at this? How long (weeks/months/years) did it take you to get to that point? And how much time does a typical shave take? (For all this I mean when you put the time into doing it right, not the days when you have to just get it done quick to get to work or whatever.)
Finally, how much of it is the products you use (razor, blade, cream/soap, brush) versus just technique? Obviously technique is important, I'd like to think I'm better than when I started, but certainly have some ways to go. I'm not likely to buy another razor any time soon unless there's a good case to be made that my Henson is what's holding me back. I've tried 8 different blades and have been surprised that I could tell quite a difference, mostly with irritation/weepers but also with closeness. I've only tried a couple of creams so far and am thinking about what to buy next, but don't want to put too much effort there if that's just a marginal difference.
That's more questions than I planned when I started typing, but thanks in advance!
So what I'm wondering, from experienced DE shavers, is how often you're able to achieve an irritation-free BBS shave? 90% of the time? 10%? What's a reasonable expectation for when I get good at this? How long (weeks/months/years) did it take you to get to that point? And how much time does a typical shave take? (For all this I mean when you put the time into doing it right, not the days when you have to just get it done quick to get to work or whatever.)
Finally, how much of it is the products you use (razor, blade, cream/soap, brush) versus just technique? Obviously technique is important, I'd like to think I'm better than when I started, but certainly have some ways to go. I'm not likely to buy another razor any time soon unless there's a good case to be made that my Henson is what's holding me back. I've tried 8 different blades and have been surprised that I could tell quite a difference, mostly with irritation/weepers but also with closeness. I've only tried a couple of creams so far and am thinking about what to buy next, but don't want to put too much effort there if that's just a marginal difference.
That's more questions than I planned when I started typing, but thanks in advance!