Fact check: my young son is home sick from school. "Not good" stroked against the grain, he says. Oh, well. I'm the adult, and I know better. Even so, I guess I won't really know about the skin condition until tomorrow. Last time I went "all the way," I set myself up for a week of terrible shaves, as cornifications and chin weepers struggled to heal.
Once again, the fundamentals were brought under revision, and the primary result this time is, I'm ditching XTG once and for all. The function of catching oddly-directed hairs, a sort of preliminary "pick-up" pass before going ATG, isn't necessary, because I'm stroking two ways on pass 1, and getting the reduction done, everywhere. Both strokes are WTG, in terms of tension alignment, but skewed differently. What some might describe as "x" or "+" strokes.
Besides, I've long known that XTG just doesn't jibe with tension alignment theory. Some skewed strokes ATG might accidentally be directed to have that appearance; but a true, square XTG stroke is inherently inefficient. The hair will twist instead of being cut, until it is forced against the skin, at a bad, middling angle, exfoliating to excess.
Reduction continues within the follicles, ATG, on second pass. Here, the last stroke is square, to get the full depth, and only the first stroke is skewed. But it's a very similar approach. You might say that I'm doing the equivalent four passes in all, just using less lather; so, no surprise I got all the hair. The benefit of shaving on slick residue instead of lather is that the I only have to think about the direction of growth once per pass, and after the first stroke, I can feel it clearly. The most dangerous strokes are thus the most accurate.
Preshave "Milk"
I mixed Dollar Tree "Body Prescriptions" cream with flaxseed extract, and it actually did seem to do a number on the hair. I tried to protect the skin from swelling up by doing the lather (Arko) preshave first, loading the skin with soap. I don't know, the glycerin still might have been a bit too active. In retrospect, I kind of threw everything at my skin today, including Skin Bracer (menthol). I definitely had a bit of acute burning in the mid-morning interval. (Which is four in the afternoon for me, since I tend to shave before picking kids up from school.)
Victory over Armpits
If this whole God of Shaving thing doesn't pan out, I can at least claim dominion over stinky shirts. For the first time in as long as I can remember, without having done any dirty activity, I had to change shirts because of the filth accumulating on the outside. Like, dust, kitchen slop, sneeze debris... and that never happens.
It was not the glycerin-based, Humphreys antiperspirant formula, just alum and coconut oil. The non-aqueous nature of the oil made it plain that alum has to go down first, on a freshly washed armpit. Then, to my surprise, the oil/splash mix was stripped right off the hand. I think it makes for a particularly uniform and effective film, even if not as artificially durable. I've updated the "best tricks" disquisition accordingly.
Cartoon Fans
"Goodbye, Krabby Patty" promises scathing social commentary on the corporation-cum-person and cultural degradation. Premieres 7 p.m. ET on Nickelodeon.
So far, so good: nothing sprung up but more hair, and it took nearly 24 hours before it got far enough to shave. Today I made a bit of mess omitting EdT from the post-shave application of coconut oil to my face, because then my hands were all oily, and I had to pick up the bottle then.
ReplyDeleteI eventually realized that the title line actually belonged to Zeus in Clash of the Titans. The image of Poseidon wielding his power is what stuck in my mind, though. Did he say nothing? "Awaken," perhaps?