A New Low

I have a much less clear concept of the current segment of my educational journey; from daily DFS, to daily BBS, and beyond.

Using the performance scale from the last post, I'd call figuring out soap formulations (avoiding the glycerin, while retaining quality of scent and oil, and optimizing hydration) at least a seven-point swing, bringing me to a solid B+, 87%. Any inflammation, at this point, could be easily traced to a direct technical cause; the skin condition level was brought up to be comparable to the hair removal.

Which, in turn, allowed a reconfiguration of strokes. Shit got organized. Everything was reliably reduced to skin level on first pass, and all attention could be focused below the skin surface. For the first time, suddenly, I could think about mastery. Every day, going to bed with no stubble. All day, looking hairless. And when I did, there was no turning back. Oddly, it felt less irritating to dry shave, than to leave anything sticking out of my skin. Sometimes, it seems just as harmless as cleaning the back of my neck -- but sometimes, a mark is left. For that mistake: A-, let's say 91%.

So here I am, working on the final touchups, below the jawline each day, and to my technique overall. Just a few more points...

More and Wetter Ways To Cheat

I think I'm correct in thinking that these touchups are the same as they always were, just immature hairs that won't respond to the usual effective attacks, because they aren't well rooted. The majority aren't wrong, when they say that with regard to BBS, let it be: some days you get it, some days you don't. There's a certain level of imprecision in life, that needs to be accounted for and accepted. Until you can't, which is where I'm at.

When I found that plunging the top cap almost straight into my fleshy underjaw picked up more hair, there might have been more going on than a low angle, or the benefit of rubbed-in lather. I think it's been called "scrubbing," when you rub as if the top cap were the operating part, to try and clean the hair off.  This might actually be the equivalent of my standard finishing skim above the skin surface, applied to the shifted frame of reference within the follicle.

Furthermore, just today I noticed that my fundamental injunction against stretching the wrong way, can be safely lifted when working against these final pickups, at the extremely low angle, and with lather rubbed in. Putting it all together, it occurs to me that that's really what the cutting head is doing. It's so damn far pressed into my face, that it can retract the skin with the safety bar, while bringing a steep, high velocity attack into the follicle! Though, from our macroscopic perspective, it looks like a crazy low angle.