Part 2: Art of shaving

Wetshaving gives you more effective shaves and better looking skin. The hot water opens the pores of your skin and relaxes your facial muscles, and it softens your whiskers for more effective cutting. Believe it or not, but your whiskers are tougher than the edge of a razor blade, and shaving “dry”, or mostly dry as with the vast majority of shaving creams, foams, and gels on the market, means you’re literally tugging on each and every hair on your face instead of neatly slicing it at the skin’s surface and moving on without irritating your skin. The key to proper wetshaving is keeping your face as wet as possible at all times during the shave. Even if you keep your current tools and routine, you’ll marvel at how much closer and more comfortable shaving can be when you keep your face hydrated at all times with lots of hot (not scalding) water. the basic tools you need for wetshaving?
A shaving brush isn’t just a paint brush for your face. A good brush – and the best brushes are made of badger hair and start at $25 – absorbs hot water and then, after you dip the tip of the brush into your tub (yes, not a can, but a tub – I’ll explain later) the brush releases and mixes the hot water with the shaving cream as you skim the brush back and forth across your face and neck in and up-down motion. The combination of hot water mixing with the cream and getting beaten by the brush all over your face delivers a thicker, richer, more emollient lather that’s impossible to get with your fingers alone. A shaving brush also gently exfoliates, or removes the dead skin, from your face before shaving, which gets rid of anything coming between the blade and your whiskers. Finally, the up-down brushing lifts your whiskers and suspends them standing upright in the thick lather, which exposes the maximum whisker length to your blade as it skims