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I've been going through this weird Queen/Bowie deja vu thing lately.

It started a few days ago when New York's new "Jack" format radio station played the Queen/Bowie song "Under Pressure", a song I haven't heard in years and which I'm pleased to say I can finally enjoy again without thinking about "Ice, Ice Baby".

Then later that same day my mother-in-law's over for dinner and she's talking about the Live 8 concerts, and how none of the acts she watched on TV were as good as when Queen and Bowie teamed up at the original Live Aid to sing "Under Pressure".

Then Saturday, beloved wife and I were out with some friends of ours, and our friend Amy recounted a tale, apropos of nothing, of sharing the same masseuse with the model Iman years ago, and hearing Bowie's voice on the answering machine when it picked up during her massages. So she's listening to Bowie call her masseuse to reschedule his wife's appointment, and at the same time, the masseuse is applying pressure all over her back. Pressure. Bowie. And who in history has probably gotten the most massages of anyone? The Queen of England. Yes, the Queen.

What does all of this have to do with shaving? Well, I have a confession to make. Even though I've always repeated the standard wetshaving boilerplate "when shaving with a DE safety razor, use no downward pressure, and let only the weight of the razor rest upon your skin as you guide it across your face", I haven't totally followed my own advice.

Yes, Dear Reader, I press down on the razor. It's wrong, I know. But what is "wrong" in a world gone mad, I ask you? What's a little English applied to the blade on your face? I mean, isn't this whole wetshaving trip supposed to harken back to Merry Ol' anyway? So applying a bit of English should be a good thing, right?

Hey, it's not like I'm leaning on it with all my might and scraping my skin like I'm removing an old "Live To Ride, Ride To Live" bumper sticker off my car. I just push down a little bit, is all.

See, when I first started learning how to shave with a double-edge razor, I followed the stock advice not to apply any pressure to the blade whatsoever, and my first batch of shaves were mediocre at best. Lots of visible stubble remained no matter how many passes I did. I followed the Shavegeek Elders' orders, but all I got were terrible shaves.

So I started pressing down a little bit. And my shaves began to dramatically improve. Now I could get a super close, super smooth shave, just by applying enough pressure on the blade to force it to cut through the mini redwoods on my face forest. I was heartened to watch Straightrazorplace.com's Lynn Abrams' video and see him clearly pressing down pretty forcefully on his cut-throat razor as he demonstrated how to shave with it. I figured if a He-Man like Lynn was down with blade pressure, how bad could it really be to shave like that with a DE? So that's how I've been shaving all this time, and getting great results.

Then I decided to try the new brushless Cremo Cream, which is about as different from a traditional English shaving cream as Freddie Mercury is from Dick Cheney. This super-slick, super-effective cream makes my shaves so easy they're almost too easy -- the razor glides over my face like it's not even making contact, without the slightest bit of friction, and the Cremo even seems to mute the sound of the whiskers getting cut, too, ehancing the eerie sensation of nothing going on. But then you rub your puss afterward and marvel at the baby tushy shave Cremo leaves you with.

Shaving with the Cremo for a week seems to have had an effect on not just my shaves, but my technique. I noticed today, for the first time, that I'm not applying nearly the amount of pressure to the razor on my face as I've been all this time. For the first time since the very beginning of this whole wetshaving thing, I'm actually shaving the way I recommend to every newbie I talk to -- without any pressure, just letting the weight of the razor do all the work. And the kicker is, my shaves have never been better.

I wanted to see if the no-pressure technique worked with a regular cream and not just Cremo, so today, for the first time, I shaved with just the weight of the razor pressing down on a lather bed of Taylor's rose shaving cream. The Taylor isn't quite as slick and glidey as the Cremo, especially when you use Cremo with a brush, but it's plenty lubricating.

I let the weight of my Merkur HD razor be the only pressure bearing down on my skin, and I got the very best shave I've ever enjoyed from this rose shaving cream. As with the Cremo, I didn't feel like I was really accomplishing anything with such a light touch, but when I rinsed off with cold water at the end, my face was so smooth I couldn't feel any stubble anywhere, even under my chin.

Now, my Merkur HD is a somewhat aggressive razor. Its fixed-head geometry shows more bare blade than the old fixed-head Gillette DEs, so maybe it's better suited to the abosultely-no-pressure shaving technique I've described. I'll try using my Gillette DEs, both fixed and adjustable, and see if they shave as closely with no added pressure as my heavier, more aggressive Merkur.

Clearly, my learning curve hasn't flattened out yet, which is great, because that means my shaves can get even better, if that's possible. I suppose if a shave that takes zero seconds and cuts so close I don't have to shave ever again and leaves me with zero skin irritation is the ideal, then I've got a long way to go. But I took a giant step closer when I finally let up on the pressure and let the blade do all the work for me.