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Things went much, much better with the WWII-era Injector razor today. Not only did I force myself to adopt a lighter touch and try shaving more lightly on my face, but I went back to using a proper English shaving cream, Taylor's avocado. This made all the difference between yesterday's scraping and today's smooth, effortless cutting.

Yesterday's Injector shave with the QED anise/lavender shaving stick left my skin feeling raw and sensitive. These glycerin shaving soaps just don't work well with my skin, I'm afraid. Lots of guys seem to get good results with them, the QED soaps especially, but they don't lubricate and protect my skin nearly as well as a good English cream, or the best European creams like Proraso and Musgo Real.

Today I needed a shaving cream that was as thick, moisturizing, soothing, and protective as possible, so of course I turned to Taylor's avocado. The added avocado oil really seems to make for thicker, richer lather, and my skin feels so great after shaving with this stuff that I swear I'll never shave with anything else. Like Taylor's rose shaving cream, their avocado cream is just the thing for healing your face after beating it up with an overly aggressive shave the day before.

I shaved at the Y again today after working out, and between the Taylor avocado and backing off on the razor pressure, I got a shave that was at least the equal of my incredible Bob Beamon shaves last week at the Y with my Merkur HD safety razor. I got that elusive baby's butt smoothness on my cheeks, chin and neck, as well as that exfoliating tingle after the shave that says I just slathered Trumper's Skin Food on a freshly exposed layer of skin, and all this without a trace of irritation or redness.

Maybe I can live with this aggressive butterscotch-handled Injector after all -- as long as I use it with a thick English cream and a light touch.

Also, I think that the days of other members giving me the stinkeye when they see my shaving at the Y may be over. In the middle of my shave, two African-American guys who looked like they were linebackers for the Giants walked by the locker room sink where I was shaving and asked me about my Vulfix brush.

One of the guys said he had a boar's hair brush at home and it was starting to shed. I told him that I had a boar's brush too, but that I preferred a higher quality badger hair brush like the Vulfix I was using, and I told him he could get one Classic Shaving for as little as $60 that would compete favorably with any brush at any price. He couldn't believe how much lather my little Vulfix travel brush whipped up compared to his boar's hair brush at home, and said he was going to order one for himself.

The other guys who'd been standing at nearby sinks and giving me the stinkeye, all in their 50s and white as the driven snow, suddenly changed their tune when they saw the linebackers so into what I was doing. The stinkeyes disappeared, and for the first time, looks of near-acceptance came over their faces.

Hey, I'll take it.