Welcome!
Well, I think it comes down to attitude and technique as much as any equipment. Personally, I find cartridges are TOO good - they shave too close, for me. I can get baby's bum smooth with a traditional razor, but I don't get the ingrowers that come from such a very close sub-skin shave that cartridges seemed to have given me.
If you're like that, you'll want a DE razor - pick up a Merkur or a Muhle. The Merkur 34C is very popular, as is the Muhle R89. Blades? Grab some Gillette green as a good baseline. Yellow are sharper, go Russian for sheer shaving class
Soap, start out with good old Palmolive, either a stick or the shaving cream as your baseline, get a simple badger brush ... buy better later. Aftershaves, go classic. Brut, Old Spice, Jovan. Drop into Boots and fill yer ... erm ... boots?
The process is a damn good wash, perhaps hold hot flannels over your face for a minute or so, lather up, shave, hot rinse, cold rinse ... cold rinse is very important and then some aftershave. If you're cut to ribbons, apply an alum block to your face after the cold rinse onto your wet face. Leave it a couple of minutes and wash off. I use alum routinely, although I rarely nick or cut now. I find it gives me an honest opinion on how good I thought my shave was ... if somewhere stings, it wasn't as smooth as it could be. That's advanced, so for now enjoy how that and the cold water stops up the flow of blood. Aftershave splash and perhaps an EDT on the sides of your neck, you're done.
Jump in, have a shave, see how you like it ...
