Hi, my name is Eddie, I've been wet shaving for just over a year and I just had another great shave!
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Last summer, at an age of almost half a century, I got completely fed up with shaving. The problem with that was that I also can’t stand facial hair on my face. I’ve tried just about every cartridge razor and at the time I think my wife and I both had Gillette Proglide Power Razors; this was after the last in a long series of electric razors. After purchasing yet another quality electric razor and giving my face six months to adapt, it too would yield razor burn and always left my entire neck hellfire red for hours. The cartridge razors give me egregious razor burn and make just about every hair on my face look like a wound, and they cost a lot of money to achieve that result. I think my beard is probably just normal and not all that dense, but apparently, I have sensitive skin.
On another sleepless night, after having set my face on fire with one or the other of the aforementioned implements of torture, Rick Harrison of Pawn Stars fame appears on the TV and like a good televangelist preaches about my facial salvation that can be had with the Micro Touch One safety razor. I got to googling and the next day I went to Walmart and found the “As Seen On TV” section and picked up that razor. And, I began doing research and found this website / treasure trove of information. Even with what I had available, after my first shave I thought to myself, “I like this. I think I can do this.” So, I read some more, asked a couple of friends about wet shaving via email, watched some videos and started adding a few items to the budding shave den: Shave Secret Oil, Cremo Shave Cream, Nivea After Shave Balm, etc.
One of my friends asked me if I would mind if he sent me a brush. Of course! With the beautiful badger hair brush came a bunch of different blades for me to try as well, which was a good thing because I just wasn’t liking the Dorco blades.
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He also recommended I look into purchasing a real razor, either new or vintage from eBay. So, I then bought a Gillette Slim, a Merkur 23c and a bunch of other blades from a website that sells individual blades. I had a bit of a difficult time finding a good setting on the Slim, so I decided to shave with only the Merkur and work on my technique.
Trying different blades, i have found that my face really likes the Gillette 7 O’clock Permasharp blades (I’ve gotten up to 25 shaves with one blade), the Wilkinson Sword blades from India, and my face loves the Voskhods, but for only one shave. My technique improved and I could even use my razor to get a decent quick shave with no irritation.
Rabbit hole: A while back a wonderful lady that I know through my sister, both of whom live half way across the country, sent me some old razors that she found in her basement. After cleaning them all up, I now had four vintage razors in beautiful condition:
1. 1977 Gillette Super-109 Adjustable
2. 1961 Gillette 195 Adjustable "Fat Boy"
3. 1920s Gillette Old Type Ball End Handle
4. 1956 Gillette Flare Tip Super Speed
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Back to the shave …
Tonight, with 3 days of growth on my face I loaded the Gillette Fat Boy with a brand new Gillette 7 O’clock Permasharp blade. The brush was loaded with Chiseled Face Groomatorium’s Summer Storm and lathered in a bowl. The first pass was with the razor set on 5 nearly completely cleared the visage of all 3 days of growth. After a second pass and some buffing with the razor set on 3 the alum block yielded no wincing. Post application of the Summer Storm aftershave, my face feels great and my wife is amenable to being close to me.
I now look forward to treating my face to a great shave. I cannot believe no one taught me about shaving when I was a kid, but you can be sure that I have already begun teaching my teenage son and he hasn’t started shaving yet.
This took a long time to type not just because it was long, but because I kept stopping to faceturbate. Many thanks to all you for sharing so that others of us can learn and hopefully, I’ll be able to add something useful to the conversations, too.
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