A typical morning in 2008. I've skipped a day of shaving to give my face a rest, but really don't want to skip two days in a row. Splashing a little water on my face, I rub on the Edge Gel, and pick up my trusty Atra. I press firmly to make sure I'm really cutting the whiskers. After one with-the-grain pass, I inspect my face for stragglers, and rub under my chin, to see how rough it feels. My face is still pretty slick, so I don't think I need more Edge, I just go against the grain once or twice over the spots that seem to need more work. Then I hop in the shower to clean everything up, and get on with my day, happy to have gotten that chore out of the way. If you came to The Shave Den looking for advice on shaving, that is not how it's done; look in the excellent Shave School section instead. On the other hand, if you do think you need advice on shaving, it may be because your morning routine is pretty close to what I described. It doesn't necessarily work that badly all of the time. For myself, sometimes everything would click, and the results were almost good. Frequently, though, there would be irritation, and I'd get little nicks and weepers more often than I do now. Shaving was never actually enjoyable, and I'd skip a day, even two, when I judged I could get away with it. I tried electrics, but over the long term, they just didn't do it for me. To be fair, I probably needed to know more about using them as well. That was just the way things were. I was in my early fifties, and had been shaving since I was fourteen or fifteen. I thought I knew how to shave, and would no doubt have been indignant if somebody had told me otherwise. It was just necessary to put up with some unpleasantness, either that or grow a beard. It wouldn't have occurred to me to discuss shaving with other people, but I would have assumed that it was pretty much the same for everybody. Only I was wrong. Doing something for thirty-five years doesn't mean that you've learned to do it right. I'd adjusted my standards according to what I thought was possible, practiced my mistakes until I became comfortable with them. If you don't know how to do something properly, you can try to find out, but first you have to realize that there's a problem. Even if you do realize the problem exists ("shaving is a pain in the face"), it may not occur to you that there is an actual solution. "That's just the way things are." The series of events which "aroused me from my dogmatic slumber"* were largely accidental. A local store stopped carrying Atra cartridges for a while, and web searches for another source led me in unexpected directions. Shaving forums would eventually give me the most information, but initially, product reviews on Amazon did more to steer me in the right direction. That led to the actual forums, and advice that would completely change my perspective. It all started by realizing that there was a problem. If I had remained stubbornly convinced that I knew what I was doing, it would not have been possible to make progress. Finding Internet forums where shaving was discussed seriously, and not just taken for granted, helped me to realize that there was much more to this than I had thought. Once I realized that I didn't even know how to lather properly, it was easy to admit that I didn't know how to do anything else, either. Seeing that other people had the same problems helped. I enjoyed learning what I'd been missing. Before long, I was actually enjoying shaving. Of course, there is always room for improvement. On the morning that this article occurred to me, I gave myself a couple of nicks for the first time in quite a while. I was using a "difficult" vintage razor which I haven't used that often. Obviously, I still have things to learn. * I don't know much about Kant, but I know a good line when I see it.
I couldn't have put it better myself. I would have substituted the words Mach 3 for Astra, and Straight razor for DE, but that's how my journey into wet shaving felt. I was driven by curiosity rather than necessity, but once I started, I never wanted to stop wet shaving. The day I got my first DE razor was the same day my Mach 3 went in the trash.
You have written a fine article and I found your story to be both inspirational and familiar. One of my father's old sayings comes to mind..is it ten years experience or one year of experience repeated 10 times..
Excellent article which I thoroughly enjoyed reading. I'm very new to DE shaving, so I have a lot to learn, but by the sounds of it there's always more to learn/master. Good job the beard grows so quick!
Great article....You were killin' me..."A typical morning in 2008....." BUSTED !! You nailed me.... and..."that is not how it's done"...You could have fooled me....for about 35 years....Yep...I practiced my mistakes so much....I became a MASTER of my mistakes... Great article man....Very insightful...thought provoking....and entertaining ...I loved it ! Bravo and congratulations...Your writting chops are 'smoking' on this one....This is an article that would be great to see get national attention...It would be a perfect way for people to see whats happening with our scene...
Well done! Sometime in the 1970's, I quit shaving and grew a full beard and moustache. Seems I didn't have time in the morning before work, and I got tired of wearing little pieces of toilet paper on my face. After I retired in 1994, I went back to shaving with my Schick L1, and latter tried a Gillette Mach 3, on my son's recommendation. As the cost of cartridges went out of sight, I picked up my old Gillette ball-end Tech from Basic Training in 1961, and some Wilkinson DE blades at Bi-Mart, and my return to wet shaving began!
