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Self> Shaving Shaving
- The Old Fashioned Way
By Jeffrey the
Barak
Published December 2005
New things are better than old things
and new gadgets are better than old gadgets, right? Wrong! Sometimes
the impetus for tools and gadgets to evolve is not to make them better, it's to
change the marketplace to receive more expensive goods. There is no better example
of this than the field of men's' shaving. Yes the good old Gillette safety razor,
invented in 1901, and the good old brush and mug are better than the modern plastic
wonders at providing a good shave, and in the long run they save you money and
they save your environment from many extra cubic feet of plastic landfill. The
history of shaving is a bloody one. Until the introduction of the straight razor,
the ancients used shaving knives, and before that, various sharp shells, flint,
and rocks. We see pictures of ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans without beards,
and we know that their less sophisticated bearded enemies were called Barbarians,
because they had beards. Through copper, bronze and iron ages, blades improved
in sharpness, but not safety. Razors eventually became steel, and then in the
mid-nineteenth century, they developed handles. But this
article is not meant to be a complete history of shaving. Such a history can be
found at various websites following a simple web search for "history shaving".
So I will instead quickly switch to recounting my own history of shaving. As a
man with a tough beard and a need to shave twice daily to remain approachable,
I have quite an interest in it. I was born in 1957
and during my childhood in the Sixties I watched my father shave each morning
with what I now recognize as a Gillette double-edged safety razor with a double
door screw open head. I would stand beside him and pretend to shave with my little
plastic toy shaving set with paper razor blades. But my first real shave was at
age 12, in late 1969. By that time I had received two electric shavers as bar
mitzvah gifts, so I began my shaving career with an electric shaver. Meanwhile,
the seven decade reign of the worthy safety razor was coming to an end. Gillette
had to contend with competition from Schick, Wilkinson Sword and others, and the
only way to sell enough razor blades was to change, and change often. My father,
by this time had acquired his Gillette Techmatic, a razor with a handle and a
ribbon blade. A turn of the handle and a new section of blade presented itself.
There was now a heap of plastic following the old blades to the landfill, and
it continues to this day. By the time I first tried
to switch to wet shaving in 1971, the razor was in the era of the Gillette Trac
II. The old tradition of father teaching son to shave had by this time been largely
forgotten and the extremely effective brush, mug and soap had been replaced by
aerosol cans full of foam. The combination of poorly lubricating shaving foam,
the non-swiveling, easy clogging, twin-blade cartridge and the lack of instruction
meant that my early wet shaves produced a lot of blood, every single time. Through
the periods of the swiveling Atra series and Sensor series I came in and out of
wet shaving, usually for a short while until I bought the next new electric shaver. Recently,
I returned to wet shaving with the Schick Quattro and much better aerosol gel,
and I got good results, and no cuts. I was content with my method, But then I
saw a big plywood sign. The store was not even there
yet, but in the Century City Shopping Mall was a sign that there would soon be
a store opening called The Art of Shaving. A whole store just for shaving! I wondered
what they could sell to stay in business. Didn't every drug store sell Gillette
Mach 3's and Schick Quattro's? Perhaps they would sell Braun and Norelco shavers?
I decided to look them up on the Internet. What I found were expensive wet shaving
products and an interesting notion that perhaps shaving brushes and shaving soap
might work better than the aerosol gels.
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Exploring further, I found more websites selling razors, soaps, brushes, mugs
etc., with more educational material and lower prices. Realizing I had never actually
really shaved, the old way, I found ClassicShaving.com and purchased a large British
silver-tipped badger brush, a German Merkur razor that looked like an early 20th
Century Gillette, a stand, and some shaving soaps, razor blades and a mug. I was
excited, and even though I was not really that bothered about the long term financial
savings and lack of discarded aerosol cans and plastic razor cartridges, my (quite
expensive) purchases had me anxiously awaiting the package. My first shave
yielded a comfortable and easy shave. Being careful to use a 30 degree angle,
by placing the guard down first then raising the handle to 30 degrees to bring
the blade into contact with the skin, and by applying no pressure, I was delighted
to be able to shave quickly and easily with no cuts. The result was not as close
as I would have liked, and not as close as that achieved earlier with my Quattro
and Gillette gel, but it was the first try. Shaving this way takes practice. One
immediate improvement was the lack of clogging. With my tough hairs and the aerosol
gel, the closely set multiple blades of my modern razors were always clogging
and needing to be rinsed vigorously after about three inches of shaving. But there
was nowhere for the safety razor to get clogged. Soap can go straight through. |
I particularly enjoyed the lathering up with the
brush and mug. Without a thick layer of white stuff on my face, the glycerin based
soap left an extremely slick surface and the hairs were standing at attention
waiting to be cut down. I immediately had no doubt that a good brush and shaving
soap will prepare anyone for a shave much better than anything from an aerosol.
However, to get a very close shave will take careful practice with the safety
razor. While many aficionados will tell you that you
should not strive for a very close shave and should not try to cut the whisker
at a level that will be below the skin's surface, this is exactly what the multi-blade
systems have been trying to do since 1971. But do we really need to do that? The
re-growth of curly beard hair can be uncomfortable if you shave too close, and
no matter how close you get with your Quattro or Mach 3, it's only close for a
few hours when the whiskers you pulled out and cut at below skin level start to
poke through the follicles again. The face seems to
prefer a shave that's not so extreme. And here, a gentle practiced touch with
an old fashioned safety razor can offer the most comfort, when used lightly and
at the correct angle. Of course we all have different skin types, and some shavers
are prone to ingrown hairs, (usually men with curly beards), or bumps, whereas
others can tolerate a much closer shave. Trained barbers will always shave with
the direction of the growth of the hair, as opposed to against it. For most of
us that is generally down, but often the neck hairs point back to sides of the
neck. Our instincts, and yes, even our experience,
tell us that if we shave up, against the growth angle, we'll cut the whiskers
shorter and get a closer shave, but we will also be inviting razor burn and nicks
and cuts as the blade takes that rough ride up the steps. It seems the skin experts
want us to sacrifice the potentially closer shave for the more comfortable drag
in the direction of growth, downward. But as everyone really knows, a close shave
can be easily had if we lather up two or three times. The first pass can be in
the direction of growth, the second across the direction and the third, against
the direction. But you know what? Even three shaves like this with a safety razor
is less irritating to the skin than a single pass with the multi-blade cartridge. After
a few days of carefully shaving in the correct direction, with the correct tool
and following a good brushed on lather, I began to get results comparable to that
which I achieved with the Schick Quattro. In fact I believe the shave is now just
as close with the single razor blade! But remembering that each Quattro or Mach
3 cartridge is a plastic device that comes in a plastic protector, which is itself
in a plastic rack of the back of a plastic handle holder, and that those cartridges
are about $2 each, I can't help thinking again about the savings in money and
plastic waste that switching to a safety razor will bring. And we won't even begin
to discuss the new Turbo razors that use disposable batteries to make them vibrate.
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True, each pack of ten razor blades comes in a little plastic box and even
these blades can cost from 15 cents to $1.50 each, depending on where you buy
them, but that little box is a tiny amount of plastic by comparison, and the blades
are double sided, making them last longer than a modern cartridge. And each cake
of soap in that mug can last as long as a few cans of gel or foam and only costs
from $1.50 to $6. The brush and mug can last a lifetime, if you're already an
old geezer like me. Again, no landfill. In fact I just bought 100 Israeli blades
on Ebay for $15, and there is no plastic box at all. It seems strange to
talk about saving money after spending $80 on a stand, $90 on a brush, $30 on
a razor, $12 on soap, $4.50 on a bowl, and $4.50 on my first pack of blades, but
the blades and soap will last a while and the rest of my purchase may last longer
than I do. In fact, if you decide to buy a shaving brush and a safety razor, bear
in mind that they can last forever so try to get everything right in your order.
No sense buying a less expensive pure-badger brush to save money, when for a little
more you can get a silver-tipped badger brush. You will get into this, and you
will end up upgrading, so it will save you money to get the best brush the first
time out. Unless you lose your brush or your razor, they may be the last you'll
buy. So consider if you want the original design, or a thicker handle, or a longer
handle, or a butterfly opening top. The best selection will of course be online,
not at the mall or the drugstore, so try starting at classicshaving.com and then
do a Google search for the competitors. Choose your tools carefully. |
A pack of 12 Mach 3 cartridges is around $22 these
days, and a can of Series Gel is around $3. It's very hard to calculate, but I
guess that after about 3 years, I'll get my investment back in savings. But once
again, that's not what it's about. We have to shave and it's a drag, so why not
enjoy it with good tools and materials, and why not spend a few more minutes a
day doing it with care and skill? After decades of
putting up with the need to shave, I now look forward to it. Shaving the right
way is fun. One day I shaved my right side with the
safety razor and my left side with the Schick Quattro. The results were quite
interesting. The modern razor felt safer and faster. But it needed a lot of rinsing
or it just didn't get to the skin at all due to all the hair stuck between the
four blades. And also with the Quattro, I could sense tugging, in other words,
it felt as if the hairs were being shaved progressively shorter, just as on the
famous Gillette television commercial animations, (the reality of which is under
dispute to this day). But following the rinse and the pat dry, the side of my
face shaved with the Quattro had not in fact shaved me any closer than the side
shaved with the safety razor. Not closer, just faster. Perhaps the imminent release
of Gillette's five-blade Fusion razor is the proof. All these blades are nothing
but marketing. Each manufacturer trys to get one blade ahead of the other. So
now to the question that many readers who have made it this far will be dying
to ask. Why didn't I go the whole way and learn to shave with a straight razor?
Why didn't I get into honing, stropping, and all the rest? Well I thought about
it, but quickly realized that King Gillette's innovation was called a safety razor
for a reason. I think it would only be a matter of time before I dropped the straight
razor and did something nasty to my willy, or my foot or something else that happened
to be in the way. Too risky for me I'm afraid. So in
all likelihood, I will stay with my brush and safety razor for my daily shaves,
but I will also keep my Quattro and can of gel for traveling, and for shaving
things that are not my face, as I still can't picture putting a double edged safety
razor anywhere near my "personal hairy areas". Advertisement:
nashvilleknifeshop.com
Jeffrey the Barak is not only insane, he
is also very hairy, and is the publisher of the-vu
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