Worked into a Lather

Part three of three:

    If the romance of a cutthroat or the precise engineering of a safety razor is the bait that lures the curious shaver away from disposables, then the joy of a traditional lather is the hook.  It was, at least, for me.  After years of hacking off teenage stubble with a disposable razor buffered by cheap aerosol foam, I stumbled into a tube of cream and an inexpensive shaving brush.  Despite amateur technique the effect was immediate; the razor tracked smoothly through whiskers and glided over those trickier spots around the jawline and neck.  The next shave was better, and the one after that better still. 

    This cycle of improvement is the true benefit of quality products and equipment.  The reason is two pronged: the obvious source is the product itself, which makes a far richer lather, with soap bubbles many times smaller and more densely packed than what squirts from a can.  The latter more resembles defatted commercial whipped cream—insubstantial and incapable of properly coating anything, let alone a face preparing to be razored.  The other source is the user, who, in possession of a high quality wet shave product, slows the process down, paying greater attention to technique and comfort.  The beard thanks its owner by cooperating; inside of a month of wet shaves using the right stuff, razor burn and ingrown whiskers will vanish, stubble will grow more evenly, and the skin seem softer and more conditioned.  

    Results will likely vary, but my preferred routine is straightforward.  Following a hot shower, I soak a badger brush (Simpsons, Chubby No. 2) in warm water.  I wet the face and neck with the brush, and using rapid little lateral passes over a cake of tallow-based soap set in a wooden bowl (D.R. Harris, Windsor) build a rich lather until the brush itself is loaded with lather.  Using moderate pressure and beginning with the neck, I apply the lather, making certain of uniform and complete cover.  I shave.  Touchups are occasionally necessary, which is why I don’t rinse the brush of its lather until satisfied with the shave.  I follow with several dashes of aftershave (D.R. Harris, Windsor) which I allow to evaporate completely while I dress.  If necessary, as it often is, I follow with a pea-sized puddle of a light moisturizing balm (D.R. Harris, Aftershave Milk).  Each of these products have the same clean, powdery, unobtrusive fragrance that clings to the shaven face for several hours, making further perfumes unnecessary.

    I’m fortunate in that my beard is cooperative.  Others have much more difficult beards that require all manner of additional steps, from soaks with pre-shave oil to second or even third passes with a razor.  In fact, I have the above routine down to an efficient five or six minutes—just long enough to ensure a clean and comfortable shave without too much fuss.  Pity, really; I could easily spend a quarter hour each morning with my kit.

Safety First

A vintage Star in a Gillette box.  Gillette, of course, no longer make delicately dove-tail-joined boxes for their wares.  

Part two of three.    

  In one way, the introduction of any disposable element represents the first step away from the purity of the cutthroat.  Another viewpoint is this: shaving with and maintaining a straight razor is, to put it lightly, a terrific reason to grow a beard.  So did the disposable razor initiate a decline down a perfumed and gel-slicked slope towards expensive, gimmicky cartridges?  Or are safety razors one of those few innovations that has both improved the user experience while dispensing with the need to further innovate?  In my experience a good safety razor really is the first and last word in wet-shaving.  

    To understand why, one must first honestly assess wet-shaving today.  Who needs it anyway?  Facial hair is not just acceptable, but popular, and for those who wish for a smooth-ish mug there are very capable electric razors that decently eliminate ordinary stubble in half the time of a wet shave, and without all the high-drama of risking a nick.  The wet-shaver, then, is a particular sort of man who wishes closer, lasting results.  He might also experience a certain frisson as the blade tracks smoothly through a fragrant and favorite soap, but recognizes that more than a few minutes indulging his preference seems ludicrous given how unnecessary a ritual it is.  To maintain loyalty, then, the big names in wet shaving have organized their offerings around a core principle: innovation as a means to speed and comfort.

    This doesn’t sound so bad until one considers the casualty: common sense.  No wet shaver I’ve met can convincingly explain why more blades are better, or what that strip of jelly does (or is), or, heaven forbid, why a vibrating handle represents an improvement.  It doesn’t matter.  What does is that innovation has taken place—that a change has occurred that now makes an old or competing cartridge seem embarrassingly outdated.  That the cost of these cartridges climbs incrementally with each improvement is less shocking than the impression that there is no alternative—that the modern wet-shaver is betrothed to a handful of restless options.  This is innovation run wild, uncivilized mass delusion.  

A Japanese Feather safety razor, perhaps the pinnacle of the genre.  

    The original safety razor is refreshingly simple.  A disposable razor blade is held snugly in an easily operable device.  The angle of attack seems intuitive, the movement made confident by a well-balanced, knurled handle.  The economic argument is strong; a package of thirty razors costs a fraction of what the same number of high-tech cartridges do.  There are intangibles as well: a good safety razor sings a metallic monotone as it tracks through thick stubble.  It looks nice on a shelf too.

    So, can a safety razor evolve the right way?  Absolutely.  The highest quality examples today are machined to extraordinary tolerances, making examples from fifty years ago seem rudimentary by comparison.  The disposable razors themselves are far sharper but more durable than ever before too.  But it must not be ignored that these are material improvements upon a largely unchanged straightforward design of a single, angled blade at the end of a sturdy handle.  Rather than arms-race style innovation, the goal is precision within sensible parameters.  Comparatively civilized, no?

Straight for the Jugular

 Part One of Three

Tools of the shave.

    Each of my six groomsmen received a cutthroat razor the evening before my wedding as an advanced token of my appreciation for their service.   A letter with dual entreaties accompanied.  I asked, firstly, that they consider the razor as more than a symbolic gesture—that they each learn to use it, and in learning, discover something of themselves.  Secondly, and somewhat more importantly, I asked that they postpone their first go with the thing until after the big day.  Nothing ruins an honest union like a badly bleeding wedding party.  My hope was that, in a month’s time or so, they would discover that shaving can be a ritual, and the accouterments required for doing it properly stir something of value in most men.  

    Cutthroat or straight razors are the easiest of these objects to appreciate, but, by a very wide margin, the most difficult to use.  A good one has an obvious balance, even in unpracticed hands.  The unfolded blade suggests the correct grip and, once assumed, is lighter and far more agile than one might anticipate for so outmoded an apparatus.  While the design might inspire a surgeon’s confidence, bringing the blade to a creamed-in two day beard requires nothing short of bravery.  My only advice to interested parties is to research and then consistently practice the technique—the short essay is not the correct medium for so nuanced and hazardous a pastime. The curve is steep and full of nicks.  And while a straight razor shave is as close as it gets, the real reward is the half hour spent patiently acquiring it.

    Pastime really is the correct word for straight razor shaving.  Ask a fisherman how he prefers to spend his time; pulling fish from the water will almost certainly be second to tying flies and tending to his rod.  A razor’s edge requires honing on a strop—a thick cowhide strip backed with course linen that is the only way of realigning the delicate cutting edge.  Emollients, soaps, brushes and aftershaves deserve an essay of their own.  But unless the practitioner has become a master, being categorized as a pastime also excludes straight razor shaving from the daily routine.  Proficiency is not enough; any pressure to perform quickly might come to a grisly end.  A safety razor is for most men the better implement for the daily grind.   The real thing needs a weekend’s hour.

Above All, Discretion

    As gerunds go, grooming is a particularly evocative one.  It begins with a growl, a masculine posture that, once uttered, smooths to a purr before finding a satisfied, feminine ending.  The effect is that of taming the wild—from encounter with tangled, impenetrable brush to the neatly bordered beds of submission, all within a single word.  Of course guides on the subject are usually decoration, mere advertorial for luxe emollients and unnecessary tools.  I refuse to list must-have products or descriptions of obvious technique.  Instead here are three areas of particular personal attention.  

    When my wife was pregnant with our first, my fingernails grew at an alarming rate.  Perhaps it was the excessive mango-eating, her only craving—and one in which I happily participated.  I pruned my nails daily for those nine months, after which whatever mysterious keratin accelerant had been in play vanished.  I learned two lessons.  The first is that well-kept fingernails require three pieces of equipment: a nail brush for cleaning, clippers for removing sizable matter and a high-quality emery board for shaping and honing.  Secondly, a man may be laden with choices in his daily routine, but his nails offer a single correct answer: clean, short and gently rounded.

    Anyone who has regularly met with a dentist in the past ten years has almost certainly noticed that electronic toothbrushes have become the preferred tooth cleaning technology.  My dentist doesn’t employ the hard sell with me, partly, I imagine, because he is pleased with the results of my analogue routine.  I brush with good toothpaste and a gentle, natural bristle brush several times each day, careful not to erode my gums.  The finishing touch is an intense minute of gargling with an alcohol-based mouthwash.  I realize alcohol-free products are said to be superior, but I just don’t get the same long-lasting fresh breath and, let’s call it what it is, invigorating burn.  As if to underscore the outmoded nature of the product, I store my mouthwash in an empty Scotch bottle on the bathroom counter, where it raises the eyebrows of houseguests and cleaning ladies alike.

    Errant hairs begin losing their charming randomness for most men around thirty.  Before that age,  some small humor might have been had in discovering a singular and long hair sprouting from an otherwise bare ear or neck.  But the fun evaporates when these anomalies no longer seem anomalous; when hair starts appearing in tufts some action is required.  All sorts of devices exist, from manual safety clippers to electric trimmers.  I haven’t experimented, but partly because I prefer the simple, somewhat punitive experience of tweezing.  I must also admit that I go about this activity with gusto; eyebrows, nostrils, ears, brows, necks—no patch of public space is spared my terrible scrutiny.

    See, that wasn’t so bad, was it?  No gruesome account of the personal routine, no embarrassing defense of waxing.  Not even a single reference to that most loathsome portmanteau: manscaping.  And while I haven’t covered the entirety of my daily and weekly maintenance (to everyone's benefit), well-kept fingernails, fresh breath and some minor removal of unwanted hair seems a good start.  But that's where I will leave it; as vital as grooming is, one aspect often goes overlooked: discretion.