Close Shave, Part I

Forgive me father for I have sinned - I have neglected my blog for too long.  Okay, so wallet, watch, testicles and spectacles - AMEN.

Now that's I've done my penance, I'll cut to the chase.

I've been cutting things way too close for some time now.  Well, not close enough.  And it's cost me lots of money over the years.  What am I talking about?  I'm talking about shaving.

I don't really remember when I first started shaving for real but I do remember when I was little boy and decided I would lather up my face and turn dad's razor around backwards and scrap the foam off my face.  Of course I paid special attention to get all the foam off my face - after all it was the only thing I had to do.  I think someone took pictures of that - not sure if they are still around but it would be funny to see again.

Moving forward, I probably started shaving around the time that I got into girls.  Around that age there was the typical middle school guy myth that shaving what little hair you had would actually cause you to grow more hair and darker.  I can't really say that this is what happened but I gave it a shot.  Shit, why not?  I literally had nothing to lose and everything to gain!

At that point I didn't really have parental guidance, but I'd seen the movies.  Lather and shave - that's all there is to it.  I think I started off with a Gilette Sensor.  It probably was a two bladed type of thing.  Wasn't anything special and I didn't spend too much time on it.  I tended to not use shaving cream but rather shaved when I was in the shower - you can feel what you've missed and just touch up from there.  Certainly not the best way to do it but it seemed to work okay and okay was good enough for me.

Later on, I changed to an electric razor and for awhile it was good.  But eventually the blades dulled or something went wrong with it.  Not really something that should stay around forever but it seemed that it wouldn't last long.  Jules got me a nice Braun electric razor shortly after we were married and it did okay for a time but didn't work too well in the long run.  Something had to be done - so I moved to Alaska so I wouldn't have to shave (not really).

So 2013 comes along and I've been reading about safety razors, more of a frugal type of thing than anything else.  A wet shave is better, I know that now.  The Gilette 10 razor replacement heads are super expensive.  A 10 pack's price seems like a serious investment - especially for something you'll throw away soon.  When I've been in a wet phase - I've tried to keep the heads around as long as I can and it doesn't work that well.  So the safety razor seems like a good thing - blades are cheap and work well or so I read.

Without further ado, I ordered a German safety razor, a Merkur, some recommended blades, Feather (made in Japan), some shaving soap, Proraso and prepared myself to make the cut.

I prepared myself by watching several videos and reading advice on how to do a proper wet shave with a safety razor.  I figured I would end of getting cut some so I decided to make my foray into it over a weekend.

Stay tuned for Part II!