tangentalizingly delicious

Monday December 14, 2009

For a long time now, more than 10 years, I’ve been using Gillette’s Mach 3 razor. I bought one early in my college career and since I had no complaints I stuck with it, until a few months ago.

It wasn’t true that I have no complaints. The money that I spend on razor blades is troublesome to me, and these multi-bladed blades are really quite expensive. I’d tried disposables here and there in the past and thought that I’d give them a shot at the title, especially since Costco had a giant package of 52 razors for like $25 or something like that.

I very quickly regretted the decision.

Normally, shaving isn’t a big thing for me. I use moderately fancy shaving stuff from The Body Shop, and while I moderately desire a nice badger hair shaving brush I don’t yet have one, I just lather up my face and shave and wash it all off and go, and that’s about the extent of thought and time I devote to shaving.

I’ve considered going the straight razor route, but in all honesty daily maintenance of the nature that sort of habit requires is not something I’m really good, or even moderately competent, at doing. I appreciate the ritual aspect of it and can imagine a fancy little world where my morning routine takes an hour to do all the things I’d love to do, but in the short term I just don’t and am not going to any time soon be giving myself that kind of casual start to a day.

So with the straight razor out, I’m left with disposables and electrics, and I’m just not convinced about electrics. I don’t know why, I have no good reason to think that a disposable is going to give a better shave. Mostly I’m just worried that I’ll spend $100 and not enjoy the device.

So that’s why I stick with disposables. Laziness, cheapness, and illogical distaste for something I have zero knowledge of.

So when I made the switch to these ultra-cheap disposables, the standard blue Gillette two-blades that everyone has three or four of in a drawer or bathroom cabinet or maybe in the suitcase from that time you needed to buy some on the road, I was not expecting the regular persistant pain and bleeding throat that I ended up with.

I’ve read lots of articles in men’s magazines and online about razor burn, and have never experienced it. As far as beards go, mine is generally quite happy to be removed. It is kind of soft, takes two or three days to develop into 5 o’clock shadow and rarely becomes ingrown. It sucked as a teenager, but is great as a grown man.

As a result of this barely-a-beard, I generally only feel the need to shave twice a week. It leaves me moderately sloppy on the off days but since I never iron it kind of fits in with my whole theme.

And yet, these razors shredded my skin in a way nothing ever has. Not all over, just on my throat around each side of my Adam’s Apple. A strip about one-razor wide. Not super noticeable on the first day I shaved, and even the second it wasn’t anything terrible, but each successive week of shaving increased the damage, even with three or four days of rest between blades.

The razor burn was brutal. My throat was red and patchy and I couldn’t take any more. After a few weeks I stopped shaving for a full week to give my skin time to recover. Where I was used to a blade lasting for weeks or months at a time, I was using a new razor each time I shaved. I found a brief respite when I stumbled across some advice from Robert A. Heinlein to Neil Gaiman to use conditioner to soften a beard.

That worked pretty good. It dramatically reduced the damage I was doing to myself on a regular basis but no matter how slow and carefully I shaved I was constantly taking off layers of skin.

So just recently I gave up. I’m about a third of the way through my giant pack of disposable razors and I went and spent the money on a pack of Gillette Mach 3 blades. I’ve used the same blade for over two weeks (which means four actual shaves) now and my throat feels better than it has in months. Saving takes about five minutes because I can be fast and careless, and at least I’m throwing slightly less junk into the trash.