One down, many more to go...

Well, it's all here. For those of you who are wondering what I'm talking about, let me fill you in on some details.


I hate shaving. My mom took me to Wal-Mart when I was 12 or 13 and we bought me a razor, and I was pretty dang cool. I was only shaving peach fuzz, but it was cool. Then I went to Basic Training. There, if you weren't satisfactorily shaven, a drill sergeant would hand you a Bic disposable razor, and you'd dry shave on the spot. Now there is a very good reason for soldiers to be clean shaven. If you have all kinds of scruff on your face and neck, your protective mask won't seal and gas can get in. So I shaved every night. I wasn't too concerned about the fact that I got about a billion razor bumps and ingrown hairs every day because it wasn't to big of a deal compared to the 120 degree, 90% humidity days at the range, but I quickly lost whatever remains of the "it's cool to shave" idea that had survived the previous 6 years.

Then I went on a mission. 2 more years of shaving every day, with all the accompanying razor bumps and ingrown hairs. By this point I just assumed that it was normal and happened to everyone. I resigned myself to the dragging feeling of 17-bladed razors and figured I was in for a lifetime of hating shaving. So when I got home from my mission, I adopted a "shave for church" policy. That was okay for the next few years, but I still hated shaving. Then a couple of years ago when I started working on campus, I had to adopt a "shave on Wednesday and Sunday" policy, and I still hated shaving. That was when I introduced the policy of a "vacation beard". Whenever I'm away from my on-campus job for more than a week, I just grow a beard until I get back. Now I am totally in favor of this, but Nicole is _not_ a fan. We're talking less of a fan than I am of shaving. Did I mention I _hate_ shaving?

Well. A few weeks ago, I guy I know on a Unix mailing list mentioned he had bought a new shaving brush, soap, and double-edged safety razor (the kind that uses old-school razor blades). Now this didn't come as too much of a surprise from a guy who makes his own soap, but he linked a couple of articles about old-school shaving. Being the curious person I am, I started clicking through them, and was somewhat surprised to learn that it is indeed possible to shave and not get bumps and ingrown hairs by the gazillions. I was also _very_ surprised to learn that there are people who shave and like it.

There had to be something to this. So I started looking around some more and learned that double-edged razor blades sell for about $5 for a pack of 10. That beats the tar out of the $38 I paid for my last pack of 16 blades for my Fusion. So, I decided to give it a try. I made an early investment of my birthday present from us and bought a decent shaving brush and some Italian shaving cream called Proraso. Much better. The brush and decent shaving cream reduced my bumps and ingrown hairs by a drastic amount. Not to mention making shaving a much more relaxing experience. The blades still drag, and I actually notice much quicker when my razor blades are getting dull. So now the Fusion by comparison with the brush and cream is really starting to suck. I can shave 3 or 4 times before I have to use a new blade, 5 or 6 if I'm wearing my patient pants.

So I started looking a lot harder at safety razors and where to get good blades for them, when I came across a link to a website called StraightRazorPlace. Now this was really something I could get on board with. Most of you who know me know I like knives, axes, basically anything with blade. Some of you will remember me sitting in church sharpening my knife after we finished with the sacrament in my younger days. So let me see if I got this right. High quality steel blade, never have to buy razor blades again, and if the good folks at StraightRazorPlace were to be believed, a closer, longer-lasting shave than with my old multi-bladed nemesis. So I ordered a straight razor, a leather and linen strop, and a 3 micron, 8000 grit diamond plate to hone my new friend on. They all arrived, and last night, after a little work on the edge, I had my first try at a _really_ old school shave.


It turns out that sharpening a razor to shave my Brillo pad face with is a whole different story than sharpening anything else. It also turns out that there will be some serious learning curve to follow. But, on my cheeks where the easy part is, I'm quite impressed. I only nicked myself twice, and those were minor ones that had stopped bleeding by the time I finished shaving. This does not count all the razor bumps I shaved off from Wednesday's shave, but I'll just wait a few more days for the next time to let all the aftermath of my 5-blades at a time shave go away. This evening, following some instructions by on of the gurus at another old-school-shaving website, BadgerAndBlade (because good shaving brushes are made of badger hair) I touched up my razor a little more. So now I will wait patiently for a few more days, and give it another shot.

The end. (at least for a couple days)