A strange new obsession is lurking in the gilded halls of the internet: the old-fashioned shave.
Groups of uber-manly men gather together on their preferred forums (most notably on sites like Badger and Blade and The Shave Den) and chatter endlessly about how amazing their respective shaves are now that they have loosed the yoke placed upon them by the spawn of Satan (meaning Gillette). The modern cartridge razor, they say, is a subpar instrument for removing the hair from one's face (or head, or legs, or other parts I don't care to know about), so these wizened sages of the depilatory arts have returned to the methods of our fathers and grandfathers: the double-edged safety razor. In some more extreme cases, these folks have reverted to the use of a straight razor (appropriately dubbed a "cut-throat" in other countries).
Common assertions by new recruits into the fold are "I don't dread shaving anymore!" (You dreaded shaving? I don't really care for it, but I don't wake up in the morning praying that an asteroid will end life on earth before I have to place that unholy instrument of torture to my face), "It's a fun hobby!" (It's good to have a hobby...shaving is a strange one), and "Real men shave this way!" (Because it's only common sense that one's manliness is determined by the method by which one removes the hair from one's face).
Before going any further, I should probably provide some background. At one time, men used straight razors to shave. This particular type of blade could theoretically last forever if maintained. It had to be sharpened, and then stropped and honed on a strip of leather (appropriately called a "strop") before each use. There were obvious hazards associated with putting a piece of insanely sharp steel next to one's throat, especially considering one's jugular is only about one and a half centimeters below the skin in the average person. So, a new razor was developed. Some preliminary designs were produced in the nineteenth century, but the safety razor was finally perfected by King Camp Gillette in 1901. The new razor used a thin, double-edged razor blade that sat at a ninety-degree angle to the handle. It was placed inside a guard that only left a small fraction of the blade exposed. The blade had to be held at about a thirty-degree angle so that the blade could remove the whiskers. The blade was thrown out and replaced when it lost its ability to cut without taking off a significant amount of flesh. With both the straight razor and safety razor, men typically used shaving creams and soaps that had to be whipped into a lather using a shaving brush, usually in a mug.
This was the preferred method of shaving until the Gillette Trac II was introduced in 1971. It featured two blades on a disposable cartridge that would be discarded once it became dull. In 1998, and after $750 million in research and development costs, Gillette began producing the Mach 3 razor. As the name suggests, this cartridge had three blades, as well as a lubricating strip to help reduce irritation and help the head glide across the skin. Finally, the Gillette Fusion and it's numerous incarnations arrived in 2006. It featured five blades and a single-blade trimmer on top to shave around one's sideburns. To this date, this is still the most popular razor in the world.
Practitioners of the traditional wet-shave, as it's called, assert that cartridge razors provide an inadequate shave that needlessly irritates the skin and causes razor burn. They say modern cartridges are insanely overpriced (on this, I agree with them). Double-edged razors can be purchased at a cost of about $0.10 apiece, while most cartridges run in the $3-$4 range. Modern canned shaving creams, they assert, have propellants in them that dry out the skin. Old alcohol-based aftershaves like Pinaud Clubman and Old Spice are superior because...well, no one ever really says (though I do find it interesting that so many of them advocate using these alcohol-based aftershaves, while at the same time fretting over the propellants in the shaving cream drying out their skin). To them, everything about modern shaving technology is subpar compared to the methods employed by our forebearers.
If one visits the forums frequented by the users of these old-timey products, it becomes fairly obvious that the practice of traditional wet-shaving has devolved into a cult. If anyone dares say that they get a perfectly good shave using modern razors and creams, they are thoroughly lambasted and insulted by the elitist shaving snobs. They are told that they simply haven't put in enough time to learn the technique of getting a proper DE (their anagram, along with silliness like BBS, which stands for "baby's butt smooth") shave. They are told that "real men" shave with a safety razor and God help them if they commit an act of heresy like using a cartridge razor. You also have the usual idiots trolling these forums who like to throw in their two cents by saying "real men don't shave."
After having been convinced that using a safety razor was the true measure of a man by a website I now infrequently visit called The Art of Manliness, I decided to try it for myself. I started out shaving using my dad's Trac II. When I graduated high school in 2000, the army sent me a Mach 3, which became my razor of choice (and I didn't even join the army). Then, I made the switch to the Gillette Fusion when it was released. I never had a huge problem with any of these razors. The Mach 3 and Fusion sometimes caused razor burn on my neck because my hair grows at weird angles, but I have now determined that my unwillingness to change the cartridge often enough due to the high price likely contributed to that particular problem. However, I was convinced that I was missing out on some manly ritual that all of my peers (and most other older adults I know) were ignorant to. So I made the leap.
About two years ago, I went on Amazon and purchased a Merkur long-handled safety razor (it was supposed to be a better fit for men with large hands because many safety razors are pretty short), a cake of Proraso shaving soap (no need for a mug since you create the lather in the tub that the cake sits in), a badger hair brush, and some Merkur double-edged blades. I was excited to try out my new purchases when they finally arrived. I had little trouble getting a good lather from the soap, and the scent was great. When I finally put razor to face the results were...underwhelming, to say the least. I realized, though I had read it on many forums, that this was going to be no quick undertaking. Gone were the days of slathering shaving cream on my face and shaving away the whiskers in five minutes' time. Using a safety razor requires at least three passes with the razor, along with three applications of shaving cream, to remove all the hair. So I kept at it, hoping that my results would improve as I became more adept at the practice. Alas, as much as I tried to convince myself that I was getting a good shave with the safety razor, in the back of my mind I knew that it was inferior to the quick, smooth, effortless shave I got from my Gillette Fusion. Granted, some of the bells and whistles that have been added to the Gillette Fusion (like a vibrating head) are a bit of an overkill. However, I could go against the grain on my neck with the Fusion and barely feel the razor whisking the whiskers away, whereas with the safety razor, it felt like a disgruntled rancher dragging rusty barbed-wire across my throat, even after two previous passes with the razor to reduce the growth to a manageable level. After a year and a half of practicing and trying to convince myself of something I knew to not be true, I gave up.
So am I saying that the safety razor is wrong for everyone? Nope. There are certainly people out there who may get a perfectly adequate shave with a safety razor. I'm not one of them. There are people out there who may enjoy the old-fashioned ritual. I'm not one of them. There is nothing inherently masculine in the way a man chooses to remove the hair from his face. I'm a fairly nostalgic person, but I don't delude myself into thinking all the practices of yesteryear are better than the way we do things today. I choose to not romanticize shaving in the same way I choose to not romanticize outhouses or smallpox (indoor plumbing and vaccines are great). The Art of Manliness states that if one uses a safety razor, one will be participating in a manly ritual that people like Teddy Roosevelt and JFK participated in. Nevermind the fact that Teddy Roosevelt was an imperialist and JFK was a notorious philanderer. They both certainly had good qualities, but the way they shaved is irrelevant.
I also find it curious that, if the safety razor truly is superior to modern shaving implements, more older men don't continue to use them. Many of the shaving snobs will say that a massive ad campaign designed by the Gillette company to create an environment where people had to buy overpriced razors is responsible for this. I find this argument ridiculous. If modern razors weren't truly superior, men would not have switched. One theoretically painful swipe of the razor would've told them that these new-fangled razors were junk and they would've promptly returned to their trusty safety razors.
As I said earlier, razor cartridges have become ridiculously overpriced. I shudder to think of the markup and the profit that companies like Gillette and Schick bring in. However, the cartridges last considerably longer than what is recommended on the package. I've comfortably used a Gillette Fusion cartridge for over a month and I have a fairly coarse beard. The cost is still considerably higher than the double-edged blades that can be purchased in bulk on Amazon. The point, though, is that using a safety or straight razor (or growing a beard) is not manly in any way. If you can get a good shave with a safety razor, more power to ya. But it's silly to belittle others for their decision to get a necessary and annoying task in the life of a man over with quickly and painlessly.
