I’ve been doing it wrong my entire adult life. You would think that such a quotidian function would lend itself to mastery before too long, but it appears as though my skills are as bad now as they were when I was an innocent, pimply faced teenager. It’s all about hand technique, they say. Don’t do it too fast or you risk injury. Also there’s an optimal angle at which you should hold the shaft. And don’t forget about the tension with which you hold the skin, because that’s important too. I mean aren’t fathers contractually obligated to teach their sons how to do it properly? You know, along with how to tie a tie, change a tyre and make obscene comments about women, ethnics and lawyers? I didn’t even know I was doing it wrong until I was at the doctor the other day (on completely unrelated matters) when after a very brief examination he turned to me and in a calm, matter-of-fact doctorese indicated that the technique I had been using was actually quite detrimental to my health. I was astounded. I never knew that shaving could be so perilous.
Alright. I know what you’re thinking: how could this silly man not know how to shave properly? Surely it’s just a case of smearing on some shaving cream, getting one of those razors with a name indistinguishable from a list of military hardware the Pentagon might purchase, and then delicately negotiating the contours of your face. The Gillette ad makes it look so easy. A well toned, muscular man strides up to the mirror, applies an even layer of cream and then with great dexterity and élan glides the razor down the side of his ruggedly chiselled face to reveal a surface smoother than Gandhi’s head. Straightforward right?
The reality of my world is a little different. It typically involves a figure (me), looking not unlike Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, sauntering up to the mirror, haphazardly applying way too much shaving cream and then, in what can only described as a vicious melee between my checks and the razor, hack away at the reddish stubble that has accumulated overnight. After 30 seconds of ferocious battle, the ordeal hits its horrifying crescendo as the bathroom basin turns to something like the river at Stalingrad in 1943 and my face, a gigantic tomato. But I thought a bit of blood during the shaving process was normal, right?
Wrong! Forget everything you ever thought you knew about shaving. Throw out all your Gillette razors, not to mention the Shicks and Bics. Get rid of any shaving cream that comes out of a can. If it needs aerosol to ejaculate, it shouldn’t be going on your face. I know because I researched. I must admit I was innerved by my doctor’s visit. I went home and with the assiduousness of an honours student, I researched everything I could find, hacking through the marketing spin with the same ardour that I used to hack at the stubble on my face. Turns out I have been doing it wrong all this time. I was approaching shaving with the same lack of care and disregard as a jaded high school groundsman might approach the overgrown reeds on a school oval. But I’m satisfied to report I have now settled on a new routine. A routine that would make the executives at Gillette recoil in horror. It seems that the secret to an amazing, bloodless shave is nothing more than a single bladed razor, a fine badger haired brush, and a smooth, milky shaving lather. And certainly does not require anything sounding like military hardware.
The reason why I make this point is that the whole ordeal demonstrates the dangers inherent when corporate executives usurp the function that used to dwell under the purview of fathers. While I don’t blame fathers, because of course they have their own societal pressures to live up to (which usually involves working ridiculous hours to provide as much material wealth for their family as possible), I think that as a society we have lost out on something important. While this might just be an isolated case of me growing up in shaving ignorance, I wonder how many boys are actually taught how to shave properly by fathers or older brothers? Or are most boys, like me, taught through the flashy advertisements that punctuate episodes of Top Gear and Blokesworld? Do we really need a vibrating razor with 6 to 7 thousand blades (that of course need replacing every month at a cost of $12 dollars) to shave? Or can the same function be achieved by a single bladed razor, the right brush and a good lather? Of course, the single bladed razor idea would be a killer for Gillette. Razor blades cost perhaps $3 a pack and they generally last months. The razor shaft doesn’t need replacing ever. This would certainly not help the company reach shareholder growth targets every month. In order to make more money they need you to buy more things. In order for you to buy more things, the things you buy must degrade. In order to sustain the circular consumption process, companies are required to obscure the most basic facts about shaving – that the great majority of items out there are simply superfluous. In shaving, as in much of life, less is uncompromisingly more. The way it has been overcomplexifed is an endemic feature of the modern world in which time-saving is valued over time-savouring activities. It is a world where companies and advertising have assumed the main didactic role that was once a cherished function of intra-family relationships.
Yet while it is easy to blame others, the truth of the matter is I have nobody to blame but myself. It merely took time to stop, think, look and see. Had I been more proactive, I could have easily found the information I was after. If I had bothered to research, I would have realised my error sooner. So the real lesson is not what society has become, it is not about the break-down of the family unit, because these issues have been spoken about to death. The real issue is the indolence of self, the submission of self to a form of auto-pilot, in which everything done is easy, quick and gratifying. My journey from shaving ignorance to shaving enlightenment has been well worth the travel. I have grown to see shaving not as an unneccessary chore, standing in the way of more important things, but as a function which in itself is to be enjoyed, to be savoured. Gone are the days of my vicious early morning hack jobs, and in its place is a more temperate, more considered, more balanced approach to something I should have been doing a long time ago.
