Corey-

I’m tempted to switch to old school shaving, but have a question – would your methods/equipment change for a bald(ing) man who shaves his entire head 2/3 times/week?

Thanks,
Landesman

Landesman,

Not being bald myself I can’t state for certain that what’s good for the puss is good for the pate, but feedback from some of my readers who do chop it all off seems to indicate that the bon temps definitely continue to roulet when you shave your head with an old-school safety razor.

You do need to be careful and take it slow when you first transition from a modern multi-blade to an old-school, single-blade DE (double-edge). You’re still swiping a blade-onna-stick across your skin, but beyond that it’s a whole different trip — how much pressure you apply, how much more attention you need to pay to your hand/razor/skin relationship to keep the blade angle right, the audio feedback from the cutting of the whiskers. It’s like learning how to shave all over again, although what it really is is learning how to shave right for the first time. Most guys (me included) need a week or so to get to the point where they can get through a DE shave without a nick.

If I was balding I’d definitely chop it all off. Because if I’m going to be bald I want to be bald, son. None of that Gallagher crap with the party in back — when this glorious Michael Landonesque Jew Mane starts falling out in clumps because of all that 1st-gen Blackberry phone RF I soaked up back in the day, that’s it, issue me my Player’s Club card and get out of this bald, virile man’s way.

And no modern multi-blade razor, be it the Fusion, Mach3, Quattro, Sensor, whatever, gives me as close or as long-lasting a shave as a good DE. Forget those little hand-grip “headshavers” on the drugstore shelves that take multi-blade Gillette cartridges — nobody who uses those things is getting as close a shave as they should be.

Back in the day, when balding guys went Full Monty they had their barber do it with a straight razor, and that’s why these guys looked absolutely clean, I’m talking “Mr. Clean” clean, not with that faint skinhead “rough trade” stubble that all modern cartridge-fed “head shavers” leave behind. Unless you’re trying to rock that look, which is a personal choice and also a wrong one, because for the life of me I can’t understand why a guy would want to look like the Commish when Michael Chicklis would be plenty happy if he looked like Eric Banna even when he was Chopper.

If you want to shave your head old-school, the same rules for face shaving apply up top. You need to soak your stubble in warm water for at least 2 minutes, to waterlog the hair so it’ll slice through neatly like wet noodles. Use a high quality glycerin-based shaving cream or shaving soap, and of course a good shaving brush is mandatory. Short, careful strokes, not those ridiculous eyebrow-to-Adam’s-apple glides you see on the Gillette commercials. I got news for you, there’s as much actual blade in those prop razors the male models are miming with as there is sexual interest in the towel-wrapped girls hugging them from behind.

If you’re shaving your head with a DE for the first time, I recommend laying down a protective layer of Jojoba oil to smooth the runway a bit for your first few forays. Five or six drops rubbed between your hands and spread over your skull should do it. A little Jojoba makes everything glide along just that much more smoothly, and it helps you get the hang of the much less forgiving nature of an old-school DE razor. When you’ve got your technique and touch down, you won’t need to use the Jojoba, although you may want to continue anyway as it’s really good for freshly-shaven skin and you may even find you won’t need to use moisturizer up on the dome anymore, as Jojoba does the job better and with less expense.

The guns I get. The ammo, sure. And the speedloader, the mags, the black Speedo, even the odd discoloration on the upper thigh near the crotchular region. I get all that.

Why the Guitar Hero controllers?

WHY?

Glad to see one of my favorite new blogs gets Rule #1 exactly right.

What’s doubly cool is Walker and his wife ended up having a girl, but he continues to advise his future son anyway.

It’s been the Summer of Dunce, and with a bang and a whimper, it’s finally over. I mean, I knew this country was 75% Deliverance Boy but ye gods, after this summer I feel like there are eight sensate Americans left and seven of them are sterile.

Speaking of idiocracy, I freely admit that making fun of the “advice” found on such unpaid intern written sites as Lifehacker, Digg, and Instructables is only slightly North of shooting fish in a barrel, but when these clueless naifs who don’t even bother to shave more than once a month in the first place claim any kind of expertise in the Manly Ablutive Arts, it’s time to load the Glock for carp.

Let’s see…shaky video cam, check. Simpsons’s Cletus the Slack-Jawed Yokel accent, check. Wiping a 5-blade dung-razor on your jeans to get more shitty shaves out of each cartridge? Check and checkmate, Jonas Salk.

As Fake Steve would say, Namaste, Jake T. Robinson. Your corn liquor wisdom is only exceeded by the tidal wave of drool in your comments section.

Nope, no site reboot today, I’m afraid. There are still some kinks to be worked out with the new layout, and some of the old links and pics weren’t working right with Today’s Wordpress aka Blogger For Masochists (“Now With 10% Less Banging Your Against Your Desk!”), so give me a few more days of forehead bruising and I should have something a lot nicer and much more readable for you to look at and then say “Meh” about.

Meantime, here’s a little ditty to tide you over.

Corey,

Rachel

Ah, Rachel.

You women have always gotten the shaft from Big Shaving. Like tampons, lady razors suck because they’ve always been designed by men who’ve never had to use them.

I wouldn’t begin to lecture you on the proper gear for gam shaving. I’ve never done it myself, though I did shave my armpits once, in high school, while talking on the phone with my girlfriend who was simultaneously shaving her own — it was actually kind of thrilling and kinky and constituted the only time in my life I’ve engaged in something that could broadly be considered phone sex aside from calling Barney Greengrass to place an order to go.

So my resident gam shaving expert is Beloved Wife, whose legs are as easily nicked as my neck has always been. When I started getting better shaves with brushes and good creams, she ported them over to her gams and did her own research into the matter. Some things she found: a shaving brush isn’t really needed for a woman’s legs, and a single-blade DE or Injector razor takes ages to shave a pair of legs with and doesn’t really give better gamshave than a good twin-blade. But she did find that the better creams (her favorite is Cremo Cream) really did protect her skin better and let her shave more closely and comfortably without nicks. Fortunately for Cremo, she’s not as bothered by the pansy-ass Pina Colada scent as I am (memo to Cremo: when you come out with a shaving cream that smells like bacon, or Dogfish Head 120 Minute, or (dare I dream?) both of them as you chew a huge mouthful of beer and bacon, do a brother a solid and tweet me.)

More gamshave wisdom via the better half: Exfoliating is bullshit. Makes your skin feel softer for a few hours but does nothing for shaving, no matter what the sites selling “shaving loofas” say. What really matters — as always, whether you’re shaving your face or your legs, is softening the whiskers with water and using a good blade. Water is absorbed into the hair and changes its character from copper wire to wet noodle, and wet noodle is most certainly what you want when it comes to good shaving. It takes two minutes for human hair to absorb water and become soft enough to slice through cleanly and easily, so showering before you shave, not after, will do wonders for your legs.

According to Beloved Wife and every female I know, the twin-blade Sensor For Women is the best lady razor in current production. The 3 and 5-blade razors sold to Women under such names as Venus couldn’t possibly be less good for your legs if they had SARS virus built into the lubricating strips. I know men are stupid, buying this crap up by the hectare, but you women are too smart to fall for this nonsense. Avoid any razor with more than 2 blades. Loathe as I am to recommend anything Proctor and Gamble sells, Beloved Wife swears to me that the Sensor For Women is a good gam shaver, which doesn’t surprise me seeing as how the Sensor Excel for men, which uses the same blade carridges, is the only thing Gillette still makes these days that doesn’t wholly suck.

That said, here’s a dirty little secret: the men’s cartridges are better than what Gillette sells to women. A lot better. The white plastic Sensor For Women cartridges are markedly inferior to the grey plastic Sensor cartridges sold to men, even though they both fit all Sensor razors. Don’t believe me? Neither did Beloved Wife, until she tried a men’s Sensor blade in her razor and was shocked by the improvement. Those white Sensor cartridges are nasty business — wouldn’t surprise me a bit if they were seconds off the production line, marketed as gam shavers instead of the off-spec rejects they are. Fit your Lady Sensor with man blades and you’ll be much happier with the cut.

As Beloved Wife discovered, the really good creams like Cremo make all the difference, but maybe you don’t want to spend $20 a tube when you use so much more of this stuff per shave than us men do. So here’s another trick: an economical alternative to high-end shaving cream is plain old hair conditioner, which actually works crazily well as a shaving cream for women’s legs as long as you don’t expect thick, rich, foamy lather. It softens the whiskers and gives great lubrication. Doesn’t need to be the fancy stuff, either — Suave conditioner works just as well as anything else I’ve tried. After showering, apply a liberal amount of hair conditioner to your legs and leave it on for at least a minute before you start shaving. Works a treat as my British editor used to say, and even I hit the conditioner for a shower shave every once in awhile when I’m running late and don’t have time for my usual Little Lord Fountleroy joie de beauty routine that wows them at dropoff/pickup.

As for your husband and his Injector lust, I’ll have more to say once I get this @%#$ blog rebooted with a fresh new coat of paint. I gave up on the Injector a few years ago when Schick switched production of its blades to a new supplier and the quality dropped like a stone. But I just can’t quit this beautiful razor. More to say later.

Friend of Shaveblog Father Ian writes in:

“We keep a food pantry at our church for individuals who need it to get by. The other day one of our regulars asked for men’s toiletries, toothpaste soap and shaving stuff. Shaving stuff? How could I not have thought of stocking up this essential of human worth and dignity? Kraft Dinner and canned soup are good for your belly, but what about your soul? So my question…what low-cost shaving products could I solicit as donations?”

Excellent question, Padre. The most economical option would be Bic single-edge disposables “for sensitive skin”. Some drugstore chains carry their own house version that seems to be identical and even cheaper. I get the best shaves from any disposable from these BICs, but you need to make sure they’re the single-edge razors, not the twin-blades. Those are pretty rough.

For lather, a bar of Dove soap is cheap, long lasting, and surprisingly good as a shaving soap. Not all bath soaps are. If you want to go with real shaving cream, Palmolive shave cream in the tube is really cheap and very good. Look for the red tube, not the green “brushless” tube, it’s garbage. Red tube’s much better. The scent’s not wonderful but the shave is.

Follow the shave with some witch hazel — $2 a bottle at any drugstore. After trying every post-shave poultice on the market, I’ve come back to simple witch hazel. It Just Works.

Obviously, a straight razor shave using warm water as the only lube is a possibility, as this setup offers great shaving with zero operating costs moving forward. However, the upfront for a decent straight razor is considerable, and I also don’t think it’s wise for churches to be arming people who might be a little jumpy and anxious these days with free cut-throat razors. Love thy neighbor yada yada but it’s probably best we don’t go down that road, yes?

Corey,

~Jeff

Jeff,

I don’t recommend Feather blades anymore. I experimented with them years ago when I was trying to get the closest shave possible, but I came to the conclusion that the Feathers were bad for my skin long-term. I know these blades have their fans, but I no longer use or recommend them.

Feather is a company that makes surgical blades for the medical industry, and they repurpose some of these blades for men’s shaving. I and many others find their shaving blades to be extremely sharp yet very unforgiving in the context of shaving. Your first few shaves with Feathers are amazing because your chin feels absolutely hairless, like a cue ball. But you’re also left with a lot more nicks and blood than usual, and that tingly feeling you feel for the rest of the day isn’t the mark of a great shave. It’s your skin telling you to back off, you overheated geek, you shaved off too much skin along with your whiskers. Keep using them day after day and your skin will eventually beg for mercy, if you have any left.

I’ve found that for the best shave long-term, you want a blade that’s sharp enough to cut whiskers but not the top layers of underlying skin. I know the hardcore shavegeeks chase the extremities — the sharpest blades, the strongest scent, the softest brush, the cheapest Cheese Whiz — but I think you’ll find that a gentler blade like the Israeli Personnas I use and recommend shaves just as closely as the Feathers without leaving your skin feeling numb and looking pretty beat-up.

Best,
Corey

Sony Releases New Stupid Piece Of Shit That Doesn’t Fucking Work

I can’t decide what’s wronger: that there’s a reality show called “Jingles”, or that these two dillweeds thought they might win it with this video.

Honestly, when I see stuff like this, I have to lie down for a while and try not to think about my children and the world they’ll be living in.