The razor’s edge – tools for shaving

BitDepth#1439

Mark Lyndersay

A PROPER shave, for grown men, has become something of a grail-level pursuit.

Once I decided to commit to shaving my head as well as the straggly bits on my face, the challenge became a next-level exercise.

Shaving is ultimately a simple act, the scraping of a sharpened blade against your skin which can, for people of colour, become a problem.

When I was a child, barbering wasn’t considered done until the shape of the trim had been demarcated at the sides and back with a straight razor.

I hated that part of barbering, the scrape of the razor, the bumps that followed, the horrible itchiness.

The older I got, the worse my reaction to it became, until as a young adult I finally put an end to it.

By then, I was cultivating a wispy afro that never seemed to get more than two inches long, no matter how industriously I braided it into “picky” plaits and nourished it with Bergamot hair cream.

Since then, I’ve reduced my hairstyling from a short gentleman’s cut to a homespun close cut, to, I acknowledge with some irony, no hair at all.

It’s been a slow road of discovery. In my heart, I know that the ultimate science is the master’s art of shaving with a straight razor, but the journey really began by understanding the importance of lather and hot water in the execution of a successful shave.

Canned shaving creams are a terrible and cruel joke. You’re better off building a lather with a neutral soap like Pears or Neutrogena, but there are excellent alternatives.

The best, I’ve found, are barbering creams from Taylor’s of Old Bond Street, which not only create a quality lubricating lather, but are also ridiculously long lasting when used with a shaving brush.

The grapefruit and avocado formulations are particularly manly aftershave smells. Another long-lasting option that creates great lather is a good shaving soap. Some are rubbish, barely better than hand soap, but the shaving soaps from Van Der Hagen and Henry Cavendish are excellent.

What to cut with? Multi-blade cartridge razors are convenient and almost ubiquitous. While they work, they offer middling blades for the work, particularly on creole hair.

For a while I improved the experience by using a well-weighted third-party handle for standard interchangeable cartridge heads, but there are better options.

How do you go up against the omnipresence of Gillette?

You do it with a story.

I first tried Harry’s disposable razors, hoping they might be a better version of the Gillette five-blade system I’d been using.

Their razors are adequate and cheaper than popular cartridge replacements, but the shave isn’t better and the build quality was inferior. You also don’t find out until you open the box that their razors aren’t meant for head shaving.

When you shave with a multi-blade disposable razor, you are benefiting from advanced shaving science. The first blade pulls the hair follicle up while the following blades cut it, often below the surface of the skin.

For melanin-rich shavers in the tropics, that can be a problem. Sweat and grime can get into those exposed pores, and growing hair can become ingrown when cut that low, leading to the horror of razor bumps.

Safety razor shaving is more straightforward and requires fewer passes of the blade. The blades are also heavier and tend to last longer.

I’d squeeze ten or so full head and face shaves from a multi-blade razor by straightening the inevitable scoring of the thin blades by stroking them on a square of heavy jeans material.

It’s not so much sharpening as restoring the edge.

With a single-edged razor, I get at least 14 full shaves before getting into diminishing returns.

For design, I like the razor handles from Henson, Merkur and Supply.

Henson has a compelling story, taking their name from William Henson, creator of the T-shaped double-edged safety razor in 1847, but there’s something about that naked dual blade that I find terrifying to this day.

It reminds me of my grandfather’s shaving kit, with its paper-wrapped Minora and Wilkinson blades and the many cuts I’d get playing the fool with his discarded blades, still dangerous after being deemed too worn for shaving.

My sweet spot was the single-edged razor from Supply, who have improved their design with a new nick-stopping guide that they designed as a drop-in replacement for early adopters.

Supply makes their own single-edge blades, but the razor works with standard blades from any manufacturer.

Mark Lyndersay is the editor of technewstt.com. An expanded version of this column can be found there