I’ve used electric shavers pretty much since I first had to shave, and have upgraded only a couple of times along the way – most recently when I got a shaver I could use in the shower, back in October 2004. Whether it’s due to using electric shavers or not, I don’t know, but I suffer from the occasional trapped hair and it causes no end of grief when it happens. So, back in early December I thought I’d try wet shaving with a razor for the first time in a good ten years.
Last time I tried I royally, and I mean royally, messed it up. Despite getting myself the awesome King of Shaves lotion, I made schoolboy errors, like going against the grain, and I just about skinned myself alive. Afterwards I had rinsed away the blood from multiple cuts, slapped on copious amounts of Givenchy Gentleman aftershave, which I then got in my mouth as I tried to stifle the screams, and woke the next day with a face like the elephant man suffering an allergic reaction to peanuts. Ouch.
Needless to say, as soon as my skin had recovered I was back using the electric shaver again.
The truth is, I had no idea how to have a wet shave. My original father was gone long before he could show me how, and my stepfather has a beard, so he wasn’t much help. It’s not the kind of thing you ask your mates about when you’re a teenager, either. I mean, everybody knows how to shave, right?
And so it was that me learning how to wet shave just kind of fell through the cracks of life. Using an electric shaver, which somewhat limits the harm I can inflict upon myself, seemed the safe and sensible option.
With hindsight, that ill fated attempt back in the 90’s was due, in part, to me copying those ridiculous adverts by razor blade companies. You know – the ones that would have you believe the very ownership of one of those things increases your manliness exponentially, such is the sheer machismo that they attach to testosterone injected products with names like Mach 15 Extreme Turbo Dragonslayer 4.