Luxury shaving -- it's a way of life

As a 24-year-old missionary in Preston, England, and later in the towns of Manchester, Timperly and Rochdale, I frequently had members of my church ask, "Elder, what are you going to do after your mission?"

I always had the same reply: "I'm going to stop shaving."

And that's precisely what I did. From 1993 until 2008, when I finally discovered the true joys of shaving with the proper tools and the proper attitude, I was seldom without some major style of beard and mustache. For years it was a simple full beard, with a bit of trimming under the jaw and at the top of the cheeks. For a while it was the Burnside look, just for variety. But always there was something full and furry, camouflage for the fact that I only trimmed the edges every third or fourth day.

What else was I going to do? I'd begun shaving at 12 and by the time I was in 10th grade it was a mandatory daily ritual, unless I wanted to look like a modern skateboarder. Then I joined the National Guard my senior year of high school, on Dec. 6, 1986, and on March 4, 1988, I joined the full-time Army. In Korea where I spent my first two years we worked six days a week. Then I spent seven months in Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Kuwait for the Persian Gulf War, and there we had to shave every blasted day because of the threat of chemical weapons and the need to keep our faces smooth-shaved so our gas masks would seal (in fact, Western armies didn't start making their soldiers shave until WWI, the first war to involve chemical weapons, for exactly that reason).

Then, less than a year after my return from Operation Desert Storm, I was a Mormon missionary, and you never have a day off on one of those. So, years on end of shaving EVERY FREAKIN' DAY. With either cartridge razors or electrics. I'd just accepted the notion that razor burn was part of being a civilized man. And I was sick of civilization.

But it turns out civilization doesn't have to be painful. In fact, it probably isn't supposed to be.

My introduction to "the blade"

My first straight-razor shave was at the barber shop on Camp Pelham, outside the ville of Son-Ya-Ri, South Korea. Spitting distance from the DMZ, 1988. Pretty Asian girls who hated Americans and hoped to move to our country would give what I think was called "The Works" for $20. That included a shampoo, haircut (like most artillerymen there I got a new high-and-tight every other week), hot wet towels on the face followed by electrically heated shaving cream and a straight razor shave, followed by a clay facial treatment that was allowed to dry and then removed with more hot, moist towels, topped off with a so-called "massage." Despite my pleas they never got the massage right; it was more of a two-girl assault on a hapless private. They leaned me forward and beat on my back with a catchy rhythm that was loud enough to drown out my grunts of pain.

The one thing that stuck with me was the sight of an unsmiling girl coming at my throat with a glittering knife. It took nerve to sit still the first couple of times. But after that, I learned to relax and trust, and then I discovered that being shaved is probably one of the grandest pleasures a man can experience in mortality. Back in those days, when I was as close to an athlete as I ever came, I could doze in almost any position. And I came very close to falling asleep while my face was being scraped smooth.

Years later I bought a brand-new Henckels stainless-steel, short-blade, round-point razor at Lorenz Cutlery, the generations-old knife, scissors and sharpening shop just west of the federal courthouse in Salt Lake City. I also got a leather Illinois strop and a badger shaving brush. The trio of shaving tools set me back about $120. The old dude behind the counter ran the blade across one of their massive turning stones and proclaimed it super-sharp; in later years I learned it had been just barely sharp enough to shave with. Also, he didn't properly show me how to strop and my clumsy efforts actually rounded off the cutting edge. Almost as bad, I used that $25 badger-hair brush to slop cold, canned Gillette foam on my face. Two slow and painful shaves I got out of that razor. Then it sat in the medicine cabinet for three years and finally disappeared along with most of my other best possessions in my first divorce.

Nowadays Henckels doesn't even make razors any more. Dovo is the biggest single maker of blades in Solingen, Germany, the one-time world capital of cutting edges. Dorko makes a less pricey blade that's sold almost solely to barbers. Pakistan and China produce some good-looking knickknacks that are called straight razors, made of cheap stainless steel that's never been tempered and won't hold an edge. I've been back to Lorenz's and it's under new ownership. The proprietor usually has no razors at all; he can only get about four Dovos at a time and they go fast.

But somewhere between the time Henckels lost all their master razorsmiths and decided to drop their 270-year line of razors (they just make kitchen cutlery now), and when I started thinking that a good Mormon should have a plan for shaving after the inevitable economic collapse and the following Tribulation, straight razors started making a comeback. Two things apparently brought that to pass; the rise of eBay and the promotion of old-style wet shaving. Suddenly all those razors moldering in heirloom boxes or at the back of medicine cabinets became valuable collector's items with millions of eBayers anxious to bid for them. I came across online articles telling me how wet shaving was not only Old School Cool, it was easier on your face. It's a way for men to be masculine and self-pampering at the same time.

And naturally, I figured, if you have a straight razor and the tools to keep it sharp for the rest of your life, when the ever-more-imminent collapse of civilization comes, you'll still look spiffy whilst the rest of manhood is trying to use magnets and alcohol to eke more life out of their $3.50-per-cartridge Gillette Fusions.

Now, a word about the real safety razor and its superiority over cartridge razors. Back in Korea I'd purchased a Gillette adjustable double-sided safety razor (see right pic); that must have been one of the last years it was on the market. I think my mom threw that gem away during my mission when all my 45 records and a WWII encyclopedia vanished. I've since purchased four Indian-made Parker-brand razors (see left pic); they're nice but they aren't adjustable. I bought 100 disposable stainless-steel blades cheap off eBay, and I discovered that they really are the best sfety shavers imaginable when used with a light touch, rather than being ground into the face the way I did while in Korea, uneducated as I was in the science of shaving.

But that wasn't enough for me. There's another bold step that takes one to the manliest, most reliable, sustainable, eco-friendly, and actually smoothest-shaving method possible: mastery of a high-quality, properly honed and stropped straight razor.

It takes about $200 to get the right equipment to be a truly Old School Cool master shaver. First, the razor. You can get a well-made antique for about $25 on eBay, or about $80 to $200 for a new one from Dovo. Then even if you buy a new one you'll need to spend at least $40 on a good hone, because no straight razor is truly "shave ready" out of the box. Then $20 for a simple leather strop, but you're much better off with a $50 Dovo strop, with its three-inch width and Russian-style leather back. You need a tube of diamond stropping paste for refreshing the blade between honings, and that's another $20.

And you definitely want a badger-hair brush for applying either shaving soap, or actual shaving cream, the kind that comes in a jar or a tube. The boar brushes are cheaper, you can get them for as little as $6, but the extra $20 to $30 is very worth it (the hair is softer, yes, but even better, it soaks up and holds a lot more water and a lot more lather).

Now, more about the soap or cream. You need something with a lot of glycerin that's going to soften your skin as well as your beard. And it needs to smell purty. Shaving is a chore with modern tools and foams (they are NOT creams if they come from an aerosol can), but shaving should be a meditative ritual, a self-indulgent, relaxing time where the rest of the world goes away while you do the most singularly civilizing male ritual there is: remove the sign of your adult manhood from your face, to reveal your true appearance and please your significant other (and perhaps your bishop or pastor or boss, too).

You can buy shaving soap at Wal-Mart -- yeah, it's actually there, in the shaving aisle on that bottom shelf you've never looked at. But don't bother with it. It's cheap and it works, but it smells ... well, like soap. And it won't leave your skin feeling baby-soft, like a proper shaving soap or cream should. So you're gonna need to shop online. My favorite source is classicshaving.com. They have good prices and carry nearly all the major brands of luxury shaving supplies. My favorite is the Vulfix cream; it's cheaper by half than, say, the Truefitt & Hill brand, and just as good. Pearly, heavenly smelling creams explode with fluffy foam under the swirly sweep of a nicely wetted brush. After splashing hot water on your face you coat it in truly creamy lather and let it sit for a few minutes while you strop your razor and breathe the heady scent of limes, lavender, roses, or something milder like sandalwood or almonds.

When the beard is sufficiently softened, a properly honed and stropped straight razor carries away almost half a face-full of whiskers in a couple of broad sweeps of the blade. It rinses clean in a moment, certainly more conveniently than the disposable razors that clog on the first swipe and have to be hammered against the porcelain. After the downward-shave it's usually good to lather up again -- I enjoy it so much I've been known to use up any leftover lather on my face even when I'm finished mowing. After relathering, shave up against the grain. If the razor is dragging you don't have a proper edge on it. Consult YouTube for guidance on stropping and sharpening; I certainly had to. After being locked in an arms bunker for a month back in '89 and making 30 previously blunt bayonets cut arm hair, I considered myself a pretty good honemestier, but razor sharpening is different from knife sharpening. In many ways it's easier, but it takes a lighter touch and more patience.

When you shave with a good cream, or perhaps better, a glycerin soap containing bentonite clay (it slicks the face and prevents razor drag), you won't need to freshen up with aftershave. The essential oils and the gentle glycerin condition the skin, and straight razors aren't catchments for the filmy scum and microbes that breed in cartridge razors (and even electric razors). And why use that alcohol-based, cheap-smelling stuff that made you scream just like Macaulay Culkin the first time you used it? There actually isn't a good reason to punish your senses in order to remove the daily growth. In fact, shaving can be the most pleasant part of your daily routine. Right now, it is the most peaceful event in my day and, despite having once been the man whose primary goal in life was to stop shaving, I now actually look forward to it.

I invite all men who read these words to go and do likewise. To all women, I suggest that a couple hundred bucks for a decent straight-razor rig is a great present for Christmas, birthdays and Fathers' Day. And since most men spend $200 a year on their normal shaving supplies, you'll end up saving a pile of cash in the not-too-long run, as well as being prepared for the days of scarcity.