If you’ve ever actually met me in real life, chances are I appeared at that time unshaven. Not that I have a heavy beard or anything—although I have on occasion sported various styles of facial hair—but specifically whatever areas of my face that would reasonably require regular maintenance in the form of shaving (even full beard wearers shave some parts of their faces to keep the beard looking neat) have far greater than even odds of being unshaven at any given point in time.

The reason for this is not actually (well, not completely) attributed to laziness. Truthfully, shaving is and has always been a problem for me.

There are a couple of reasons why shaving has been a pain ever since I matured to the point where not shaving was something that had a noticeable effect. And really that hasn’t been all that long. I probably first shaved a few wisps of facial hair around my Sophomore year in high school, but it wasn’t until I was twenty or so before I could claim any sort of legitimate facial hair that might require regular shaving. It probably wasn’t for a year or two after that before I could let it grow and the result would appear to be something akin to a real beard.

But even now my full “beard” is pretty sad: It grows uneven and inconsistently hued. It doesn’t grow much on my cheeks other than in a few select patches and the whole thing is plagued by the same affliction as my (lately ever more absent) head hair, which is what my dad always called “cowlicky” but really means that the grain or direction of growth is not uniform. I’ve experimented with various styles of facial hair in the past to varying degrees of success, but any style is still going to suffer from its composition of thick, coarse hair that pretty much does its own thing regardless of other neighboring hairs. Plus my mustache is really pathetic with the hair along the ridges of my philtrum growing far, far darker than anywhere else across my upper lip so that in anything save direct natural lighting I have a vaguely Hitler-esque appearance. I’ve tried many combinations of mustache-less beard configurations but the end result is almost always that I have more surface area to maintain than growing facial hair would suppose and, indeed, is designed to prevent.

The really unfortunate part is that I don’t particularly care for facial hair. It’s uncomfortable to me (although I inherited my father’s penchant for tugging my facial hair when I’m deep in thought which is why I almost always leave at least a little soul patch under my lower lip, just to have something to play with while I think—I never was able to fully mimic my father’s preference for the corner of his mustache, probably due to the fact that my mustache corners consist of about four wispy strands). I would prefer to be mostly clean shaven, which returns from my digression so I can finish telling you why shaving has been a pain.

The primary factor is that I received a genetic gift from my dear maternal grandmother of intensely sensitive skin. I have to use certain kinds of soap, both in the shower and on my laundry. I generally have to just be really careful about what kinds of deodorants, lotions or ointments I use because I’ve had some pretty rough reactions to things on occasion. I suspect that heavy dyes and perfumes are the worst offenders which is why things like All Free & Clear laundry detergent work pretty well but fabric softener sheets are big negatives. Even when using “sensitive skin” shaving foam, the mere act of scraping the hair off my face is generally enough to give my skin fits.

The other factor is less easily identifiable but I suspect has something to do with the weird growth patterns and thickness of my hair which is that if I try to shave stubble, that is hair that isn’t at least a few days worth of growth long, I get the worst razor burn ever.

Now, I’ve tried for the past ten years or so various methods of having a reasonably presentable face (such as is possible with a mug like mine). I heard that the key was to just shave every single day at the same time and eventually the razor burn would go away. I don’t know exactly how long that regimen is supposed to happen, but two weeks later and I was basically just shaving off scabs from the previous day every morning so I figured that was both really gross and pointless. I’ve tried electric razors that are generally less close shaves thinking that might be better since it may not get the blades on my actual skin as much, but it doesn’t work because I both don’t feel like I really shaved that much and I still get razor burn. And each time the razor companies add another blade to their disposable or cartridge lines, I give it a shot thinking it might be better. It isn’t.

The only routine that sort of works is my current regimen which involves literally shaving only once per week. But again, I really would prefer to be clean shaven much more often, not to mention the fact that I’m sure Nik would appreciate it and her own fairly tender skin is often razed a deep red after even mild smootching by my almost permanently sandpaper-like face. Not ideal.

And a couple of weeks ago a new problem appeared that started me thinking about shaving options again: I rushed home from work and had a short period of time to shave after having gone for nearly two weeks without. I grabbed one of the generic triple-bladed disposables that we buy as the best option I’ve yet found and started in. About two-thirds of the way through I noticed that a few clumps of my thick beard had gotten lodged in the tiny gaps between the blades, which essentially rendered those sections of the razor’s head useless at best and painful at worst, and no amount of rapping the razor on the edge of the sink would dislodge the clogs. Ouch.

So it is curiously timely that I happened to run across this article on old-school style wetshaving today. Basically wetshaving is the method of shaving used in the past with the lather brush and either a double-bladed safety razor or a (gulp!) straight razor. According to this guy and a bunch of other people whose writings I tracked down after reading it, wetshaving is the way to go for smooth, burnless shaves especially if you’re among those with coarse or thick facial hair.

My first instinct might be to dismiss these people as lunatics because in a certain mathematical sense the modern multi-blade razors seem more logical. But on the other hand I’ve long suspected that Gilette et al are really not too concerned about the closeness of their customers’ shaves and just want to have something new to peddle to a blindly accepting population. Hi, my name is Paul and I’m kind of cynical.

But one thing that does give a bit of anecdotal support to the assertions these people are making is that I’ve actually had a real barbershop shave with a straight razor in the past (back when visiting a barber wasn’t completely pointless for me) and I have to say, it was the most comfortable, closest shave I’ve ever had before or since and, as the article mentions but which is otherwise apropos of nothing, it was possibly in my top five most relaxing experiences of my life.

After some additional thought I decided that it is perfectly reasonable that old style shaving may be just the ticket for me, and I have to try something different since my once-per-week method may be okay for some hack working the graveyard shift but doesn’t become someone who might ever wish to appear professional somewhere down the line. As it is I try very hard to schedule my weekly shaves around events where it is most appropriate to be fully shaven and if it falls that I need a shave before my allotted time has past, I resort to the half-shave where I clean up my neck and cheeks and appear as though I’m in the early stages of growing a full beard. A questionable workaround at best.

But before I dive in I needed to evaluate the relative costs. I may have shaving issues, but I’m also a cheapskate, especially when it comes to annoying personal grooming expenses. So I figured that it costs me roughly $1.60 per week to shave. Of course that is with me shaving once per week, and one of the ideas here is to shave once per day instead. For the sake of simplicity I’ll round the numbers to about $1.00 per day with my current set up stretched out over six days (I probably won’t ever consistently shave on Saturdays) for a weekly total of $6.00 using the cheap sensitive skin formula shave foam and the generic triple blade disposables that have been my staple for three or four years now.

Now if I go with the recommendations from the article, the Merkur Safety Razor (I actually think I’d prefer the “Classic” model over the bigger “Hefty” one) is $26.00 plus shipping. A pack of 10 double edged blades is roughly $5.00 and a jar of nice European shaving cream runs about $15.00 plus shipping. I’ll assume the total shipping costs are fairly small and infrequent since only the razor and the shaving cream need be shipped (assuming I can find someone who sells the blades at a brick and mortar somewhere), so to compensate I’ll just add an additional dollar to the blade costs.

I can’t be sure how many shaves you get out of a double edged razor blade but I’ll go with the same formula as the disposable and say once per blade (double-edged blades then get two uses each). The total therefore comes to $0.85 per day for the razor and blades which leaves the cream. Unfortunately I have no idea how far a 5.3 ounce jar of European shaving cream goes. Is that five shaves worth? Fifty? The amount is slightly less than a tube of toothpaste and those usually last a month so I’ll guess it’s roughly the same. After the math that means the daily cost for wetshaving would be roughly $1.50, so obviously there is an increased cost factor for wetshaving, by about a half a magnitude.

So here is the question: Is it worth it? Are these people on crack? Have you ever tried wetshaving on yourself? Does it make a difference?

My inclination is to give it a shot. I figure one month would be reasonable and would more or less recoup the investment cost in the razor and shaving cream. Plus that would give me a better idea of how often the materials need to be replaced which might adjust the cost factor up or down and give me enough time to get used to adding a few extra minutes to my daily routine.

If you have insight or suggestions, by all means, leave a comment or drop me an email. My face thanks you.