A Close Shave

Over the years, I've observed that men are on a perpetual search for perfect sex, a perfect cup of coffee, and a perfect shave, and we'll settle for one out of three.

So let me make some observations about one of the other two - namely, a perfect shave.

As a teenager, I would stand in front of the bathroom mirror looking for something, anything, that resembled a beard. When it finally appeared, I learned about shaving from my father. Pretty simple in those days - shaving soap, a shaving brush, and a Gillette "Safety Razor." (The idea of using a straight edge just scared the hell out of me, so the double edged blade was the only choice. Lathering up from the hard shaving soap in the wooden bowl was easy, even fun, but It took a lot longer than I thought it should to learn to navigate the razor around my face. So I also learned about little pieces of toilet paper stuck on a cheek to stop the bleeding and the sticks (called styptic pencils) in the medicine cabinet to accomplish the same thing.

After I absorbed the basic vocabulary, I began the search for improvement. The first was the arrival of the Wilkinson razor blade, and then a parade of different razors followed - single blade, razors with vibrating motors, double blades, triple blades, electric razors (totally unsatisfactory for me), and once I settled on inexpensive razors from my local Target store, I began to review the "soap option." After decades with the brush and hard soap swirled into lather, I tried a succession of "brushless soaps."

Not the same, although I did conclude that some of them - the ones in a tube - were appropriate for use during travel when one wishes to reduce the impedimenta to a minimum. In my sixth decade of shaving, with ageing and dry skin, I finally left behind the hard soap in a bowl for soft soap in a bowl, but with the shaving brush.

If you haven't shaved with a brush, you've missed one of the great pleasures of life. Generally English, typically made with badger hair, the shaving brush transports and foams the soap on the face. It feels good, very good in truth, and when properly applied makes shaving a literal breeze.

When the shaving is done, getting the soap off your face with hot water and running your hands over the skin reminds you that you are now ready for the day, knowing that on some days, shaving might well be the high point.

A couple of days ago, while shaving, I realized that the shaving brush I was using was the same one my father used for many years. Made by Kent, a fine English brush manufacturer, its brown handle has had a few knocks, and the brush hairs are shorter and less "spread" than they once were. But it still works fine.

Each morning, when I shave, I am reminded that although my father has been gone for over two decades, there remains a complex web of connections between us. Most of them lie in memory or in objects which he enjoyed and which I inherited.

The brush is a different kind of link with its physical connection to my father, and it brings me more pleasure than I might ever have guessed. I like that in a very small way, I'm carrying on what I learned from him about something as elementary as the morning shave.