The Razor's Edges - All Four of Them

I am a child of the 1960's. I was born too late to have been a 'hippy', but not too late to have been drawn into the 'disco' era, for which I sincerely apologize for the damage my generation has done to the world.

Certain things were transitioning, certain technologies were in a state of flux, and I was there to see much of it happening. Microwave ovens, color TV's, cordless phones (not to mention cellular phones), cable TV, the Internet, the list goes on and on. But today, I want to talk about shaving.

Shaving was a ritual that both men and women practiced, but as a young Wigwam, I was only familiar with watching my father shave in the morning. With one bathroom in the house and four kids, we had a tad less privacy in the mornings that we might feel comfortable with these days.

I think every young boy probably has some memories of watching their father shave - presuming that their father did shave. And shaving has changed over the years, so our memories of these events mark as products of a given period of time.

I am just old enough to remember seeing my father shave with a 'safety razor.' These were the double-sided blades that were designed to be inserted into a handle, which was then cranked down until it was snug upon the razor. The blade was then used as a double-sided axe, to shave away with one side until it was dull, and then to be flipped over in the hand and used on the other side. This was considered to be an advancement over the centuries-old 'straight-edge' razor. The blades could be taken out of the metal box they came in with little difficulty, and would cut the dickens out of you with very little manipulation. In some cases, my dad might use a bare blade to scrape stray paint off of a glass surface, or remove sticky goo from where a price label had been. I believe such blades can still be had at the hardware store for just such purposes. The blade was incredibly sharp, but fragile. It didn't take much pressure to wreck the edge, and the blade itself could shatter if used too enthusiastically on things other than faces.

I remember that my father used "Gillette Blue Blades" and "Barbasol" shaving cream.

After he had shaved, he would splash his face with "Old Spice" and then cuss for about thirty seconds. Then, he would carefully apply little pieces of toilet paper to any nicks on his face that were still bleeding.

As strange as it may seem after seeing my father swear and recoil, I could not wait for the day when I would actually have to shave. As I am sure many boys do, I would sometimes practice shaving, with my father's razor handle with no blade in it.

The razor itself was a complex mechanism, and a source of endless fascination for me as a young boy. You turned a knob on the bottom of the handle - the top of the razor slowly opened, like a two-peteled flower, to receive the blade. Sometimes my father would let me change the blade for him. I'd open the top, tilt the razor upside down, and watch the old blade fall away into the trash can. Then, carefully pushing the new razor out of the metal container it came in, I would carefully hold it by the long ends (the non-sharp ends) and drop it into the top of the razor, cranking it back down again and handing this precision instrument carefully over to my father, who would ceremoniously thank me for providing this needed service for him.

Then, I could sit on the edge of the toilet seat lid and wait for the cursing to begin. The smell of 'Old Spice' will forever be embedded in my memories of being about eight years old.

BEARD, n. The hair that is commonly cut off by those who justly execrate the absurd Chinese custom of shaving the head.

Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary".

By the time I became old enough to shave, I was in boot camp, in the Marine Corps. There, I was issued a disposable 'Bic' shaver, a can of 'Barbasol', and sent to the 'head' (Jarhead talk for bathroom) and given ten seconds to dispose of my civilian beard (purely peach fuzz, I was hardly hirsute). I believe I shaved the tops off of more zits than I did hair, and that was an experience not to be believed.

The Bic was a single-bladed razor, essentially just one edge of a double-bladed safety razor, embedded permanently in a bright yellow plastic handle. It lacked style, it lacked grace, it was not a 'mechanism' or a 'device', but it did cut hair. It was utterly without soul. You used it, you threw it away, you opened the pack and took out a new one every couple of days.

By the time I actually needed a razor on a more-or-less daily basis, I was in my early twenties, and out of the Corps. Like most very young men of my generation, the Gillette Trac II served me well, along with a can of 'Foamy'. I didn't use 'Old Spice', I used 'Hai Karate'. I was hip.

Two blades, as some egg-head had figured out, were better than one. The advertisements of the time demonstrated - the first blade cut beard hair, yes. But as it was cutting, it apparently pulled good and hard at the individual hairs, lifting them up and out of their hidey-holes inside my skin. Then, before they could wimper and retreat, the second blade came along and chopped them off good and proper. So this would evidently be the ultimate shave - a shave that was actually below the skin level - wow!

Now, a couple of things were not stated, and I sometimes wondered about them. For example, how did the first blade 'lift' and 'pull' the beard hairs, but the second blade did not? Were they somehow different? And didn't all this pulling and yanking result in considerable pain on the part of the face being shaved? If the barber had cut my hair (I had hair back then) by grabbing it and pulling it good and hard, I think I might have objected.

It was not for many years that the makers of shaving products figured out that they could apparently make a shave even better by adding yet another blade to the stack. Not one, not two, but three blades would be optimal. And once again, the advertisements showed how the first blade ripped the hair right up out of the skin, then the second blade pulled it even higher, and finally, the merciful third blade delivered the coups de grace and put that wretched hair out of its misery.

So! It would appear that one of my speculations about the evil twin-blade razor had been correct - namely, that the second blade further lifted the hair out of my skin, it did not behave differently than the first. Ah-hah! But then one must ask - how does the third blade differ from the first two? Does it not also lift the hair out even further? I mean, at what point are we in danger of reaching right back into our very DNA to rip out the evil hair with a blade?

Nevertheless, I determined to try this evil tool, and by golly, it did give me a very nice clean shave, and with a great deal less swearing afterwards than my father had done. By this time, I had switched back to 'Old Spice' and was experimenting like some kind of damned commie with 'Edge' shaving cream.

So, for the last several decades, I've been shaving away with three blades in various configurations. Every couple of years, the manufacturers figure out a way to make the new blades not fit the old handles, and they make you buy new handles all over again. This must be difficult to do, but they must do this in order to be able to continue to rip us off - er, I mean, service our needs. I finally gave up on keeping a handle and just went to the disposable razors, just like the old Bic single-blade days.

But now, we have come to the time when the manufacturers need new sources of revenue. It is time to throw away all that works and sell us something that is exactly the same but better.

Four blades.

Eh, sure.

Two blades - better than one. OK, I bought that.

Three blades - better than two. Well, I went along, despite suspicions that this might be, um, crapola - basically because I could no longer find two-bladed razors after awhile.

And now - ta-da! Four blades.

And that brings me to today's rant.

Today, I got a solicitation from Schick to come and visit them online - and to receive a free four-bladed razor just for experiencing their webby proclamations. Well, why not? I realize that in a very short period of time, I'll no longer be able to buy a three-bladed razor - this is preordained. So, off I went to:

Get a free Schick Quattro Razor in exchange for looking upon their hipness - click here.

The Schick people are hip. Oh yes, they're hip. They speak to the young. They know our lingo. Oh wait. I guess I'm not their target audience. But I'm trapped in their web, so I get the full treatment as well. And here are some of the more tasty parts of their hipness:



Why, apparently, if I fall for, er, I mean, see the power of their argument and rush out to buy four-bladed razors, Miss "North Carolina" will fall for me like a ton of bricks. I love the way they figured out how to personalize this for me. So techno. Oh, and by the way - is it just me, or does it look like Miss North Carolina has that well-known "I have to poop" expression on her face?



Now this, I can appreciate! Of course, Wilson is well-known as being the town where resides the famous, the incredible, and awesome personage that is myself. Ever buddy knows that. But here it is for the world to see. I may weep openly. Thank you, Schick. Thank you.



However, this last image is perhaps a bit over the top. I am somewhat worried about how Mrs. Wiggy will take it. She's been very accepting about the diaphanous 'Dancing Girls' who I've claimed have followed me around from place to place and assignment to assignment all over the world (and who might well have been responsible for the Death of the Air Mattress - a story yet to be told). But this? I dunno, I am not at all happy about this one. Schick, what were you thinking?

I'm 45 years old and we've gone from one blade to four in my lifetime. By that reasoning, by the time I kick the bucket, I should be shaving with a razor that is actually larger than my head, containing some eight or nine blades, all pulling, pushing, shoving, ripping, teasing, cavorting, and eventually getting around to the actual business of cutting my beard hair. I will need mechanical assistance to hold the thing up, and my shave will be smooth to a level of precision only found in the finest optical glass, such as is today found only in the Hubble Space Telescope's mirror. My face will be so smooth, that if Mrs. Wiggy kisses me, she will be liable to slide right off my face.

I weep for future generations. And not just from the 'Old Spice'.