Cataline Recommends: Getting A Shave

Nope.

Not a movie, TV show, play or YouTube channel although I could be wrong about that last I didn’t look before I typed.

Gillette has announced a new product. The Gillette TREO and it is billed as “the world’s first razor designed to shave someone else.” Accompanied by a picture of Millennial shaving his grandfather (who presumably has Parkinson’s or some other debilitating condition.

Bullshit.

A razor that shaves someone else has been around for a while.

I suppose I could probably find other even more ancient examples but you get my drift.

Gillette is lying. And they haven’t given up on the Woke politics either. They’ve just turned them down slightly. Now they are using the picture of some toddler with the catchphrase, “The Next Generation of Men is Watching.”

Honestly, Gillette razors are terrible. They damage the skin and don’t do anywhere near as good a job at shaving as the methods they replaced. And the price of blades is utterly ludicrous given what their production cost is.

The odds are excellent that you are scraping by (sorry) with the same thing your father or your TV told you to use when shaving first became a necessity in your life.

You don’t know what you don’t know and the odds are excellent you don’t know what a good shave feels like.

A high end shave is a luxury experience and can take up to an hour. If you’ve never had one, brother you don’t know what you’ve missed. This is a traditional masculine pleasure that was left by the wayside because of Boomer preferences in grooming that were compounded by boys having to learn to shave by watching commercials because their fathers had been removed from their lives.

Even if you only get a luxury shave once in your life, you need to find out what the best shave out there can feel like.

Now that you have a baseline you can start redesigning your shaving system.

First ditch the cartridges. Get rid of the Gillette, Harry’s and Dollar Shave Club razors. Those blades are built for safety not sharpness. They abrade the skin and leave razor bumps in their wake. And in worse case scenarios can cause basil cell skin cancer.

Now a straight razor is going to get you the best shave possible. And it will run you forty dollars a year to have it professionally sharpened, (and yes a have pro-do that, I know Uncle Jimbo swears he can do as good a job but he can’t). $40 a year is way cheaper an annual cost than Gillette’s high end. Downside past a certain point, time is a consideration and a straight edge shave does chew up a lot of it. And if you are pussy, there is the whole cutting your own throat thing.

If time means more than money (and believe me I get that), you are better off with a high end Norelco, provided you are doing a wet shave. Annual cost of replacing the head is about $100. That is still better than Gillette. Also make sure the electric razor will work wet. I personally can’t recommend dry electric shaves unless you are camping.

For myself I use a Merkur long handle with Feather Blades.

And yes I recommend using a badger brush. with a high fat shaving soap. There are plenty of soaps to choose from right now.

Okay, I’m done here.