My husband is a suspicious man. Recently, for instance, he decided someone in the house had been sneaking around, using his disposable safety razor.
“How do you explain this?” he asked, pointing to a scrape on his neck. “That shouldn’t happen with a two-day-old razor.”
It did look as if he had been shaving with a doughnut. Let me reiterate for the record that no one else is using or has ever used his razor. Despite his accusation, I felt moved by his plight.
Once there was a time, in an era of neighborhood barbershops and soothing, mentholated balms, when this task enjoyed the exalted status of a comforting grooming ritual.
Drugstore disposables own the market now. But I had heard about a growing subculture of shaving mugs and rich lathers, a world of bristle brushes and razors with a little heft to them. Figuring the Internet might be the place where such a movement thrives, I went online to look.
At ClassicShaving.com, I found old-fashioned, no-nonsense shaving gear like straight-edge razors, strops and hones. Sites like MenEssentials.com sold cakes of shave soap, the kind that sits in a shaving mug awaiting lathering. Bricks-and-mortar shops like the Art of Shaving, which has three stores in Manhattan, offered such products as brushes with faux ivory handles online at TheArtOfShaving.com.
At MenEssentials.com, James Whittall, the site’s owner, wrote a 10-point “MANifesto.” Point No. 7 proclaimed, “Men shouldn’t have to buy their skin and grooming products from women’s cosmetics counters or girly online `beauty’ stores.”
“Guys are looking for something that feels a little bit better than a disposable razor and a can of shave foam,” Whittall said in a phone conversation.
At EnchanteOnline.com, owner Charles Roberts sells a line of cutting balms ($35 to $65 per bottle), moisturizing creams ($35 apiece) and aromatic spray tonics ($15 for 4 ounces) that he created while relying on the principles he describes in “Shaving Graces,” a collection of essays.
I phoned, wondering why the situation had deteriorated so badly.
“The onset of mass marketing,” Roberts said. “After World War II, there was a generational break where every man who used a shaving brush got rapidly converted to the exciting concept of shaving cream from an aerosol can.”
Roberts said newfangled products never will provide “the grand experience” of “the dance of shave brush and razor across the skin.”
By now I was armed with arguments for spending money on throwback gear. All I needed to know was what to buy. Ray Dupont, who owns ClassicShaving.com, offers phone consultations.
“Can you recommend a basic kit for beginners?” I asked him.
“Not really,” he said. “That’s like trying to buy one-size-fits-all underwear. It might fit, but the odds are it won’t. Shaving equipment is a very personal item.”
I said: “I’ll describe my husband. He’s kind of paranoid and thinks other people are using his stuff.”
Dupont cut me off. “He should call me himself. I’ll quiz him about his beard and skin conditions, and what scent he likes.”
“He might not have time to phone,” I said.
“Ask him,” Dupont said.
My husband dropped what he was doing and called. Journalist that he is, he took notes. Here is a portion of the transcript of the conversation:
Dupont: “Why do you want to switch?”
Husband: “I live among many women, a house full of females, and they will often steal my blade, use it and then nicely put it back. Next thing I know, dull.”
Dupont: “You need something they won’t use.”
Husband: “A straight edge?”
Dupont: “Are you a straight-edge kind of guy? Do you change your own oil?”
Husband: “No.”
Dupont: “Do you wash your own car?”
Husband: “No.”
Dupont: “You’re a safety razor guy. Go with a double-edge, a single blade with an edge on either side. A lot of women find them intimidating to use.”
Afterward, my husband wrote a wish list. On it was the Vision (the top-of-the-line safety razor from Merkur, $119.99 at ClassicShaving.com), the Vulfix No. 2236 badger brush, $89.99 (described by Dupont as “a brush with a little more meat on its bones”), a ceramic mug with an unscented soap cake ($12.99 for both) and blade refills ($4.59 for 10).
I bought it all. I wonder how well the fancy razor works on legs.
