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Prickly About Shaving

I have complained before, indirectly at least, about the gossamer strands of tinfoil that pass for razor blades in this Dark Age.

For the first 30 or so years of my shaving life I used an injector blade, a single blade inserted in a sturdy handle (purple in color -- hey, I got it in the early 70s, what do you expect? -- but otherwise unobjectionable).

Now that I think of it, the fact that it was a purple razor may explain why I began shaving without resort to any cream before or lotion after whilst living in the dorm in college. I was obviously muy macho, at least in my imagination, despite the color of the razor.

Anyway, whatever the original motivation, I've tended to 'dry shave' ever since. Of course, I much prefer shaving after showering... while my face is still wet... so that's not really a dry shave, is it? Also, I find that doing things in this order cuts down substantially on the bleeding. Which is a plus.

The problem is that the injector blades went the way of the dodo a few years back and I've been forced to switch to one of those multiblade razors.

In theory, these are better for the environment than my old injector: Even with four cutting strands, because each strand is so thin, the multiblade uses less metal.

But theory collides headfirst with practice here as so often elsewhere: The injector blade might give a reasonably good job of it for a couple of weeks. The multiblade is pretty much useless after a couple of uses. To try and stretch the life of the multiblade, I've even taken to using shaving cream on occasion. But this requires time... and, given my inability to move quickly in the mornings....

Well, let me put it this way: Some few, lucky people are like solid-state electronics -- instant on. I'm more like an old tube set. I have to warm up for awhile before I can do much of anything... and by that time... no matter how early I've set the alarm... I'm late.

Shaving cream only slows me down further. If anyone out there knows where injector blades may yet be found, I still have the purple handle.

Curmudgeon is a self-described dinosaur -- an Ozzie and Harriet person living in an Ozzy and Sharon world. And sometimes it confuses the heck out of him. He writes a very amusing blog at Second Effort.

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