barrettchase.com

barrettchase.com
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Fri, 13 Jan 2012

Get ready. Are you sitting down? Are you sure? Okay. Take a deep breath. You're about to read about my personal grooming habits.

I've decided to attempt to start shaving every day. This is startling news, because I'm pretty sure I have never done this before in the history of my facial hair. For much of my late 20s/early 30s I maintained a full beard. For the past few years, I've flirted on and off with the Northern Minnesota werewolf look. Other times, however, I shaved, but only when I deemed it to be necessary. In other words, when my facial hair got ugly and/or uncomfortable, I scraped it all off. This usually occurred about once a week, give or take half a week depending on how ambitious or lazy I was at that particular time.

Primarily, this method is inspired by a lack of caring on my part and by having a job where holes in the armpits of your T-shirt are practically a requirement, but on the surface I justify it with the fact that several people have told me that I look better with a few days of growth. I think I know what they mean. A day or so after shaving, my face takes on a sickly gray cast. Maybe two days after that I look pretty good. That sweet spot doesn't last for long, though. Next up, it's scraggly, dirty, full-on neckbeard, which hangs around worsening until frustration drives me to go in clear-cutting with hatchet and axe and two-man saw.

So I've decided to break this cycle. To make my project easier, I bought an electric shaver (a Panasonic ES8243 Wet/Dry for all you gearheads). I've never been a fan of the electric shaver. My parents bought me one when I sprouted my first whiskers, since my dad held a passionate belief that men who shaved the old-fashioned way were technophobes. I used that shaver while I was in high school, but as soon as I struck out on my own I started using a Gillette SensorExcel. This was among the first multiple-blade razors, and its two blades seem quaint when compared to the wall-of-blades razors on the market today. Anyway, I used that razor for many years before I got tired of having to take out a loan every time I wanted to re-up on blade cartridges. After that I just started buying the cheapest disposable out there, which is a bloodbath on a stick. Eventually I discovered that the second-cheapest disposables were generally easier on the face and I settled on those, until now.

Despite all the advances in technology since I hit puberty, my new shaver doesn't shave much better than the one my parents bought me back in the 80s. It's cordless, which is nice. Mainly the big breakthrough is a little LCD screen that shows how long it took me to shave. I guess this is so I can get really goal-oriented and competitive with myself, striving for shorter and shorter shave times.

I'm currently at a little over a minute and a half.

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