No I do not enjoy shaving, but Yes I do shave every single (damn) day! In case you are wondering, nor am I abnormally hirsute, I guess it’s more of a conditioning and a habit that was acquired since adolescence.
I doubt whether those without facial hair would be able to empathise with the agonising ritual of a daily shave. Don’t get me wrong…I’m not referring to the mere task of a daily shave, the labour or effort that is spent. I’m referring to the nicks and cuts and the oohs and ouches that go with them culminating in the final uncensored swearing and hopping around that results when the few drops of after-shave lotion is splashed in an act of near self-immolation! Bulldozed with all those commercials claiming the supposed benefits of multiple blades in one cartridge, I too made a choice a very long time ago. I started with twin blades and graduated to the “triple blade” wonder. The results were a bit short of the promised sheen of the TV commercial and left me aspiring for more. That’s when I heard of the “5 blade” wonder, which though did seem impressive, it also seemed rather absurd and I never could bring myself to put 5 blades all at once to my cheek! So with the triple blade I’ve remained, happily changing just the cartridge when the blades turned dull. I still haven’t reached a conclusion whether it is a matter of pride that I have facial hair so tough that can render a stainless steel blade dull after so many uses! (If there is any such record to be set in the Guiness Book do let me know). I have never been a fan of the single (limited number of uses) disposable razors as such, mostly because I have found them to be too light to perform the task assigned and one would often be forced to exert undue pressure on a sleepy cheek and that itself seems scary.
It is only recently however that it dawned on me that even the disposable cartridges that I have been using and disposing are not really “disposable”. It is very difficult to recycle such a cartridge that has stainless steel embedded and sandwiched into hard polystyrene. The damage that such discards can cause hit me like a ton of bricks and set me thinking. While the disposable razors themselves seemed like a crime that I could never bring myself to commit, these disposable cartridges seemed like a mere lesser evil, pronouncing me guilty of regular pollution and environment degradation offence. Things simply had to change!
That’s when I decided to do some shopping to see if I could procure an old fashioned non disposable razor, you know the one in which you have to sandwich a real double edged blade in between the steel plates? And guess what, I learnt that as a result of the less demand for this, most of the local stores did not stock them anymore. Not to be deterred I visited a shopping mall and finally got my hands on one.
I have tried it out and the nicks and cuts have got worse. While deep within there is a warm glow from knowing that I’m no longer harming the environment, outside, my face has become battle worn and scarred. I guess using such a razor requires some skill and practice and so I’ve set my mind towards mastering the art. In the meantime if you pass by my house and hear war cries/swearing with the profanest of words and see a person performing the zumba dance alone, that’s probably me seconds after that after shave hits me!
