Shaving

Shaving ©

   By

Michael Casey

Shaving is a chore, we cut our faces to pieces in order to look nice, or is it in order not to look dirty. Look at the water when you shave after not shaving for a day or two. Its dirty, no wonder woman don’t want to kiss a stubble faced man.

I was useless at shaving, I had a cut on both cheeks, at least my face was symmetrical, little wonder I grew a beard. I was 15 or so at the time. In them days we all used a safety razor, that’s a joke in itself. I was spurting blood like in a horror movie. All down my vest too, we all wore vests in them days, perfectly matched blood and  toothpaste stains.

Then you’d put pieces of toilet paper on your face, to soak up the blood, as you put your shirt on you’d hope the blood didn’t stain your collar. But it always did. At least the stains, blood and toothpaste, were on your vest where nobody could see them.

Though sometimes in haste you brushed your teeth with your shirt on, then you DID have white marks on your shirt. So you positioned your tie to cover the toothpaste stains, perfect, all was well, then on the bus to work you pull the toilet paper from your face. Only to arrive at work with blood streaming down your neck onto your white collar.

So you improvise and take your shirt off and wear it inside out, with your tie lengthened to hide the fact that the shirt was on inside out. Jerry Lewis did something like this in a film of his. Ask a French film buff they’ll explain.

As you get older you get better at shaving, technology arrived, its 40 years since I started to shave, or rather self-mutilate would be a better description, but technology did arrive. We had disposable razors made of cheap lightweight plastic. Only this gave me the chance to cut myself with two blades and not one.

Saving foam and save gel made an appearance in my life, in all of our lives. I’d been using a shaving brush and soap, but gradually after years of practice I got better at shaving. I had tried an electric razor but that just pulls your beard off your face. My mistake was using cheap throwaway razors, really you need a bit of weight in the razor.

Salvation came when I paid for a decent razor, a Gillette Mach 3, and Aldi’s own shaving gel. Gel is always better than foam, gel helps the razor glide. So once I had the proper tools I no longer looked as if I’d been cutting my own throat. Problem solved.

Over the years I’ve tried a variety of different blades, makes me sound like a circus knife thrower, and they did the job. However the Gillette Mach 3 is my favourite, because it works. But what should a man do with his clean face? He now has to copy his wife and put lotions and potions on his face.

Men’s beauty, sounds like a contradiction in terms, men’s beauty is big business. So your wife or girlfriend gives you a bottle of something to slap on your face. Only it stings and you scream, but you cannot swear as it’s a gift, given with love. Your daughters tell you that you must stay looking young, even if you are already called “Grandpa” when you do the school run, because of your silver hair.  

So now you look at the beauty products in the shops, shop assistants smile at you, they wonder why is grandpa looking at those products. The shop assistants  wave helpfully in the direction of Just For Men, hair dye. But you would never dye your hair, would you, could you. So you settle for £1 face balm, at least it won’t sting.