July 18, 2010

It took me awhile, but it finally dawned on me:

WE'RE GETTING RAZOR-BURNED

I started shaving when I joined the U.S. Navy in 1958. It was required - even if you had no beginnings of a beard. I, being mostly British, not 18 years old yet, and of the fairest of skin, had never shaved before - and there was a single-edged razor as part of our kit for post-reveille readiness each morning.

So there I stood each morning shaving skin which hadn't grown whiskers yet. It hurt. I had a continual red face until one day, I noticed little blond whiskers popping out. FINALLY I had reason to shave, and by the time I left the Navy four years later, I had every reason to shave at not-quite 22 years old. But the moment I gained my freedom I bought an electric razor and following the initial break-in period when I swore it was pulling whiskers out by the roots, I decided to go back to the old fashioned single blade razor and the shaving cream.

As I aged into my 40s, I realized I now had a serious, stickery, beard - and worse - it was, as I found when I grew a beard for a Pioneer Days celebration, RED! By then my hair had turned brown...but my beard was red. So, at that point a close shave became a personal requirement.

Somewhere along the line, Mr. Gillette and I became close friends, and not only could I only get a close shave with a single blade razor, but it had to be a Gillette.

Then my friend, Mr. Gillette slowly started becoming the friend who takes advantage of their best pal. Mr. Gillette swore, on a stack of research papers, that if one blade was good, then TWO blades were better. And I fell for it. It never occurred to me that they couldn't raise the price of a single blade razor for no reason at all - because a blade is a blade - but their big idea was to come out with a razor that has two blades.

Think about that for a minute. A blade cuts off the whisker at the skin's surface, right? So how can two blades improve upon that? Well evidently some whiskers stand straight and proud while others, apparently, can bend out of the way just before the blade gets to them. Yeah, right. So if a second blade is scraping along right behind the first one, the bender gets lopped of, too. Makes perfect sense to Mr. Gillette.

Then, in order to make the razors a bit more expensive when they needed an economic jolt of money cola, Mr. Gillette added a little white silicone-type strip atop the twin blades, again swearing on a stack of research papers, that this was the ultimate in close shaves. Well not on MY face it wasn't. I was back to needing a shave by noon. I wrote to my friend Gillette and told him the white strip was a loser, and I went back to the non-white-strip twin blades.

Mr. Gillette, knowing I'd discover their little secret, then countered by taking the non-white-strip twin blade razors off the market. Yup. Gone. Overnight. No choice. They sent the no-strip blades off to the last chance store, Wal-Mart, where they were quickly scooped up by desperate customers and were never heard from again.

Swearing, never again to be sucked in by Mr. Gillette (and considering divorce), I just learned to tolerate the white-strip-twin-bladed nightmare. I've stuck with them even though Mr. Gillette tried to get me again: he needed another income jolt, and so (you guessed it) he came out with THREE-blade razors, not-so-oddly one third more expensive....and then FOUR blade razors at half-again the price! Did he really think I was going to have four times the closeness of shave as I had had with the single-edge blades? Do I have that many benders? I had my feet well dug into the dirt by then. I was STAYING with the twin blade razors - even if the white strip DID prevent me from having a close shave.

Oh but there's more.

Now, I've sensed, twin blades (Atra) are disappearing from the marketplace. Oh occasionally Wal-Mart has the rag-tag leftovers, but it's presently difficult to find Atra blades without several gallons of gas being wasted in visiting stores in out-of-the-way hamlets; or maybe by visiting eBay. So Mr. Gillette wins. This round.

Determined to come out the winner here, I'm putting my faith in the little tube of hormone cream now being perfected. It causes your facial follicles to shut down for up to a week at a time. One tube will last a year...though I'm sure it won't be long until they'll have a two-tube pack. You know: one tube to shut the little follicles down, and another to wake them up if you want a beard...and at three times the price of razor blades, of course. And who do you think will be marketing the defoliant?