Shaving

[eagle_bearer]

Thousands of years ago, before modern tools, hair was removed using two shells like tweezers. Imagine taking off a whole beard like this. Ouch! Or worse, the hair covering our nether regions. Youch! Eventually, around 60,000 years ago, man started using sharpened obsidian and gradually we came to use the implements we use today. Although, if historian Suetonius is to be believed, Julius Caesar still plucked his beard out with tweezers. Move with the times, pal! Perhaps Brutus and the conspirators were simply trying to shave him with their daggers and it all got a bit out of hand.

Being a late developer in the facial hair department, I didn't really need to start shaving until my late teens. For my first shave, I used a Philishave Coolskin electric shaver to remove the disappointing bumfluff from my chin and cheeks. A couple of years later, eager to experience wet shaving, I used a Gillette Mach3 and drew around two pints of blood from my face. For most of my twenties, to avoid the rash of an electric shaver and the massacre of wet shaving, I simply trimmed my facial hair to stubble. Nowadays, I have a handsome beard which is periodically trimmed.

But what about you? And I'm not just talking about men. Women have enough patriarchal pressure without being excluding from a shaving thread. After all, they shave too, you know!

So for the men, do you like to lie back in a barber's chair, a hot towel steaming your fizzog, before a straight blade removes your whiskers? The old school method, albeit an expensive endeavour. More convenient and cheaper, to some extent, is the safety razor method. Do you lather up and hack away with a Gillette or a BIC? Or are there electric shavers amongst you? Charging up your fancy tech and whizzing it over your face to leave yourself all smooth for your better half.

For the ladies, how do you prepare for a night on the town to ensure you're as smooth as silk before you slip into that little black dress? Do you recline in a hot bath and scrape your armpits and legs with a Gillette Venus? Or do you stay dry and drag an electric razor over yourself? What about that pesky facial fuzz? Epilation or the short, sharp shock of waxing?

[Ray Travez]

I've got a few razors- an adjustable double-edge safety razor that is a copy of a more famous brand; a vintage Gillette that I got at a car boot sale, and a cut-throat. I use a cake of shaving soap in a ceramic bowl, and I have two brushes; one is synthetic and the other is made from the bristley balls of a Peruvian mule. (Earlier this year I realised I'd been using the same shaving brush for over 30 years, so I binned it)

I don't use aftershave. Never liked it, then one time on hignfy Angus Deayton said that he never wore it, and i thought, yeah fuck that stuff. Sometimes moisturise with coconut oil...

For a while I read this forum that was all about men's shaving. I got a few ideas from there, and now I'm happy with my set-up. My dad has always been bearded, so I had to learn it myself, buy my own kit. My first double edge razor- my first razor in fact- was bought at a jumble sale. It was in an auction. Everyone stood and watched as Alf Engelke sold off the items. I wanted the razor, and I knew that people would laugh at me because I was 14 with bumfluff. But I had to have it. I was the only bidder. The women around me laughed when I bid. There's no specific coming-of-age ritual in the West, but I suppose that was mine- a load of cunts laughing at me because I needed to start shaving.

[imitationleather]

The thing I feel I missed out on most by being from a single parent family was being taught by my dad how to manscape.

[AsparagusTrevor]

I don't use aftershave. Never liked it, then one time on hignfy Angus Deayton said that he never wore it, and i thought, yeah fuck that stuff. Sometimes moisturise with coconut oil...

I couldn't go without using some form of after-shave/moisturiser or my skin feels like it's on fire. Although I'm a bearded bastard I still have to regularly tidy the neck and borders to avoid looking like someone who chats with a volleyball.

I've let my barber do it in the past, but he tends to go a bit too Rylan with it so I've started trying to keep on top of it myself. I use a nice bamboo safety razor. Single bladed razors help mitigate the burn.

[AllisonSays]

I just wet shave with a disposable razor every three days or so, but I've been thinking about getting a straight razor or something for environmental purposes. I think I'd be too tempted to give myself a wee jab with it.

[thenoise]

My Dad used an electric razor, but had largely stopped talking to me by the time I began shaving, so I shaved like a woman for a while - cheap disposable razor dipped in bath water and applied directly to the skin. Naturally, my face developed a nice rash for the 12 hours following, so I opted for a sad bumfluff beard as soon as I felt I could get away with it.
Years later I started to want to take care of myself a look a bit less of a tramp, so after a little research bought an old fashioned safety razor, a brush and soap and some oil and post shave balm. I still have them, although I have updated the brush and bowl. Now I can grow a decent beard though, so it currently sits unused.

[JaDanketies]

Used to be clean-shaven with a straight razor. Now I use a cheapo electric razor to 'style' it - i.e. remove the patchy bits and make the rest of it the same length. I was clean-shaven in order to demonstrate 'I don't care about appearing stylish and am loftily above your fashion trends and tastes," and now I have a neatly-trimmed light beard to demonstrate that I actually do care, please respect me

[Small Man Big Horse]

The thing I feel I missed out on most by being from a single parent family was being taught by my dad how to manscape.

Likewise, as my rubbish step-dad had died by the time I started shaving, and as I didn't know all of the ins and outs I used so much shaving foam each time that I looked like a poundland Santa Claus, and it was only after a few months when I saw someone shaving on tv that I realised I could use about 90% less of the stuff.

[JaDanketies]

Well I was largely raised by my dad and he never taught me how to shave. You can tell just by looking at me

[imitationleather]

To be fair, I didn't really start needing to shave until my mid-twenties and I didn't live with my mum by then.

[Butchers Blind]

I have such patchy growth that I have to shave every couple of days or I look a bit trampy. Use a high end electric razor.

[Fr.Bigley]

I don't bother wet shaving anymore, most razors are shite and the good ones are extortionate so I use a hair clipper on 0.5mm everyday, gives that 5 o'clock shadow effect the ladies love (well , mine does).

[bgmnts]

Being a fatty, my pathetic excuse for a beard is absolutely crucial to hide the monstrous double chin on show. I will never shave again.

Shaving is just a big fucking pain in the arse though, doubly so of you're trimming round those parts.

[Dex Sawash]

I bought the Philips OneBlade (after setting fire to my scrotum as reported recently in another thread) as it is meant to be just the thing for "personal grooming"
It leaves about 1mm of stubble which to me is not just the thing.

[Wonderful Butternut]

Lockdown made me very lazy. I'm only bothering to shave every 2 weeks or so. I used to have a neat circle beard, but now I'm just unkempt looking.

Got some 5 blade razors to get it back under control.

[JaDanketies]

oh I very rarely shave my pubes - annually, when my mind has decided there's a comfort-based reason for it? - and the modern fashion for ladies to have fully-shaven pubises is weird a f

[Sebastian Cobb]

The thing I feel I missed out on most by being from a single parent family was being taught by my dad how to manscape.

Guy in uni had a go at manscaping downstairs but didn't take into account the fact they had really hairy legs so just ended up with big hairless rectangle framing their junk.

[dissolute ocelot]

I go for the rugged stubbly look - using a beard trimmer on the shortest setting.

I used Mach 3 blades and the like for years, and did have an old-fashioned safety razor that took razor blades till it went blunt and I couldn't be bothered finding a new blade. Buying blades has never been my strongpoint, especially with shops being all pissy with the security precautions ("take this card to the till" or huge security boxes you can't use in the self-scan), plus the price - you can buy a beard trimmer for the price of 8 fancy blades.

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

Was the Philips Coolskin the one where you pressed a button and it squidged out moisturiser onto your face? They were crap. The idea was that the moisturiser was meant to lubricate the hair and give you a smoother shave, but actually it just stopped the razor head from cutting anything.
The other pointless innovation was the Gillette Fusion with a battery in it to make it vibrate. Made you feel like you had nerve damage in your fingers.

I'm using a Harry's at the moment, mainly because the blades are cheap. Only problem is that there's not enough grip on the sides of the handle, so it has a tendency to slip in your hand when it gets wet.

[Sebastian Cobb]

I just use wahl clippers these days. I have a philips set with an adjustable head that were better but I lost the gubbins so got the wahl to replace it, the trimmer itself is fine but the adjustable head is crap and hair just seems to go around it, so I have to use the finer-toothed set heads that are too short for my liking.

I also have a wahl dual foil shaver that's not bad. I used to have a Remington that was better and curved to the hand so nice to hold, but the rechargable batteries were dead and when trying to replace them I missed a screw in the circuit board and snapped a trace pulling on it so it was kaput.

[thenoise]

Guy in uni had a go at manscaping downstairs but didn't take into account the fact they had really hairy legs so just ended up with big hairless rectangle framing their junk.

Yeah this is what puts me off. So hairy everywhere where on earth do I stop?

[Rizla]

I've been using this since Major was PM.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

I remember my first shave was just the top lip, as nothing else had grown in yet. I took one of my dad's Gillette Sensor blades between my thumb and forefinger and scraped it down my lip. I'd seen dad shave plenty of times as I was growing up, so don't know why I did it that way. I didn't even use any foam. Boy, was my face red.

I sported varying levels of beard through most of my 20s - from full on unkempt, to trimmed with hair clippers - all of it unbecoming. I got back into shaving when I was best man at a wedding. 28 years old, I was.[nb]I really was.[/nb] With wisdom and experience, I finally accepted that my sparse whiskers don't really suit anything beyond designer stubble. I do sometimes lament this fact, as I reckon I'd look dashing as fuck with a nice, thick 'tash, but the best I can grow is befitting of only a used car saleman.

I bought an electric shaver in the January sales a few years ago. I thought it was total crap at first, but my laziness overwhelmed my desire for a refund and I ended up I keeping it. It does actually produce a nice clean shave, although it takes a while. I suppose it would go quicker if I shaved more often than every few days or so.

I still have trouble shaving some areas of my face, because of my square jaw. #humblebrag

[Gurke and Hare]

Beardy here, so just do a quick tidy-up with some Wahl clippers when it gets too wild.

I shaved my pubes off once, for no other reason than I was bored when I was unemployed, and it was a free way to pass some time. There was nobody likely to be looking in that area at the time, so it was all a bit pointless. Obviously made my cock look massive though.

[olliebean]

I bought the Philips OneBlade (after setting fire to my scrotum as reported recently in another thread) as it is meant to be just the thing for "personal grooming"
It leaves about 1mm of stubble which to me is not just the thing.

It should leave a lot less than that if you use it without the comb attachments, but it definitely leaves a shadow rather than a clean-shaven look.

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

If you want your william to look bigger all you have to do is shave the base of the shaft. Porn stars have known about this for ages.

[Tony Tony Tony]

Tried shaving my downstairs once. Below is a rough approximation of how my scrotum looked.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

Is that cat a Superman baddie?

I shaved my pubes off once, for no other reason than I was bored when I was unemployed, and it was a free way to pass some time. There was nobody likely to be looking in that area at the time, so it was all a bit pointless. Obviously made my cock look massive though.

Putting aside the risk of cutting yourself in such a sensitive area, is it not terribly itchy when the hairs grow back? I wouldn't want to be constantly needing to scratch my groin when I'm around other people.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Man said he was unemployed, so probably had his hands down the front of his tracksuit bottoms 90% of the time anyway.

[Johnny Foreigner]

I shave in the shower with soap and a safety razor. Some bits require shaving every day, others once a week.