howdy all,

so i've been shaving with a straight razor for one year now. like many, i've fallen in love with the pursuit of the ultimate shave; i've also amassed a fast collection of razors in that pursuit. and in pursuit of the ultimate pre-shave/super-lather/post-shave routine, i've also amassed a counter full of assorted goodies. and for those of us with super-sensitive skin, i have this to say: KEEP IT SIMPLE! FIND SOMETHING THAT WORKS AND STICK TO IT...

in the first few months of straight razor shaving, i tried a menagerie of products: taylor's cream for sensitive skin, proraso, tom's of maine, taylor's hard soaps, trumper's rose cream, as well as trumper's coral/lime skin foods, l'occitane after shave creams, and taylor's after shave gels. of all those products, the one that irritated me the most was taylor's cream for sensitive skin. and the product i had the most success with was the one that i used regularly. at first it was taylor's sandalwood and later their lavender. and for a spell on the road, it was trumper's rose, but whenever i switch, my face gets irritated like nobody's business.

the reason i want to share this with all you guys is becuase i just got back from the dermatologists. for a few months, i've had little bumps on the upper half of my chin, just below my lower lip. they're only visible when i puff out my lower lip (like when i'm shaving). sometimes they're red, sometimes not. but no matter how much time i give between shaves and no matter if i use a straight or a gilette, they're always there. and now i know... those little bumps are very minor, but very there, form of ROSACEA. i've probably been prone to it for a long time but they broke out while i was at my peak of experimenting with skin products.

it seems most of us come at straight razor shaving for a number of different reasons: frustrated with the growing cost/diminishing returns of gilettes, wanting a way to reconnect with past traditions, a desire for a more environmental way to shave... for me it was a combination of the above, but the main reason is that shaving had ALWAYS made me miserable.

i had a beard for close to ten years but shaved it off once i moved to the far east. at which point i was reminded of how miserable a daily shave routine can be. with a gilette, i was trapped in a vicious cycle: i shaved once every 3 days or so, which made shaving miserable, but after the horrid shave i needed to give my face time to recover, which meant that i was letting my beard grow a couple days before shaving... in retrospect, that irritation was probably an aggravation of the rosacea but who knows?

either way, be careful when you're experimenting. if you have a lot of skin irritation and super-sensitive skin, don't rotate products every shave. what works for me won't necessarily work for you, so find what does work. and once you find the right combination, stick with it. my rosacea is minor enough that i don't need to give up straights just yet (and switch to the ultimate torture machine-- the electric!), but i need to be aware of not aggravating it any further.

cheers,
jake pollock
taipei, taiwan