Thread: Experiment in irritation

Let me first start by saying that other than my mustache, and little patch of hair under my bottom lip, my face and head are completely shaved every morning. I shave my face with a straight, and my head with a DE razor, though I do have every type of cartridge blade out there, as until a few months ago, I was still looking for the easy way out. As with most things in this world, the old way of doing things always seems to prevail, and it's back to basics.

So as I was opening the medicine cabinet on Saturday morning, I opened the right side, and grabbed my brush, mug, soap, and DE razor, and Pinaud Clubman (my shaving straights stay in a case on the back of the sink). I looked up at the top shelf, and there I saw a can of Edge shaving gel, an M3, and a Fusion, in their stand. I got to thinking about that 5 bladed razor, and it occurred to me, that if I had to pass over the same spot twice with that razor, it would be the equivalent of going over the same spot 10 times with my straight or DE. That though made me wonder about what sort of damage that does to the skin, and the the gears started turning, and self experimentation was iminent...

I figured the sting of the Clubman would be a pretty good indicator of irritation, so here's what I decided to do..

Face - Straight razor 2 passes with touchup where needed
Top of head - DE razor with new blade
Back of head - Gillette Fusion with new cartridge

I shaved my face and head to BBS using Col. Conks Amber soap and my badger brush after a nice hot shower, and followed the shave with cold water, and pat dry with a towel. Next, I loaded up my hand with Clubman, rubbed my hands together and applied liberally to my face, and entire head starting with my face, then the top of my head, then the back of my head pausing between sections noting the feeling. Here's what I found..

Face: Mild stinging sensation, slightly worse in some areas, but not painful by any stretch of the imagination.

Top of head: Mild to moderate sting, not too much worse than the sensation on my face, but noticeably more sting. Still not what I would call painful, but it woke me up.

Back of head: YEOWWWWWWWZAAAA. I thought I was going to jump through the ceiling, and it hurt so bad, it actually made my eyes water!!!

This was surely an eye opening experience. You don't really think about how much damage you are doing to your skin with those multi blade cartridge razors, but after doing this little experiment, it is crystal clear!

Also, in the name of science, and because the results amazed me (and because I though the pain from the Gillette was funny), I repeated this exercise on Sunday, only to once again have the dog tilt her head and look at me as if saying "You're an idiot, did you really think it would be different"

Just though I would share!

Thanks for sharing, This is why I came back to straights again, I hated shaving with the Multi blades and heaven forbid I even get an electric near my neck...
I shaved with a straight from 1981-about 1995 then dropped the last one I had, back then finding them was a little harder than now with the Internet.... So I went back to Multi blades and suffered through 3 shaves per week for 12 years, until I decided to get back into straights, and found B&B and SRP have been loving shaving again....

your a brave man to admit it and share that, I did not shave at all for about 25 years (from about 25) for that reason bad burn, skin just hated shaving, had thought about straights off and on over those years but knew no-one that used one, then thought sod it had a look on tinternet and bought a Sanguine Coolshave with strop (just over a yr ago) maybe not the best in the world but still use it in my rotation but I have bought some belter’s of other SRP members since and have not looked back and now look forward to going into the bathroom to shave