The Anger of Compassion

The Anger of Compassion Shave versus The Budget: The Argument

So today's question, left in comments here by The Inspector (who also blogs at Capitalist Paradise), is: "Craig, I want to get an Anger of Compassion shave, but without having to run the baccarat table at Casino Royale or raid the 401(k). Does taking up wetshaving mean taking out a second mortgage on the house?"

Okay, so I rewrote the question. Slightly. But, wetshaving on a budget: is it possible?

Sure it is. In fact, I'll take it one step past that: wetshaving is the budget way to shave.

Let's take inventory, first: what do you have on hand?

You have coffee mugs? Any bowls? Good: most normal people do. Good, also, because it means you don't need to go buy a shaving mug. It's the same damn thing, really, just a vessel to hold your soap (or cream) and some water. How cheap do you intend to be in this, your quest for the Anger of Compassion shave? No wrong answers here, guys: it's your money and your face. Let's stipulate, also, that you're using a cartridge razor now (since The Inspector tells me he is using a Mach 3), and you can't bear the idea of throwing out unused cartridges, 'cause you've already paid for them. So you'll be using a coffee mug from the kitchen cupboard, and your Mach 3 or Fusion or whatever you have on hand. For now.

Oh, and you'll need two mugs, not one. Or a mug and a bowl. We'll get to that later.

What have we spent so far? Zero dollars. Well, you spent a lot of money on those damn cartridge thingies, didn't you, but that's not wetshaving's fault.

Let's talk (American) drugstore: there you can find King of Shaves, a nice UK import. If you're gonna go with goo, go with good goo. And, as Corey Greenburg once opined on his Shaveblog, "This is good goo." Maybe a little bit expensive for the seriously budget-minded wetshaver, and I've never tried it with a brush. But it's good stuff.

Williams Mug Shaving Soap. Oh my yes.For about a dollar, no kidding, you can get good shaving soap. $1.19 at my local grocery store, 97 cents at Wal-Mart. I've seen my local Walgreens offer brush and soap, from what was once the Surrey brand. The soap was a little over a dollar. The brush is about six bucks. Other options: Kiss My Face creams, Tom's of Maine cream, King of Shaves. Pretty easy to find. No brush necessary. Or, for a bit more money, Nancy Boy cream. Again, brushless by design.

I do recommend using a brush and mug, though, and I have done so with all of the above (save King of Shaves). This is the single most important step you can take toward improving your shaves, even if (especially if) you continue using a swoop 'n slash, mega-blade cartridge razor. It also opens up the entire world of fantastic shaving creams and soaps from all over the world and you can't beat that, guys: there's great stuff out there, just waiting for you to attain the skill of creating an excellent lather.

What do you put it in, this soap? Easy. But let's stick with cheap here: any coffee mug or soup or cereal bowl will do, as we agreed before. I have a ceramic shaving mug crafted by a potter up in wildest New Mexico, and an old, somewhat collectible Old Spice mug...but I also have some soaps sitting in coffee cups. It all works, and it's all commonly done, too (and if you read around the boards you'll find that some guys prefer to build the lather on their faces anyway, and some in the palms of their hands).

Oh, and since we're talking frugality: Here's a tip, one I learned the hard way: don't create your lather in the mug your soap sits in. Put some water on the soap's surface before you shower; put a different mug or bowl in a sinkful of hot water. Then go shower. When you return, pour the soap slurry from the first mug into the second, swirl your brush around the top of the wet soap until there's enough for creating a lather, then do your lathering in the second mug. Sure, you could create your lather in that first mug, swirling your brush for a few minutes over the puck of soap until you've built a workable lather -- but then you'll be wondering why everyone says their soaps last six months, while yours never do.

You have to do some shaving, and since we're talking cheap, go with Personnas or any store brand blades made by the American Safety Razor Company (Personna is The American Safety Razor Company). Just look on the back of the label. Don't get obsessive about blades, either: DE blades are cheap, as you'll see in your Excel spreadsheet in a few minutes.

Your razor: the ideal I'm holding in my mind for you, for now, is the Gillette Super Speed. Unfortunately, you can't buy what's not being manufactured, and the Super Speed and its godson, the Gillette Adjustable, are both long out of production. So we have to do some actual work. That means, in this case, thinking. Since we're talking beginner and budget, I'll recommend either the Merkur HD or the Weishi. I lean toward the Weishi. I've never tried the Merkur myself, for one thing, but it's a very common first razor among wetshavers, and a popular razor all around. Or go with the super cheap, Chinese-made Weishi, available online for under twenty bucks. I've shaved with the Weishi for a week at a time, and I've used different blades in it, and so has Mark (of Mantic shaving videos fame). It reminds me (and Mark) of the Super Speed, and from me that is high praise indeed.

Now let's grab a beer or three and a blank Excel worksheet, shall we? We'll have a look at the numbers and see if I'm (ahem) all wet. The numbers I'm using are drawn from trips, made today, to a giant chain drugstore (Walgreens), a small chain grocery store (Lowe's/Big 8), a Wild Oats specialty grocer, and Wal-Mart. How much, we need to know, does it cost to put some shaving essentials together?

(DISCLAIMER: We're going to ignore some variables, all right? I have no idea where you are, Dear Reader, so I have no idea what sort of sales tax -- or VAT if outside the states -- you pay; or, if you're ordering online, what shipping charges you'll incur. Also, cartridge razors usually come with one or two cartridges in the package, but then, many vendors include blades with the sale of a safety razor, too -- the Weishi comes with Dorco blades -- so I'm ignoring both.)

Example A: Cartridge-Using Guy

Razor: $ 9.99 for a Gillette Fusion, $ 8.99 for a Schick Quattro
Blades: $ 24.99 for 8 Fusion cartridges, $21.49 for 8 Quattro cartridges.

Ouch. That's a lot of beer.

goo: $3.99 for 7 ounces of Gillette Fusion

No need for mug or brush.

Total: $38.97 to get going.

Example B: Wetshaver

Razor: $18 for a Weishi at cottonblossomcrafts.com

Here I should admit: that's a lot of beer, too.

Blades: $4.99 for a pack of ten store-brand Personnas at Walgreens, or $2.79 for 10 at Big 8

Lather: $1.19 for Williams soap

Brush: $ 6.99 for a boar brush at Walgreens

Total: $28.97 to get started.

You did open a copy of Excel, right? Which way of shaving is the more expensive proposition, at least as far as initial expenses go?

But now let's have some real fun. You bought 8 Fusion cartridges, right? Let's say you get a week's shave out of each one -- and, in my experience as a decades-long cartridge user, that's not so unrealistic. So 8 weeks later, you buy another 8-pack, thus spending another twenty-five bucks. Forty shaves for twenty-five bucks.

In your guise as a wetshaver, however, you bought a ten-pack of Personnas for $ 2.79. Assuming the same one-week-per-blade rate, then 8 weeks out, you spend: nothing. Nada. Zip. You still have two blades left, at which point you go out and spend another not-quite-three bucks. At the eight-week mark, you've gotten forty shaves for under three dollars, and you still have ten shaves left.

You may not get five good shaves from Personnas, but I think you will. I do, with my barbed-wire beard, and so do lots of other guys -- and all of my shaves involve at least two passes per. But remember also that any DE blades will fit any DE razor -- so, even without getting another razor, you can experiment with blades made by Gillette, Derby, Wilkinson, Feather, Merkur, Dorco, and others. (And you should.)

And now.....

Ever heard of capitalism, my brother? We need to talk about Wal-Mart.

Wal-Mart doesn't carry Feather blades. And they probably never will. You won't be picking up a tub of Taylor of Old Bond Street lavender at Wal-Mart, either. No Pre de Provence, no Tabac. But remember their big sign in the parking lot? It reads, and I quote: "We Sell For Less." Both Cartridge-Using Guy and our hero, Wetshaver, can save money by getting their gear at Wal-Mart.

Cartridge-Using Guy can go to Wal-Mart and walk away with:

Razor: a Gillette Mach 3 Turbo for $7.84 (or a Fusion for $6.74)

Blades: 8 cartridges for his M3 at $17.97 (or 8 Fusion cartridges for $22.64)

can of goo (Gillette Series Gel) for $1.97

For a total, this time, of $27.78 (Mach 3 version), or $31.35 (if he chooses Fusion).

But Our Humble Hero, Wetshaver, can save money there also:

Razor: the Weishi, again from cottonblossomcrafts.com, for $18

Blades: Personna brand ten-pack for $1.54

soap (no goo for Wetshaver!): Williams Mug Soap for 97 cents

Brush: a Burma-Shave boar brush for $4.54

For a total of $25.05.

So: the Wal-Mart advantage carries over to wetshaving, too. The initial advantage is smaller, because the cartridge-using guy saves a lot by shopping at Wal-Mart as opposed to the drugstore or grocery store. A whole lot. But the cost of blades, over time, is still going to eat him alive compared to Wetshaver's Personnas -- and he'll run out of two or three cans of goo long before Wetshaver uses up that 97-cent puck of Williams, too.

So, if things go according to the norm: Cartridge-Using Guy and his friends will laugh and accuse Wetshaver of being obsessive about shaving. Meanwhile, they're spending all their rent money on shaving stuff, wondering where their girlfriends are all weekend, as they sit home alone with stubble and razor burn. Meanwhile, Wetshaver is getting all the girls and is taking them to Vegas, two at a time. And they coo over his cool razors, too.

Come on, guys: $1.54 for ten blades?

By now, you should have closed Excel, ordered your Weishi (and your flight to Vegas. For three.), and headed out to Wal-Mart. Don't forget those tickets to Penn and Teller!

The transition from shaving with a cartridge razor to real wetshaving (this is pretty much what I did) can be gradual, too:

Start with the shower.

Light a scented candle, pour a glass of wine, and put some Sinatra on the hi-fi ...

Use a brush and soap (or cream) to create your lather. That's a big step in the direction of creating your quality shaves.

Okay, you're still using a Schick Quattro, Mach 3, or other cartridge razor until your safety razor arrives. (You ordered a safety razor, yes? Remember Vegas?) Begin now by practicing a very, very light touch with whatever razor you're using. How light? No pressure at all, that's how light. Speaking of saving money: you've already started. Those cartridge blades and cans of goo are costing you about the equivalent of the annual GNP of Chad, as you saw above, and that is about to end. You'll love buying blades for your safety razor, believe me.

Tip: don't drive yourself crazy trying to stretch the useful lifespan of these products. Especially the blades. For god's sake do not try to get a month's worth of shaves out of a single blade. If you use these products properly, they'll reward you with quality -- as I've blogged before -- and economy -- as I believe I've demonstrated here -- with normal use.

Take, for example, a cake of soap. A cake of Pre de Provence soap. Oh baby. Great aroma, great feel, excellent protection and lathers easily. Now you'd think that at $10.95 for 5.25 ounces (150 grams), I'd damn well better like it. A lot. Okay, fair point. But I've had it for about a year, and my brush has barely made a dent in its surface. A year. And I absolutely love this stuff.

Let's recap: scary-close shaves with no irritation. Luxury scents and sensations. Obtained frugally. And all the girls.

Your call.

(Update: Corrected some infelicities.)

Posted by Craig Ceely at July 28, 2007 08:38 PM