My lovely wife R. came back from Denver bearing gifts: a bottle of Gucci Pour Homme II (which I talked about here) and a "Starter Kit" from The Art of Shaving.
As a boy, I couldn't wait to start shaving. My friends and I would go on endlessly, comparing how many inconsequential strands of hair were appearing on the tops our lips and our chins. There were some boys, of course, who were the envy of the entire class because they'd already started shaving. Little did we know these "boys" were hardly that. Due to the educational system (and other) foibles in Nigeria, some of these guys were already in their early twenties when the rest of us were in their mid-to-late teens.
When I did start having to shave regularly, it was a chore and most times, in college, I decided to skip it. The problem was my genetic predisposition to in-grown hairs that caused many painful problems. In fact, sometimes, they got so bad, I'd hunker down and scratch exactly like a flea-bitten dog.
Mine's nowhere as bad as the picture, but from time to time, it does get bad. Certain shaving manuals suggest shaving with the grain then, after a second application of shaving cream, lightly shaving against the grain. For black men and those prone to folliculitis, this is bad advice, as I was to learn. Shave only with the grain. Know the unique patterns of hair growth on your face and shave accordingly.
And use Tend Skin.
Anyway, back to The Art of Shaving. This is the epitome of shaving, gents. Seriously. With "all-natural" ingredients and their 4 Elements of the Perfect Shave, they've changed the experience for the better and cut down on the occurrence of razor bumps. That in itself is worth the price alone.
I'll speak more about what I've learned about shaving in a forthcoming post, but watch this in the meantime (and again, for you black men and others prone to folliculitis, ignore the "shave again" advice):
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