God Awful Things

I probably started shaving in about 1994, maybe 1993.. I would have been 16 or 17.  Tried growing a goatee, it’s a rite of passage in rural Iowa that one must grow some gross facial hair as soon as the peach fuzz begins to change it’s color like the leaves in autumn.

Next, I worked on sideburns, this was years after 90210, but I still knew I wanted them.. Sadly there are no pictures I know of from this era of my life.  Back in those days we had dual blade razors, I don’t know how long they’d been around, I just know that’s all that was available, and when your shaving needs don’t require more than one shave a week (if that, if we’re being honest) 2 blades is enough for anybody.

Come 1998 I was in the grocery store in Iowa City, and I lay my eyes on a Mach3 for the first time.. “Three blades! Fucking outrageous!”  But by God, that advancement in shaving technology was amazing, I’ve talked to friends about how the mach3 changed everything for us, you never forget your first kiss, first fuck, or… first mach3.

There’s a neat article over at the guardian regarding the technology behind razors.

In the high-speed filming lab, I watch magnified, slow-motion footage of a five-bladed Fusion cartridge sliding down a few millimetres of anonymous cheek. The first blade strikes a hair, slices into it, tugs it out; the second blade hits, slices again, drags the hair out even farther; the third blade strikes, then the fourth, then the fifth, each nicking off a chunk of the hair, though a smaller fraction each time. Adding blades, then, does lead to a closer shave, if with diminishing returns. But it’s not simply a question of how many blades you have in your cartridge.

For half a decade I thought the mach3 was shaving perfection, I mean hell, how much closer a shave could you get? and in 2006 the Fusion came out, having witnessed a revolution of shaving technology with the mach3 I didn’t hesitate to give it a shot, and you know what? It was even better, I just shaved this morning with one and I my face is as smooth as a babies butt.

But just as the author thought of it too, I must link to The Onions prophetic article from 2004:

Fuck Everything, We’re Doing Five Blades

Would someone tell me how this happened? We were the fucking vanguard of shaving in this country. The Gillette Mach3 was therazor to own. Then the other guy came out with a three-blade razor. Were we scared? Hell, no. Because we hit back with a little thing called the Mach3Turbo. That’s three blades and an aloe strip. For moisture. But you know what happened next? Shut up, I’m telling you what happened—the bastards went to four blades. Now we’re standing around with our cocks in our hands, selling three blades and a strip. Moisture or no, suddenly we’re the chumps. Well, fuck it. We’re going to five blades.