Aristo! Aristo! A la lanterne!: Safety razors and good husbandry

Friday, February 1, 2019

Safety razors and good husbandry

It's time to go prep for my work day.... (Pants... ugh)..... and that started me thinking about shaving and such.

Given the Gillette snufflewumpus, I've been moved to re-try a safety razor I bought a few years ago. I never really gave it a fair trial at the time, but now I have. I like it!

A pretty good shave, at least as good as disposables, along with another plus. It's like stepping back in time, and seeing things from my fathers perspective for just a few moments. Shaving with a safety razor requires a routine... a ritual... and it's one I find myself looking forward to. That few minutes are all mine, while I look at myself in the mirror and evaluate who I am on a daily basis.

Today I put shaving soap and a Badger brush in my Amazon cart, to round out the shaving gear. All told, I will have about $70 invested in what turns out to be YEARS worth of shaving needs. A box of 100 blades ($15) is likely to last me two years. The soap ($15) probably 9 months of daily shaving. The razor, brush, bowl, and stand? The rest of my life.

Where husbandry, or stewardship, comes into play is this. No More disposables. No more plastic headed to the land fill. No more packaging. No more ordering packs of razors every few months, with all the packaging and waste that entails.

The waste I generate from shaving all year can be held in one hand, and is harmless to the environment.

I can live with that.

1 comment:

Bob said...: Have to agree with you. I purchased a safety razor with an Amazon gift card I received for Christmas, and am loving it. Much closer shave than I got from cartridge razors, and the prices for blade refills is cents rather than dollars.; February 2, 2019 at 9:42 PM

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Robert Heinlein

"Do not confuse "duty" with what other people expect of you; they are utterly different. Duty is a debt you owe to yourself to fulfill obligations you have assumed voluntarily. Paying that debt can entail anything from years of patient work to instant willingness to die. Difficult it may be, but the reward is self-respect.

But there is no reward at all for doing what other people expect of you, and to do so is not merely difficult, but impossible. It is easier to deal with a footpad than it is with the leech who wants "just a few minutes of your time, please — this won't take long." Time is your total capital, and the minutes of your life are painfully few. If you allow yourself to fall into the vice of agreeing to such requests, they quickly snowball to the point where these parasites will use up 100 percent of your time — and squawk for more!
So learn to say No — and to be rude about it when necessary.
Otherwise you will not have time to carry out your duty, or to do your own work, and certainly no time for love and happiness. The termites will nibble away your life and leave none of it for you.

(This rule does not mean that you must not do a favor for a friend, or even a stranger. But let the choice be yours. Don't do it because it is "expected" of you.)"