not your father's razor blade

by cfmullen ••• I was thirteen. A new double sided blade was in the “safety razor.”  The brush was soaped and ready. Soon, the fuzz was gone, replaced by tiny pieces of red, spotted toilet paper. My first shave. I was a man, albeit a bloody one. ••• And like all men who choose to face the world clean shaven, I’ve gone through my fair share of techno blade improvements, double edge, triple edge, glide strips, space aged coating and mega steel. All these advancements left me, to some extent, lacerated and exasperated. So, resigned to this reality, I bought the cheapest disposable I could find and slashed away - until one day last February. ••• I was in the shower, needed a shave and spotted my wife’s silly looking humvee of a razor sitting on the shelf. I picked up this menacing object and counted the blades in the ugly orange cartridge. Five. Seriously, five. What kind of marketing hyperbole did my wife fall victim to? Too lazy to get out of the shower and get my disposable, I skeptically proceeded to use her odd razor with its awkward angle. ••• Hmmm, I thought. Close shave? Nick free? It was far more than I had hoped. ••• My wife told me that this was no girl’s razor that I had used. This was a man’s Fusion. Who knew? ••• There is a learning curve with this razor. You use fewer stokes. You pull slower. The angle can be difficult.  But I tell you, the shave is amazing. ••• Yes, I know that the Fusion looks like another gimmick, with a design that resembles a gaudy, painted, four-by-four on steroids. But, please,

don’t let the hideous aesthetics of this razor deter you from trying it. ••• Stay sharp.