LeisureGuy's Guide to Gourmet Shaving

I purchased this book from Amazon.com since I have their Prime membership and you get free 2-day shipping.

The book came yesterday at the end of the day and I was already into dinner with the fam, so it had to wait until everyone was in bed. I got about 75% finished before I just had to go to sleep. I will probably finish the rest of this excellent book tonight and come back to this post and give it a proper review.

So far, I am VERY impressed with the information, layout and tone. While I only JUST received my first DE razor yesterday, I had started to use some of the techniques I was picking up from both my best friend, as well as stuff online. I purchased an Art of Shaving sampler from Amazon which came with a badger hair brush. The AoS products were pretty good and the brush was alright. I was still using a Mach3 as my razor, but I was turning out better shaves by prepping my beard/face better.

What you probably don't know about me is that I have had facial hair to some degree for a long time now (it feels... probably about 7 years), which was mainly due to my pain and suffering I experienced with shaving. But that was all electric shavers (Oh the horrors... they chewed my face to bits!!!) and cartridges eventually... the good stuff too. My latest razor was the Gillette Power Fusion. At first, it was the best shave I ever had, but then I realized I could only shave every three days or my neck would be a wall of blood. Most of the problem, I now realize, was my technique and lack of prep. My best friend started me down this path, and I tend to obsess about things, so I dug in as much as I could. It took many months for me to get to this point where I actually own, not one, but two DE razors! More on that in another post... Anyway, my point is that I recently was trimming my goatee, but I had to use a trimmer I was not familiar with because my older one broke down. Well, the newer one cut a HECK of a lot closer than my older one on the same setting and I wound up with barely stubble on my upper lip... doh! I've been wanting to try clean shaven for a while, so what the hell. I trimmed everything and shaved it all off... MAN was it weird looking at myself! Only now after close to a week am I able to look at myself and not be weirded out. :-D

While I haven't shaved with a DE yet, I am confident that, with some practice, it will be the best shaves I ever had and will be able to shave everyday. Hopefully it won't be long before I can achieve a BBS (Baby Butt Smooth) shave without nicks and cuts. ;-)

********Update 3/28/08 2:14pm*************
Well, it turns out I was further through the book than I thought. ;-) I finished the book last night, but it was really late before I even laid down to do so. I didn't start to fall asleep until a little after 1am... so, when my alarm went off at 6am to get up and have my first shave... I wasn't having any of it. I reset it for 7am instead... but then 7 rolled around and I STILL wasn't having any of it. :-) I decided that a midday shower and shave was in order. Luckily I work from home and can pretty much write my own schedule for the most part.

I didn't bring the book with me for my first shave and I think I could have used it. There were certain things I knew I was forgetting, or forgetting the technique. I will write a post exclusively about my first shave, but what I can say right now is, my prep was lacking a little. Also, my previous shave resulted in some ingrowns and bumps, so this first shave was definitely not as good as it could have been... VERY nice though. Seriously, already better than ANY of my previous shaves because of the lack of pull and cut (IMHO).

Back to the book. I did not read it in front of a PC to look up all the additional info and instead just read it through cover to cover. It is a VERY good book for this filled with knowledge and tips/tricks. Obviously everyone's face and beard is ultimately different, so mileage may vary across different people... luckily, Michael does an excellent job of making sure you understand the key is technique and experimentation. I LIKE the fact that he mentions what HE likes and dislikes... it at least gives you something to go on. I will need to experiment for quite a while before I get things down. The hardest for me so far is the lather... the way Michael explains it and the way his looks in the photos is NOT the way mine looked this afternoon. I also didn't have hours to mess around and start over, so I just used it the way I had it... unfortunately I think this was elemental in some of the less than desirable results. Once again, I want to reiterate that the experience was not bad by any stretch of the imagination, just not perfect like I've been doing it for 50 years now. ;-) Not that I expected it to go without incident... I saw my neck before I started. :-) While my shave was not the ultimate BBS shave, it is VERY smooth with less irritation than I have ever had with cartridges.

This book gave me a tremendous amount of advice, and also bolstered some of the decisions I made before reading it. It also showed me where some of my decisions were wrong. ;-) I certainly don't expect to be perfect... heck, where does that leave room to grow and keep things interesting? I can see that my quest will be an enjoyable one, and I can see me keeping this book close by. My week long trip next week will give me a PERFECT opportunity to experiment and master some of my technique. I think I will be bringing both of my razors with me to also experiment there (just a little... I don't want to focus too much on hardware and instead focus on technique, but I'd like to know how my other razor and I perform together... it may be a better fit for me than the Vision to start out). I will probably try my SS before I go and see if I really want to bring both or choose the one I perform better with to remove that temptation.

Anyway, while I may give more of a review again later, so far I say, "Buy the book!"