Leisureguy's Guide to Gourmet Shaving: Shaving Made Enjoyable by Michael Ham
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
If you're like me, you dread shaving. It's a chore that helps me look "professional" but I don't get any satisfaction from it. I've spent a lot of money on different razors, cartridges, and shaving cream yet none of them seem to make it much better. I think I look best clean shaven but I don't want to drag 6 blades across my face again.
About a year ago, I got really interested in the idea of wet shaving. The Art of Manliness had an article entitled A Man's Guide To Reddit that showed several subreddit's that I'd never seen before, including one that deals with wet shaving called, /r/Wicked_Edge. I read several articles about wet shaving on the forum by Leisureguy and using his recommendation, added a razor, a brush, and some accessories to my Amazon wishlist. Cut to Valentine's day earlier this month and my wife got me the razor, brush, and shaving soap I wanted. It was really unexpected and I couldn't wait to try it out. I knew I needed to do some more reading before I started so I picked up a copy of Leisureguy's Guide to Gourmet Shaving.
The book is very thorough and provides a lot of examples and links to websites that show videos and images of everything he explains. I enjoyed the author comparing wet shaving to a Japanese tea ceremony. Both are rituals that might seem simple but by doing them daily with care, you will get a lot of satisfaction from the process.
For each item needed in wet shaving, he gives plenty of recommendations and provides links on where to buy them. He also has several step-by-step processes for different shaving techniques. He is also honest in that you CAN save money by switching from a cartridge shave to wet shaving, but that if you are like most people you will enjoy the process and end up buying several razors and brushes.
If you want to enjoy shaving, I recommend you first read this book and then start wet shaving.
Favorite quotes:
1. "The basic idea is that a person who views his capabilities (intelligence, skill, whatever) as fixed and having definite limits will see a failure as a sign he has hit one of those limits; in contrast, a person who views his capabilities as essentially unlimited will view a failure as a sign he's found an area in which he can improve - and the worse the failure, the greater the possible improvement.""Your second razor should be a Slant Bar."
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