Fair warning: this post will be full of a very first world problem. I may sound whiny, and I probably am, but I really shouldn’t be.
In a recent post, I noted that I have over 1,000 individual things in my shaving collection. This does include razor blades counted individually, which are very inexpensive and form the vast majority of the count, but the truth still holds that I have a lot of stuff meant pretty exclusively for shaving.
In the early days after I discovered the SubReddit shaving groups, I saw posts from people who had dozens of razors, dozens of soaps, brushes, aftershaves, splashes, blades and the like, and I thought that was just nuts. How could any one person need all of that? They’re clearly out of control.
Well, 20 months in, and I’m one of those people. 955 blades across 42 brands, 7 brushes, 12 razors, 60 in stock lathers, 11 pre-shaves, and 18 aftershaves. How have I gotten here? Surely this is more than I could ever use, right?
That depends on your perspective. Yes, I’ve probably spent more than I should have on things, but I’ve wanted to try lots of products that I keep seeing in those Reddit threads. And I really enjoy the collection I’ve built.
And I love the variety of what I can do with this collection, and the different combinations I can have with all of this stuff–the number of which sits somewhere north of 40 million. This number translates, in no uncertain way, to basically an unlimited number of shaving combinations that I can try for the rest of my life without repeating any of them. And considering that barring anything unforeseen, I’ve got at least 20 more years of shaving ahead of me, this should keep me busy.
But there are some combinations I’d like to repeat, so yeah, that complicates things. At the same time, though, there are combinations I don’t think I’ll try, so that simplifies things too.
There is an unexpected problem of having so many things that I can use for a shave. I was looking at my planned shaves for the next couple of months–yes, I’ve planned a bit further into the future right now because I wanted to get some new products in soon, some combos I really want to try, and some themes I’m excited to explore. So at this exact moment, I have my shaves planned for the next 10 weeks.
One problem is that, even considering I have 10 razors in an active rotation, that means I’ll use each one about 5 weeks per year. And I have enough lathers where I don’t have to use any of them more than once in a year.
In my head, that’s a problem. I feel like I’m unfairly favoring one razor over another, except that’s what I want to do because I prefer some over others. I’ve got 17 blade brands to try out that I haven’t used yet. Comparisons I want to make. 18 different lathers I need to try out for the first time. But I’ve also got things that I need to continue to use and clear out of the collection.
I don’t want to say I’ve set myself up for failure, because this isn’t failure by any measure. But I’ve built in some constraints that I need to work within. One is that I’ve designated Sundays as the Proraso shave days, and with 3 pre-shaves, 5 lathers, and 3 aftershave balms (well, 4 pre-shaves and 6 lathers, as I recently added a couple of Proraso red samples), I come to the white and green soap and creams once every 5 weeks. But the Proraso Sundays leave me with 2 other shave days per week that are open. So if I try new things just one shave a week, and try to get rid of old things one shave a week, you can see how the math starts getting messy.
I guess I could start shaving every day, or even 4 days a week instead of 3–that would up the number of shaves and help compress the calendar. I’d add 52 shaves a year to the 156 I already do, so that would go up to 208. One more day would go to 260. But that seems extreme. I don’t really need to shave that often, and I think that both my skin and I enjoy the days off.
I could stop the Proraso Sundays. But I do like having that in the mix, just for some ceremony around the whole week. And I really do love my Proraso collection. Giving them their own day isn’t necessary, but I think it’s fun and lets me celebrate them.
So the only option left is to just keep doing what I’m doing. Everything will eventually have its moment, and I’ll get to the new stuff at some point. I mean, it’s kind of nice to know that I’ll still likely be trying a lather for the first time into the summer.
One thing I love about all of this is the planning, thought and strategy that’s going into my shaves. In less than two years, I went from shaving in the shower with a cartridge razor and no lather and just accepting poor results, to constantly striving to try new things in my shave day, and looking forward to the fact that the majority of my shaves are wholly unique. And for the most part, they’re substantially better than what I was experiencing before.
Some people in the online forums question whether wet shaving is a hobby because it’s something that has to be done. I’ll argue it doesn’t have to be done by anyone, but it’s a choice for everyone who grows hair on their head and body. And since it’s a choice, pursuing different ways to accomplish the hair removal goal starts pushing this into hobby territory. So then going out of your way to buy products of differing complexity and quality definitely makes it a hobby. Thinking about my shaves and organizing the products and shaves in a spreadsheet and blogging about shaving very strongly pushes me into the hobby territory, and I enjoy taking the time for it.
So yes, I probably have spent too much time and money on shaving. But no, it really isn’t a problem because it’s bringing me joy and enjoyment in the pursuit.