Vintage Shaver
Seattle, WA
Here on the forums we talk a lot about the qualities of our various shaving gear - the weight, blade gap, and balance of razors, the sharpness, smoothness, and durability of blades, the backbone and tip softness of brushes, the cushion and glide of soaps and creams, etc. But what I especially appreciate sometimes, while shaving, is the other somewhat intangible quality that some of these items have for me in their ability to stimulate my sense memory.
For example, this morning I used an Elite Razor brush with a reclaimed poplar handle, and I was reminded that the Mona Lisa and many other early Renaissance Italian masterpieces were painted on poplar wood. And similarly, using the Triad red bronze razor handle, I remembered standing and looking at the Ghiberti bronze doors on the Baptistry in Florence during my junior college year of study abroad, being amazed at the thought of some of them being ripped out of their frames by the disastrous flood of the city two years earlier. Using the vintage Brooks Brothers shaving soap, I felt a sort of kinship with other past BB customers, including Cary Grant, Clark Gable, Jimmy Stewart, and Fred Astaire. And finally, finishing my shave with old Pierre Cardin splash aftershave, I thought about its launch in 1972 and my memory of buying a bottle of it then - one of my first purchases of a "classy" aftershave - to use in preparing for my initial experience of being a best man at a friend's wedding.
A lot of the various things in my shaving gear collection, especially the vintage items, with their different fragrances, textures, colors, and feels, are able to bring to me the memories - many, but not all of them, happy and pleasurable ones - of meaningful times in my past. And this, as much as their more easily measured and described, objective attributes, is why I love this pastime of wet shaving.
For example, this morning I used an Elite Razor brush with a reclaimed poplar handle, and I was reminded that the Mona Lisa and many other early Renaissance Italian masterpieces were painted on poplar wood. And similarly, using the Triad red bronze razor handle, I remembered standing and looking at the Ghiberti bronze doors on the Baptistry in Florence during my junior college year of study abroad, being amazed at the thought of some of them being ripped out of their frames by the disastrous flood of the city two years earlier. Using the vintage Brooks Brothers shaving soap, I felt a sort of kinship with other past BB customers, including Cary Grant, Clark Gable, Jimmy Stewart, and Fred Astaire. And finally, finishing my shave with old Pierre Cardin splash aftershave, I thought about its launch in 1972 and my memory of buying a bottle of it then - one of my first purchases of a "classy" aftershave - to use in preparing for my initial experience of being a best man at a friend's wedding.
A lot of the various things in my shaving gear collection, especially the vintage items, with their different fragrances, textures, colors, and feels, are able to bring to me the memories - many, but not all of them, happy and pleasurable ones - of meaningful times in my past. And this, as much as their more easily measured and described, objective attributes, is why I love this pastime of wet shaving.
John
