(In what follows I will be explaining how I have come to discover something about shaving which is surely incredibly obvious to almost all other males. But just as surely, there are probably a few, like me until a day ago, who have yet to make this discovery. Please read, ye few, and be enlightened.)
So I’ve been shaving for at least ten years now. You would think I understand how shaving works. And indeed, after I shave, all the facial hair’s gone. Job well done, right?
But I go through long bouts of non-shaving because I hate it so. I always badly cut myself. A couple of weeks ago, it looked like my chin had been held down and tortured. It hurt. It was horrible. I resolved never to shave again.
But I really like my clean-shaven look better than my bearded look, so yesterday, I took up the razor once again and braced myself.
And had a revelation.
Explanation of this revelation requires some prefacing. I used to shave “against the grain” because it seemed to yield a closer shave. But I realized after a while that I cut myself alot more often when doing this. So for most of the years I’ve been shaving, I have restricted myself to shaving “with the grain.”
I have always assumed (“assumed” is too strong–I just hadn’t given this any thought at all) that the grain goes always downward. In other words, I assumed the two sides of my beard each face downward, and sort of meet in the center of my chin on the bottom.
The revelation was: this is not true. My beard has a “part” in it which is quite far from the center of my chin. In fact, it runs along my right jawline. To the right of this line, the grain goes in one direction, and to the left of this line, the grain goes the other way. So between the center of my chin and this right jawline, the grain of my beard goes, so to speak, upwards toward my ear instead of downwards toward my chin.
The significance of this? That little area I just mentioned is exactly where I always severly cut myself shaving. The reason? I have assumed the grain of my beard in that area to go toward the center of my chin, when in fact, the grain goes in the opposite direction. In that one little area of my face, unbeknownst to me all these years, I’ve been shaving against the grain!
So yesterday, and today, I have shaved in a new fashion, taking the “parting line” in my beard into account. And miracle of miracles, for the first I can ever remember, I have experience painless, bloodless shaving sessions!
So ye who have suffered the curse of the cut, look for the parting line in your beard! It’s just like the part in your hair–a line which separates hair facing one direction from hair facing the other direction. Look for the part, and treat it with the respect it deserves, shaving right around it in proper fashion, and you too will see the light!
-FrL-