After writing four earlier posts (1), (2), (3) & (4) on taking up and abandoning Old School Shaving or OSS, I really am done with all manner of Old School Shaving. I say that after jettisoning the last element of OSS: A mug with a Williams shaving soap puck and its accompanying boar bristle brush--the essentials for whipping up a thick lather for one's bearded face.
Truth be told, however, I hadn't been lathering up for some time. I'd been using the workaround of shaving in the shower--warm water, what more does one need except fine control of the razor without a mirror’s help?. After a few years of doing this, I knew my showers took longer and the habit meant I was a real water wastrel. To conserve water, I decided to get out the shaving soap puck and boar bristle brush for lather and mirror shaves.
My Williams puck, however, was getting thin and I didn't have another in reserve, so when I went to the store to buy one I was shocked: Williams Shaving Soap, sold since 1840, was not on the shelves! They were, in fact, off the shelves of all retailers and the online sales were priced accordingly. The last-of-stock Williams pucks were typically going for $16 on eBay, some 20X what I paid for my last rapidly disappearing Williams puck. And if I went to WalMart online, I had the opportunity to accept their bot pricing of $60 with free shipping!
When I used up the last of my Williams puck, literally the last shavings, I'd have to buy something else online because I could find no other retail shaving pucks in Portland. Online, there are many artisanal makers of shaving pucks and they are priced at whatever the "artisans" think equally pretentious shaving snobs will pay--$20 and up—to keep their self regard intact.
But with no reasonable choices, especially if I wanted a fragrance-free replacement like Williams, I relented and bought two pucks for $15. The puck made for underwhelming lather. I ended up using both for body soap in the shower. Next, I decided to wholly rethink my OSS retreat and swap shaving soap for foamy!
As I've often found, value is a good decision rule. As for lather, I’m using the $1.25 Gillette Foamy clone from Dollar Tree. I get about two and a half months from each aerosol can. I switched from the twin-blade Barbasol disposables, 4 for $1.25, to a pack of 10 for $1.97 WinCo house brand twin-blade disposables. The disposable razors I toss at two weeks. So I shave for pennies a day, and have the best, nick-free shaves ever, and am saving that shower-time to boot.
Image credit: williamshavingsoap.com
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