I Want To Know What Dry Is

I gotta take a little time
A little time to think things over
I better read between the lines
In case I need it when I'm older

-- Foreigner

I bet half of you are at this moment thinking, "I thought that was Air Supply." For sure, the album "4" was quite difficult to take at the time, after the visceral gratification of songs like "Seventeen" -- which would have been a couple years older than this "Dirty White Boy," listening to his dad's records. I had already stopped listening by the time Foreigner's "biggest hit" had become unavoidable noise.

Now that my lawnmowing money isn't on the line, I know I'm going to have to program Pandora for deliberate malfunction someday, and tune it to "Foreigner Radio." And now that my skin isn't on the line, I've found a surefire way for curious greasers to somewhat safely experience the dry skin approach to shaving.

1. Wash with water only
2. Humphrey's toner as quasi oil-cleanse (absorbs rather too quickly)
3. Jojoba oil (don't wipe off)
4. Boo-boo juice (now wipe)
5. PALM LATHER a high-glycerin shaving soap, and apply what sticks to hand
6. Wet cloth to hydrate
7. Apply lather with brush, and shave
8. I went with Witch Hazel (U.S.P.) to splash, thinking to rehydrate...

But I was still dry, very dry, and sometimes, red. All metabolism in the epidermis was shut down, much like when I shaved with Ivory, but here it was loose and wrinkly over an even more greatly compressed dermis. I could clearly see a particular abrasion scar that doesn't usually catch my eye, late in the morning. I looked -- and I hate to say it -- a bit older.

Yet the shave was technically sound. With aloe in the Humphreys theoretically taking the place of pumpkin juice, the hair was soft enough. Strokes with the Tech weren't super long and easy, but neither were they as choppy as Mark Herro's were, last week, with that god-awful One Blade. With my skin deeply saturated with glycerin and less deeply with water, there was no osmotic gradient for the soap to follow.

The shave was just a little... rough. I think this old Personna Platinum Chrome will have to live out the rest of its days in the Slim, but I'm not going to make any final judgement. I guess I'd be tempted to call it dull if I didn't know better.