Smooth Like an Axe

I think I must have had an axe with a broken handle around the house, growing up, because I can't imagine a tool more jarring and less smooth in operation. But you know, people have shaved with them. Some, you gotta figure, were just really good at honing shit. But for the purposes of this article, imagine a tug-and-cut kind of hatchet job, like a hammer-driven, Teutonic haircut I once saw on YouTube.

My imitation Merkur 37c (Italian Barber Torsionshobel, on an old Stirling, basic Merkur clone handle) earned its permanent place in the cabinet today, as my technical growth turned back in that direction, following the good, old Excalibur method. I had exhausted a Racer blade, which for me is tug-and-cut right out of the box, a very endearing quality. But it just got too rough in my Tech, after a week or two. (Sorry, I didn't actually count days, but I suffered two bad shaves, because I took it on a short road trip.) I could go steep and not get cut or anything, and work the hell out of my new XTG for touchups, but it was just such a stress on the skin.

Not with the slant. With sharp blades, some of the pitch angles in its simultaneously-applied range aren't great, and I end up exfoliated. With a blade too dull for integral attack, I can divide and conquer by tapping into this extended range, to get an effective cut once again. The obtuse edge contributes one face to each extreme, and they act as one virtual blade, with nothing that can threaten skin in the middle angles.

Recall that I don't buy into the idea of the slant as a guillotine, obviating the technical application of oblique strokes. The shallow cut and steep cut, applied simultaneously, each contribute their inefficiencies to the other's effective energy. I slide this razor just the same as my Tech, and can therefore justify, on pragmatic grounds, its inclusion in the Classic paradigm.

But, torsion is the true underlying concept, and that was a parallel development which Gillette never utilized, and Merkur, as the default competition, gladly embraced. I mean NOW, with cartridges, we have more than one blade angle being applied at once... at the cost of tradition and design integrity, literally fleecing people for a dollar. Until now, I've been inclined to see the slant as tainted by that same evil. Now, I see that there is a virtual safety or spacer bar in there, too.

So, as I've been waiting all day for the other shoe to drop, and the late-onset burn to set in, the only thing irritating me is the certain knowledge that I'll always have a Euro-style razor in my medicine cabinet. I guess I'll have to give her a real name, then: Eve.