The Value of Things

I shave with an old fashioned style, albeit rather new, safety razor. While its true I appreciate it for its aesthetics and old world charm, I do actually prefer the shave I get when using it. Despite the recent popularity, chiefly among the hipster crowd, of manly nineteenth century, whiskey and beard stuff, the blades have become increasingly hard to find. I know they can be had online, but I'm the kind of guy who doesn't think to buy razor blades until the last one has worn out, and can;t always wait for delivery.

Yesterday, I found them for sale in a local Rite Aid pharmacy, for $7.99 for 10 blades (?!?!?!). CVS pharmacy had them for $7.19 for 10 (again, ?!?!?!?!). So I made the trip out to Market Basket, a local grocery store chain that caters to poor people, you know, the kind of store where the prices are unbelievably low and the produce is always fresh because they go through so much of it. I love the place. Besides catering to lower income folks, they also cater to older people, and store brand blades there were 2/$3.00, packages of 10. They appear to be the same make as the store brand blades in both the other shops I visited. I managed to get 20 blades and a new cake of shaving soap for $4.24. 

The two pharmacies are more convenient, but I have never seen the concept of paying a premium for convenience to be more blatantly true. 

p.s. New stuff in the Shop. Check it out. 

p.p.s. Attention size 38 short: crazy awesome bright red Harris Tweed jacket for sale. Do you dare?

Worth Every Penny: Proper Aftershave

As fussy as I can be about so many inconsequential things, I've never been fussy about bathroom products. Ivory soap and Old Spice had suited me just fine for most of my life. Until recently, that is. Lately I find that I have developed an appreciation for better personal grooming products. This isn't to say that I now spend outrageous sums of money on numerous "artisinal" pseudo-luxuries, but a small collection of well chosen, time tested products can be worth every penny.

For the longest time, I was not the least an aftershave kind of guy. Despite the fact that I've been shaving with a safety razor since my teen-age years, and more recently sometimes with a straight blade, I always found a splash of ice cold water to be enough. Then I reverted back to Old Spice, because it was nostalgic and cheap. After mentioning it in a blog post a while back, a disgruntled reader informed me via email in no uncertain terms that Old Spice was a "stink bomb", low brow dime store junk worse than wearing no aftershave at all. And while I found his criticism to be more than a little overly harsh, it did get me thinking of the old fashioned scents I used to steal out of the sample bottles when I worked at Simon's in high school.

Bay rum is the fragrance I remember most. The bottle on the left is Ogallala Bay Rum out of Nebraska, $32 for an 8 oz. bottle at Leavitt & Pierce tobacco shop in Harvard Square. It's spicy and herbaceous, even a little sweet. It's bracing on the face right after a wet shave, providing an old school cool burn that is invigorating, stopping just shy of being painful. I prefer the Special Reserve Double Strength. It tightens the skin nicely, leaving it very smooth. The scent comes on strong at first, but quickly fades in to a mere pleasant suggestion. Very masculine, very old time barber shop. Plus, the 19th century apothecary look of the bottle is just something nice to see on the shelf.

On the right is Royall Lyme, the original scent from in the Royall line. Made from a Bermuda recipe using lots of Caribbean limes, its brighter, fresher and lighter than the bay rum, making it an ideal choice for warmer weather. Like the bay rum, its bracing and astringent, leaving my skin feeling tight and fresh. At nearly $47.50 for a 4 oz. bottle at the Andover Shop in Harvard Square, it sure ain't cheap, but this bottle will last me from now until September for two years running, so that really isn't so bad. You can get it directly from the Royall web site for $40 if you like, but to me the extra $7.50 is worth going to a men's shop and buying it properly, by which I mean wearing a coat and tie in place full of coats and ties and handing over the cash, not gawking at the lap top in your pyjamas. There is still, after all, something to be said for that. Besides, all this thrifty living I discuss here is meaningless without an indulgence now and then.

This stuff makes my skin feel better and puts me in a good mood in the morning, and my little 3 year old girl always says I smell nice. Its worth every penny.

p.s. stay tuned for an upcoming dissertation on the pleasures of (gasp!) hippie soap.