Our mindset and approach to shaving affects the quality and experience of our shave. For many, it's an annoyance. A task undertaken when your hand is forced for any of a variety of reasons. Maybe you're heading out for the night and want to feel clean, or perhaps you have to maintain a your appearance for your job, every day, Monday through Friday. Or your partner simply prefers it this way or that.
We end up shaving because of externalities, be it a person, activity, or social expectation.
We're pre-disposed to not enjoy the process, tools or outcome. Your mindset is on routine task, not experience.
If you're someone who shaves out of necessity, I'd ask you to envision an alternative scenario. You draw a bath, pour a glass of wine, grab your favorite book and bomb the hell out of that water. With relaxing music in the background and satin sheets awaiting you at the end of the evening, you realize you'd love to slide in at night with some serious skin-on-sheet contact. You know that feeling.
And so, after letting your skin and hair warm and soften in the water, you lift a leg, exfoliate, then apply a glistening lather before slowly leading your Leaf razor across, rose gold glittering by candle-light.
When you slow down, enhance your routine, and bring a luxurious tool to the task, you might just find that you look forward to it. When you can turn your reasons for personal care inward and find intrinsic motivation for feeling your best, appreciating and loving your skin, and practicing good self care... that's when routine becomes experience.
About a month into the pandemic I was faced with the question of what to do about cutting my hair. So I decided to take a buzzer to it, slide that dial to '1' and get to work. 15 minutes later I was staring at myself in the mirror, my Leaf Razor in one hand and a hot later in my other, and I took the plunge shaving my head down to bare skin.
Wow.
Know what was marvelous? I had owned a small razor business for a few years and had always found 'enjoying my shave' to be an elusive experience.
But here, with no pressure, shaving not because I was going to see someone that day, or because I had to look clean-cut for the office, I realized that I could enjoy the experience more. The way the handle heated up with warm water in my hand, to how smooth the blades moved through my hair. How safe and secure I felt shaving even the back of my head without having any direct line of site.
Routine became experience. And I was hooked.
