Hair between us

Chins in array

In our morning chat, I said it was time for me to shave my facial hair as any growth beyond 5 days becomes an irritation, partly itchy and partly sore, it is quite uncomfortable for me as he thinks it looks distinguished on me.

Now, at last count he thought there were 7 whiskers billowing on his chin, his desire for a beard and sideburns sometimes does drive me to distraction but he does not need it at all. To dissuade him I have suggested hair grafts that would not survive offering the detail of outside of our conversation, yet he persists.

Scalps on display

Whether a blessing or some accident of nature, he grows a noticeable moustache and then nothing below the line of the two ends of his upper lip. On our heads, there is a different story, he has a full carpet of hair with distinctive highlights of artistic quality, I have male pattern baldness that behoves I shave it all off to keep my dignity.

Hair is probably a veritable test of contentment, if you can’t have the hair you want, love the hair you’ve got, the hair you don’t have, buy what you need or take it all off. I think the hair he has is beautiful, but that alone is an argument strumming the strands of frustration. He is going to scream when he reads this blog.

Hairy lends to hairless ends

Late growth spurt

My beau, just like the Jack Sprat of the nursery rhyme fame could not grow a beard, yet I like his wife just needed to leave it there, and so it grew wilder every day for 10 weeks. Grizzled and wizen, the highlights gained the kind of prominence of men of a certain age.

As I had written before, I dared to believe I would have no beard, I was in my late twenties when it began to show and having not shadowed my dad in grooming, I had no idea what to do with it apart from remembering he used Magic Fragrant Shaving Powder as a chemical depilatory and Old Spice as an aftershave.

The former didn’t work for me, I still came out in razor bumps and the latter was best left to that generation. After many experiments, I settled on the Gillette Fusion5 Razor that I have been using for over a decade. This became necessary when I began to show signs of male pattern baldness and decided it was best to shave both my head and face at the same time.

I can’t remember when 

Glee and plea

I rarely ever had more than a week’s growth before a shave because once that hair grew to a certain length, it became irritating. Now, my beau has this vision of a bearded and hirsute man, a younger Teddy Pendergrass figure, I could never imagine myself becoming, but I humoured him through the slight incapacity of illness to recovery, his excitement leaving quite bewildered.

Now, I had suggested ways in which he could acquire a beard, the stray threads under his chin never numbering more than 6 and that would have followed a hormonal surge of testosterone. Maybe he could graft it from elsewhere. Plastic surgeons can come up with interesting ideas if you want it bad enough.

Falling away to sticking there

When I underwent chemotherapy a decade ago, my consultant assured me that it was unlikely I would lose my hair, that was true, he, however, did not inform me that I would lose my fertility. Though in a life and death situation, you are probably thinking of surviving than procreating.

Then one morning, the moustache falling over my upper lip and stick up my nostrils was too much of a bother, the fine comb I used to groom the sideburns and beard seemed to up and leave for Bulawayo and I was left with no other option before my face became a Medusa of dreadlocks.

I produced a furball, not as a cat might, but good enough to roll up and put in the post with instructions to apply super glue and stick the ball as is directly on his chin. His wishes coming true out my selfless sacrifice of follicular hari-kari. Together, we would have switched faces.

Furball

For posterity sake, there is an evolution of hair, from when I can no more remember to what makes me feel a bit comfortable.

The Before

The Aftermath

ASGA - Advanced Shaving Gel Acronyms

They sprouted late

I could write a long story about shaving though I never really saw the need to shave until I was well past 25; I almost thought I would never have the need to shave.

Then the wayward desert sprouts of hair began to multiply and before I knew it, a beard was forming whilst I could still sport a flat-top crew-cut with a slightly pointed head.

The regimes of shaving started with clippers and all sorts of shavers, each with improved technologies until Philips introduced a wet shaving machine that allowed you to introduce the shaving gel as you passed the shaver around your face.

On top, there was the advent of male-pattern baldness, I decided inspired by snake-oil remedies for preventing hair-loss to take it all off and so my shaving became the complete removal of facial and scalp hair.

Losing hair battles

After a while I got fed up of using electric and battery-powered shavers especially when I had to deal with in-growing hair causing bumps. I even tried using depilatories which had their side effects of discomfort and then memories of my father using Magic shaving powder had me shopping for those in African shops though I was never one for Old Spice.

One evening in a hotel in Germany I had a 3-blade Gillette shaving razor and did my scalp and head in one go, that began my use of the razors and my preference for shaving gel over shaving foam.

That was the Gillette Mach 3 Turbo that I used according to instructions on the packet, one the strip faded, I replaced the razor, but after a few years of using that brand, one evening whilst preparing for dinner on holiday I took a clean 2 square centimetres off my scalp – it hurt like I had never felt pain before – the search for a better razor commenced after that.

Better than a scimitar

Gillette Mach 3 Power was simply the same razor, at least from my layman’s perspective acting like a shaving vibrator; sure, I did scoff at the idea because they were expensive, trendy but honestly quite silly.

So, one day I walked into a drug store and saw the Gillette Fusion, a 5-blade razor, that seemed like the ultimate razor, in fact, any more blades would have made it a follicular combine harvester but you cannot put it past these people and for the humongous cost, I eventually realised the razors were good for probably a 100% more shaves than the usage indicators suggested.

Having sorted out the razors, there was also the story of shaving gels, I easily settle for the Gillette brand shaving gels but those had more varieties than colours of rainbow offering every sort of comfort for the skin and labelled for the razor in order to bump up the prize – we really have been had on these matters.

I usually favoured gels with Aloe Vera and Vitamin E, I noticed on my holidays to Gran Canaria that Aloe Vera was literally a weed, it grew everywhere like grass in the strangest places and for all its natural properties for the skin and as a drink the real thing has an almost sickening smell when cut and it is one smell that sticks to your olfactory receptors for hours just as onions leave a marker on your hands for hours after peeling and cutting them.

King of Shaves

But long before I became a razor fan with the need for shaving gels, I was told of products from the King of Shaves that could deal with bumps and other skin irritation as a result of shaving. I started with the After Shave and the Moisturiser but never the shaving gel. In fact, I did start using King of Shaves when I was still living in the UK and because the products were not available in the Netherlands, I had to find alternatives.

Sometime ago, on one of my London sojourns, I saw a variety of King of Shaves products, got the usual ones and thought I will try the shaving gel. I never really got to use it until a few days ago and really it was yesterday that I bothered to read all the stuff on the tube.

What got me were the acronyms as I peered through the running shower to read the spiel – SSE v5.0, ALS², mDDS, MME & PSP. I was ready to risk the unusual expletive because looking at the acronyms one would have thought I was talking of software, probably some scientific process and something so complex that it would require the mathematical genius of a savant to unravel.

Really, King of Shaves, Azor, Advanced Shaving Gel, does take it to another level of marketing that is almost crass. I a hardly impressed with marketing sophistry, in fact, if I had read this before purchase, I most likely would have put it down for it pretentiousness but for the fact that I like other King of Shaves products.

Here goes

The one I have does not seem to be in stock anymore, though it seems Remington has it, but it is necessary to see what all those acronyms refer to.

King of Shaves Azor® Advanced Shaving Gel utilises SSE,™ v5.0 of our unique Skin Surface Enhancing technology, to deliver our best shave ever with ALS² (Advanced Lubrication System) and mDDS™ (micro Dual Delivery System) that helps protect, moisturize and lubricate your skin throughout the shave giving superlative razor performance and glide. Your face will be left amazingly smooth, supple and moisturized.This unique black gel with MME (Micro-Magnetically Enhanced) particles help the gel ‘stick’ to the blade throughout the shave.For best results use as part of the King of Shaves PSP™ (Prime, Shave, Protect) regime. PRIME: Shave during / after warm bath or shower and wash your face with King of Shaves Face Wash or Scrub. SHAVE: Squeeze a generous amount of Azor Gel onto hand and massage into wet beard. Shave carefully in direction of hair growth taking special care around the sensitive neck area. Rinse the blade frequently. PROTECT: After shaving, thoroughly rinse off, pat dry and protect skin with King of Shaves Moisturizer or Balm.

After which, you can be sure that you have not only had a close shave but you’ve been truly shaved. Phew!

Incredible India: A Close Shave at Koenig Inn

Air ran out of the taps

The backstory to the vivid picture of me in a bathrobe with shaving foam all around my ears and over my head is that as I was shaving I ran out of hot water completely.

This was at just a few minutes past 7:00AM and barely a week after I was told hot water will be available for 24 hours at Koenig Inn.

Things had in the space of just a day moved or generally acceptable to precipitously untenable with no Internet access overnight and then this.

As the water then began to trickle out of the tap I used my hand cloth towel to wipe off all the foam and then had a hand cloth wipe in the place of a shower.

Meanwhile, for whatever reason after the staff came up to see the problem, there was a leak in the bathroom, I went down for breakfast and gave my key to the staff not returning to the room as I left for the training centre.

The new Internet Policy

I could not wait to get out of the Koenig Inn this morning to start at the training centre where I hope no construction firm had inadvertently dug up the cables again like they allegedly did a few days ago.

A new notice had appeared on the wall in addition to the many notices that we have to read, this one might well add insult to injury – whilst I appreciate that the provision of free wireless Internet service comes at a cost for the training centre and the abuse of it for other purposes is not fair, it is one thing to have a poor service and quite another not to have it at all.

Nowadays, we select hotels for the simple reason that wireless Internet is available and free; much as one would expect that a training centre of the calibre of Koenig Solutions will not impose extortionate costs on access for purposes as voice chat (Skype) since being far away from home is partly compensated for with the ability to communicate affordably with friends and family back home this might become a core consideration in choosing this training centre in the future.

If anything, the new Internet Policy is a radical disincentive, a service downgrade and an unfortunate development, especially after last night.

Conversely, I think I am now reading the sign clearly; it reads - "Welcome to India"