Dear DAVE SHAVES
said the email,
Please. You've got to help me. Just tell me how to get a proper, clean shave, without razor rash or blackheads appearing within an hour, for God’s sake!
The email was from someone who I shall simply call 'David Stanbridge' from Cranley in Essex, as I don't want to embarrass him. He went on, his tone ever-more hysterical:
I stopped using my Gillette Contour (with lubrastrip) about a year ago and now just pick up those 3-blade disposable chaps at Poundstretcher, ten in a bag. They work, but I do find the stubble grows back quite quickly and makes me look like I've just spent a week in hospital without access to personal hygiene products. A few days' stubble when I was in my 20s used to look quite cool and edgey. Now I'm at an age where it just looks seedy and I crave the smooth cheeks rightly befitting a Compliance Officer in his 40s. This is why I am subscribing to your sensational online cathedral of shaving excellence. I just want a better shave. Help me, DAVE SHAVES. You're my only hope.
Regards
David Stanbridge
And it struck me – like a demolition ball being smashed repeatedly into my face - that 'David' probably isn't the only one to feel like this. There are hundreds of thousands of David Stanbridges the world over, poised over their computer keyboards right now, tapping out their tortured tales, outlining in horrific detail their shaving woes and lathering horrors, their foolish purchases of three, four, five, six, for all I know seven-blade cartridge monstrosities, for God's sake.
But I thought of David sitting there in his underpants, a three-day stubble on his truly awful face, alone and desperate, shunned by his wife (more of her elsewhere), wondering if he would ever, ever get that shave he so desperately craved. And I wondered: Can I help you, David Stanbridge? Can I help you to get that great shave you desire, with cheeks so smooth people will want to slide down them on their bums?
So included here in this Tips section you'll find The Dave Shaves Beginner's Guide. It's basically what I sent to David Stanbridge by way of reply to his heartfelt email. Hopefully, it helped him. I don't know whether it did or not because he never replied, the cheeky monkey.* But I like to think it did. And hopefully it will help all the other Davids out there too: equally alone, equally desperate and equally bloody incapable of sending a thank you email. But, I like to think, stubble-free. Hell, it might just help you.
Also in this section you'll find some recommendations for YouTube shaving channels, of which there are many. There's something oddly hypnotic about watching men shave on camera. Also something weirdly guilt-inducing. It makes me do the old Alt + Tab trick to change what's on the computer screen if someone walks into the room while I'm watching.**
* David Stanbridge of Cranley, Essex, included his address at the bottom of his original email, so I know exactly where he lives. I know that sounds vaguely threatening. Almost like I'm going to stand in the light of a street lamp opposite his house at 3am in the morning, wearing a hoodie and a clown mask and making strange beckoning gestures. I'm definitely not going to do that.
** Like I used to do at work if my team manager walked behind me and I happened to be playing Solitaire when I should have been doing something else. You think the movement is imperceptible but in fact it makes it look like you've just been caught watching something really dirty. Pornography, I mean. As opposed to something actually really dirty, like dinner plates after a curry or an old car engine. Sorry – I'm rambling.