Every truly important question in shaving ultimately boils down to one fundamental question: comfort or closeness; which one will it be? It is in the successful and predictive reconciliation of these two decisive opposites that the perfect shave is to be found. Indeed, the eternally vexatious trade off between closeness and comfort is so crucial to the elaboration of the general “shaving problem” that I would like to some explore it in more detail. (Some commentators have remarked that my insistence on returning to the “shaving problem” in my writings is really a kind of non-sequitor. In their view I have already solved the problem and should move on to other, more grandiose, shaving projects. However, with millions of men in the world still suffering from “hot face” every morning, I hardly consider the “shaving problem” solved at all).

I'm frequently asked how I discovered my unique method of shaving. Did it all come to me at once, much like a Eureka! experience? Or did it emerge slowly out of the mists of my imagination? Did somebody teach it to me? Or did it involve a slow process of incremental learning until a grand conception finally materialized? Or was I in fact simply born to the role of super talented groomsman to the rich and famous?