Shaving with a brush

I've obviously been speaking to a lot of people about shaving recently. When it comes to wet shaving, the razor itself is only half the story. I've used a shaving brush and soap now for many years, but it seems that lots of people still use a can of shaving cream.

There's plenty of information out there about wet shaving and the benefits of using a brush. I won't go into it in detail here, but if you don't do it, you should at least try it.

In short, lathering up your face with a brush before shaving is great. It helps prepare your skin for your shave, it feels nice, it's cheaper, and it's what James Bond does.

It can be overwhelming and even intimidating shopping for a shaving brush. People will try to persuade you that only the bristles from the left-handed, vegan badgers of Inner Mongolia give a worthy shave. Whilst dropping over £100 on a shaving brush will undoubtedly give you a lovely shaving experience, it's not necessary if you just want to find out what you're missing.

As with lots of things you can buy, such as watches and stereo equipment, with a shaving brush you very quickly start to experience diminishing returns.

Here's a completely made-up graph to illustrate my point.

Basically, even a cheap brush and shaving soap will be significantly more enjoyable to use than a brightly coloured can of pressurized propolene glycol and triethanolamine.

In your local supermarket you'll probably find some options like these (not the razor yet). This brush and shaving cream will together set you back less than £6 ($10).

Plenty of nicer creams can be had for not too much more.

So my point is, that although you'll probably want to upgrade your shaving brush and soap at some point, you don't need to start with the expensive stuff.

Try it - you might like it.