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The other day someone asked my why I got into traditional old-school wetshaving -- what spurred me to get proactive about hunting down the right tools and technique.

I had to think on it for awhile, but then I realized that it was when I first began getting interviewed on TV that I became really proactive about getting a great shave.

Even before I saw what my face looked like under hard studio lighting and the unforgiving eye of the television camera, I can remember always being unhappy with my shaving and feeling that somehow it should be a lot better in terms of appearance, feel, and comfort. But when I started working in TV and saw myself up close on the monitor, with that bluish shadow even though I was caked with enough makeup to choke a goat and had just shaved only an hour or so before, I'll admit it -- I became obsessed with shaving.

It's been a long haul of many years. I tried fancy shaving soaps, what I thought were fancy shaving creams, and all sorts of pre-shave oils and assorted accessories like aftermarket handles for the Mach3 blade cartridges because a "heavier handle makes all the difference, blah blah woof woof...", but none of it really improved the appearance of my shaves.

When I discovered to my delight that the old-school DE safety razor was not only much easier to shave with than I'd ever thought possible, but vastly better at leaving my face baby's-butt smooth and looking/feeling great all day, I was beside myself. And sure enough, when I saw myself on camera for the first time after I started shaving with the DE, I no longer saw any beard shadow under the makeup, or the little red marks on my neck I used to routinely get from the multi-blade razors.

Now I shave with an old Injector, loaded with a Feather disposable straight razor blade cut down to size. And the shaves I get from this rig are incomparable. But even though I've been raving about this setup for a week or so, I didn't really appreciate the jump in quality my shaves took when I switched to this razor until today, when I did my first on-camera work since switching to the Injector.

Usually I need a fair amount of makeup to smooth my complexion out, hide whatever visible beard remains even after a recent shave (my face isn't one of those that looks perfectly hairless after a shave -- I'd kill for that kind of face, but right after I shave, you can still see the black ends of the hairs on my skin. It's not a shadow, per se, but it isn't invisible either), and kill the glare off my oily skin. And no matter what makeup artist I work with, they always have to double up on the spackle where I shave, even when I used a DE. It's not just me -- most men I know on TV have to deal with this, and some even more than I do.

But today I was surprised and pleased to see that for the first time, I didn't need any extra makeup to hide my shave areas -- in fact, I needed less makeup than I've ever been given by a makeup artist to look camera-ready. The Feather/Injector shaves me so close now that I get a straight razor quality shave every day, and the accumulative effect seems to have improved things to such a degree that I don't need as much makeup anymore when I appear on-camera.

I look at my wedding photos and wish I'd known about the Injector, and badger brushes, and Taylor's rose shaving cream back then. I look at photos of me holding our baby daughter in the hospital and wish I'd known how to shave properly at the time. In these photos I look like me, only more of a bum. My five o'clock shadow jumps off the photo and makes me wince every time I see a picture of myself pre-wetshaving. Yes, it's that sick.