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Running late this morning, so I grabbed the Merkur Slant Bar razor.

Had to be out of pajamas and out the door in ten minutes, to join a group of mercenaries en route to the Congo. Okay, to take the kids to Music Together. Corners needed cutting. As did my stubble.

For generations, men with beards of copper wire have turned to the Merkur Slant Bar in a last-ditch attempt to get a straight razor close shave from a safety razor. The slanted head curves the edge of the blade, to mimic the angle of attack you get with a straight razor (that's right -- you need a curved edge to copy a straight edge -- don't ask).

The Slant's a rare beast, and few shops carry them. But I found one. Had to win it in a game of high-stakes poker on an illegal riverboat in French Ghana where the pot included a shrunken head. Okay, I bought it from Lee's Razors. Shaved with it a few times, nicked myself but good -- this razor shows much more blade than most, and it nicks easy if you're not careful. But it really digs in and mows hair quickly, so I figured I'd use it to save some time.

Took a 30 second whore's shower (pits and bits) and slapped on some cream. The clock was ticking. One shave down, one shave up, rinse and run. The Slant's legend is that it gives good quickie shave, because it cuts so close the first time.

Was it close? It was okay. Was it quick? Under a minute. Do I love this razor? Well...I get a better shave just as quickly from Merkur's basic, no-frills, built-like-a-tank Hefty Classic (aka "HD"). Even Lee says the HD's the best razor Merkur makes. I agree. The Slant gives a decent in-a-hurry shave but it's too aggressive for my skin.

Ironically, the Slant is so aggressive that it irritated my skin as much as the multi-blade cartridge razors I left behind in search of something better, hence this whole trip. So if you want the kind of shave the Slant Bar delivers, save yourself some long green and buy a Mach3 or a Quattro. Same shave, same irritation, lower price.

Some shavegeeks claim the Slant Bar's the best razor ever. That's like saying the Nutty Buddy's the best frozen confection ever. It's not even in the top hundred. That said, if your beard is tough and wiry, this overaggressive beast may serve your needs.

The Merkur Slant Bar. One size only. $33. Women will caress your face when you arrive at the garden party, tennis racket over your shoulder. Men will eye you warily, and position themselves between you and their wives. Just be sure to have lots of little toilet paper squares on hand, and if your name is Nicholas and your dad was a Czar, you may want to rethink this.

Today I did something I almost never do -- I shaved twice. Hardcore shavegeeks will tell you that this is one of the worst things you can do, because the very act of wetshaving peels off a layer of skin which takes 24 hours to rebuild. Whatever.

The thing is, my morning shave just didn't do it for me today. I think the blade in my Merkur Progress had just turned over its odometer, and the shave just wasn't as close and smooth as I usually get from this excellent razor.

So five or six hours later, I broke out the most feared of all the shaving implements I have at my disposal -- the dreaded Feather Artist disposable blade straight razor! The Artist Club uses its own special blades, made by Feather, which most shavegeeks consider hands down the most scary-sharp blades outside of an emergency room. Even hardcore straight razor guys who hone their own steel and ride Harleys and eat broken glass are in awe of the Feather blades' sharpness (I used the Professional version blades, which fall midway between the Pro-Guard training wheels blades and the Super Professional atom-slicing jobs).

The Artist Club is like the Darth Vader version of the Dovo Shavette I used yesterday. It's bigger, badder, more deadly, and it brooks no slop. The Shavette is plenty sharp but it still lets you get away with less than dead-on technique. With the Feather, you blink, you die.

So why did I get one? Because I'm an idiot. The Feather's easily the scariest shaving tool you can buy, and much more experienced wetshavers than me have been known to scrurry like scared rodents at the mere mention of it. I have no business wielding this sharpest of all straight razors, and yet here we are.

The first time I got the balls up to try this thing, my knees were knocking and my hand was shaking. And as soon as I touched down, BAM -- sliced open a nice fishbelly cut right across my cheek. Niiiice. So, back in its balsawood box went the Feather, and I swore never to touch it again, until a few weeks later when I tried it again and was marginally better at it. Then I kept at it, a shave here and a shave there, until -- and listen, I'm not claiming I've mastered this crazy thing by any stretch of the word -- but if I take my time and I've had a few cups of joe to sharpen the hand/eye, I can actually shave myself with the Feather without painting the bathroom ruby red.

So anyway, like I said, the morning shave with the Progress DE wasn't so hot. Not the razor's fault, but my own, for using it with a DE blade that was past due. I swiped this way and that, and still felt stubble all over the place. Being that it's a holiday, I let it go, but as it got close to dinner time, the shave was starting to annoy me. It's sick, I know. Really goddamn sick. But that's what these @%#$ shaves have become now -- the yardstick by which I judge the rest of the day. Great shave = great day, and bad shave, you get the picture. If someone else confided this belief system to me, I'd privately cross them off my list. But there's nothing I can do about it now. After you shave with this good stuff, you can't go back to a Mach3 and a can of pressurized goo. I know, I've tried.

Took a hot shower, let the stream and the steam prep my face, got out and grabbed the Feather. Slathered on some Pacific Shave Oil on my wet face, lathered up with an old favorite, Musgo Real shaving cream, and went to town. OK, you know what? Those Chicken Littles are right -- it's not the best idea to shave twice in one day, especially if the second shave is with an implement that should by all rights be used to skin rabbits with. I got a scary smooth shave, but I know I was pushing the envelope of what my face can take. Once in awhile you can get away with this kind of thing, but I don't recommend it as an everyday ritual. You don't want to shave in the morning, come home after work, and then haul out the Feather for a cleanup round on a regular basis. Still, what a shave. I really hope the Feather's not the only way I can get a shave like this, because I'm not sure I can bring my hand/eye A-game to the sink every morning. My hat's off to those who can.

(Note: The Feather Razor is the sharpest, most dangerous consumer shaving tool I'm aware of. I cannot emphasize this strongly enough: I do not recommend it to anyone who's just coming off of a Mach3 or a disposable. Even if you've been shaving with a DE safety razor and you really know what you're doing, you WILL slice yourself and you WILL bleed like a stuck pig the first time you try the Feather. It will be the most painful shaving facial cut of your life, and the blood will seemingly flow forever. You may find that a goodly expanse of your cheek is flapping around on the floor like a goldfish. I recommend this particular razor only to those experienced wetshavers who have mastered the conventional straight razor, as the technique is identical, and unique to these razors alone.)

This fine, lazy Sunday I had nothing but leisure time, so I shaved with the funky little Dovo Shavette -- it's kind of a training bra cut throat razor, for guys wanting to try a straight razor on the cheap. The $20 Shavette mimics a real straight razor by using half of a double-edge blade for the cutting edge, so you take a regular DE blade (I used a Merkur), snap it in half, and insert one of the halves into the Shavette.

I'm not nearly as comfortable shaving with a straight razor as I am with a safety razor, but the Shavette is pretty easy to get the hang of. A few nick-happy shaves to begin with, but you pick it up pretty fast.

And once you do, oh man. What a close shave this thing gives! It's just a cheap stamped metal piece of crap, but give it a good blade (Dovo is Merkur's parent company, and their DE blades are especially smooth and forgiving, which is even more important when you're dealing with a naked blade than it is in a safety razor) and this thing can shave circles around any DE I've got.

I bought a Shavette because I was in Vegas recently and got a barbershop shave at the Truefitt and Hill shop at Caesar's, and it was by far the closest shave I've ever gotten. The razor this gentleman, this Jedi, this ARTIST used? A stinkin' $20 Shavette! In the right hands, it can outshave just about anything out there. I would never have believed it until I got the shave of my life with one.

Couple of tips, courtesy of the T'n'H master barber who shaved me:

1. Pacific Shave Oil (www.pacificshaving.com) applied on the wet face before you lather does wonders in letting the Shavette's blade glide over your face without irritation. The little $6.95 bottle lasts over 100 shaves, they say. I don't notice any benefit when using this stuff with a DE shave, but it makes all the difference when I shave with the Dovo. Why, I have no idea.

2. Shave with NO PRESSURE when you use the Shavette. I know I say that for every razor, but this time I really, really mean it. Bear down with a naked blade and you will draw blood. Lots of it. A Shavette will almost wipe the whiskers off your face like a brush without any downward pressure whatsoever -- just guide it over the curves of your skin as if it was a butterfly just coming to rest on your face. A light touch and a good blade like the Merkur and you'll be astonished by the shave this el-cheapo training bra cut throat delivers.

Will I shave with the Shavette every day? No -- it takes me at least twice as long as when I use a DE, and while I do enjoy my morning shave, I don't have the time nor the mental focus every morning to swipe a naked blade over my face. Plus, I do love using a good DE -- it has its charms and advantages too. But every now and then I love whipping the Shavette out to see how close I can get to that mythical Truefitt and Hill barbershop shave.

I've got a patch of stubble on the underside of my chin, above my neck proper, that simply refuses to shave as smooth as the rest of my face. At least it won't without serious irritation and red marks -- I can shave it baby's butt smooth, but it feels and looks like hell. If I go over the patch a few more times in a diagonal direction, directly against the whiskers' grain, I can shave it glass smooth. But then it hurts. But man is it smooth. Despite the pain. Still, sure is smooth. Yet painful. That said..

I think I need to cool it and just let my underchin go from now on. Do I need it to feel perfectly smooth to my fingers, or is it better to have a tiny bit of roughness, with the benefit of having it look much better to everyone else (who's clearly judging my daily shaves critically, as most passers-by regularly do -- oh, they try to pretend otherwise, but they all, all of them, stare at my shaves and judge me in whole solely on their merit)?

Can I live with stubble only I notice? Do I care more about others' pleasure than my own? I-I'm not sure.

I have a love-hate relationship with Feather Platinum DE blades. They're far and away the sharpest, most smooth-cutting DE blades I've come across, but damned if they don't beat the hell out of my neck and underchin. A Feather-loaded razor shaves my face so closely and smoothly I find myself fondling my own face during the day because I can't believe how smooth it is. But for some reason, the Feather blades beat my neck like a rented mule. I shave with one for a few days, then I say to hell with it, nothing is worth the beating my neck is taking, and then a month later I'm back on the Feather again. As I said, it's not a healthy relationship.

So this morning I took some advice from Gordon of Wetshavers fame, and turned down the blade exposure setting on my old Gillette adjustable DE from 7 to 4. I usually shave with it it on 7 with Merkur or Personna blades, but with the Feather blades, the Gillette is a little too fierce for my skin, especially my neck and right under my chin. So I dialed it back a few notches and tried shaving that way.

Ah-ha! Much better shave overall, and with far less irritation on my neck to boot. You think a less aggressive setting is going to shave like crap, yet it almost always shaves better than the highest settings. I think a lower setting forces you to shave at the proper blade angle relative to the plane of the surface of your skin, while the higher settings let you scrape too much for your skin's good. My problem is, I know this lesson well -- learned it right off the bat -- but I keep forgetting. Also, I'm a tweaker, so I play with different settings, to see if anything interesting happens. That's really stupid when it comes to shaving with a DE. I need to stop doing it. But I never will.

I can't believe how many guys, especially the young excitable Nascar/NRA types on the shaving forums, think that the more aggressive the razor setting, the better -- call it the Nigel Tufnel syndrome. After all, if God and Gillette put a top setting of 9 on the old razors, why not go for broke, master your thirst, yee haw, etc.? Weeeell, because it irritates most guys' necks so bad they wind up with sore necks dotted with red splotches and shave bumps, that's why. And then the poor schlubs scurry to the forums with cries for help, asking what magic aftershave poltices will relieve the redness and shave bumps, when all they really need to do is take their razors down a few clicks.

Hey, I know, it doesn't feel cool to shave at the lower settings. It's like driving a car in second gear -- what fun is that? I'm reminded of that Marines recruiting poster that shows a physically spent kid in boot camp at the peak of human suffering with the caption "Pain is just weakness leaving your body". Bravo! Pure imbecilia!

What was I talking about? Shaving. Dial it down, boys. You have nothing to lose but the red on your necks.

I've been dicking around with a lot of different DE razors lately, but today I went back to the one tried-and-true shaving rig I always come back to: the classic Gillette adjustable DE razor, loaded with a Feather Platinum blade.

No matter what other razor I try, no matter how expensive or popular it is, I never get a shave as good and comfortable as the shave I get from an old Gillette adjustable. Some of the younger jackasses on the forums diss the vintage Gillettes as being mediocre razors, but they're wrong -- about so many things, but also this. I've tried every DE you can score nowadays, and the Gillette is by far my favorite. Loaded with the crazy-sharp Feather Platinum blades, the Gillette can outshave the high-dollar Merkurs and do it with less skin irritation to boot.

No, you don't get that wonderful scraping sound the $120 Merkur Vision makes. And no, it's not an Uzi, so it doesn't weigh a ton. It originally sold for a buck apiece and many millions went into worldwide circ, though they command much more these days on eBay. I'd check with your dad or grandpa first -- they might still have one in a drawer somewhere.

Give it a good blade and learn how to use it -- especially after spending a few weeks experimenting with everything from the Vision to the latest "Xtreme Shaving" darling, the Merkur Slant, I'm convinced now more than ever that the vintage Gillette adjustable is the best DE there ever was.