.

Back when I first started shaving as a kleen teen, I ended all my shaves the way every utha brutha on the planet did back in the day -- with a bracing splash of alcoholic Old Spice on my freshly bloodied puss that stung so bad for those ten seconds of searing pain I saw acid tracers in front of my face even though the only thing I'd ever dropped was an entire bottle of boysenberry syrup down my gullet at IHOP on a dare (dollar won, early triumph).

Like all guys, I thought aftershave was basically cologne you put on your face. I didn't know it was supposed to settle your skin down after a shave and moisturize it after the beating it took from the razor. I thought it was supposed to hurt like hell. And it did, for the next ten years or so till I discovered products like Clinique's Post-Shave Healer that soothed instead of stung.

Amazing! What a concept! Your face is SENSITIVE after a SKINPEEL, so maybe ALCOHOL isn't the best thing to slap on. It only took mankind a few thousand years to figure this out. The geniuses who put a man on the moon -- the best and brightest minds of a generation -- all screamed "Fuckin' SHITBALLS!!" through clenched teeth on the morning of the launch when they hit their face with alcohol-based aftershave. Even the smart boys didn't know what they were doing when it came to shaving.

But that was then and this is now. When I first delved into the old-school English wetshaving trip, I discovered all sorts of quaint, old-timey post-shave poultices like Trumper's Skin Food, D. R. Harris's Aftershave Milk, Proraso's Soothing Cream, Colonel Reginald Felchingham's Punim-Pamper, and other kinder, gentler aftershaves designed to calm your skin down and moisturize it nicely without the sting. They're all much better for your face than traditional alcohol-based aftershaves, and any of them is a huge step up from Old Spice (it's been reported, however, that Harris has changed its Aftershave Milk formula to meet new EU regulations, so the jury's out on the new version -- I like the old stuff quite a bit, but as it's now an endangered species, I don't recommend getting too fond of it, since it won't be around much longer).

After trying all of the top shelf post-shave poultices, I settled on Trumper's Skin Food as my favorite, and began using it every day after my shave. It was a huge step up from the Clinique lotion, and did much to reduce the red spots on my neck, as well as improve my skin's overall appearance. I love the Skin Food in both versions, Lime and the original Coral (rose-scented), and recommend it highly. It's expensive, but a little goes a long way -- you only need a dime-sized amount to cover your face and neck, and it actually works better when used sparingly.

A more recent aftershave I like a lot is Nancy Boy's Cooling Aftershave Gel. Forget drugstore aftershave "gels" for "sensitive skin" -- the Nancy Boy's the real deal, with aloe, glycerin, witch hazel, skin-friendly essential oils like lavender, peppermint and rosemary, and yes, a teensy bit of alcohol but at such a trace amount you don't feel any sting at all. Like Trumper's Skin Food, a little Nancy Boy goes a long way, and if you use the company's mind-bending shaving cream, the aftershave has the same wonderful lavender/peppermint/rosemary scent.

But this winter has been especially dry here on the East Coast, and even these excellent aftershaves leave my skin drier than I like. They're great in the summer months, but when the air's particularly dry like it is now, I need something more moisturizing. Not because I'm a cream queen -- trust me, if I could get by with a bar of Irish Spring and a crusty bath towel like I did when I was in my 20s, I'd ditch all my Man-Beauty products in a heartbeat. But I can't no more. I'm old, so very, very old. Despite my oily skin, I'm drying up like an abandoned creek, or crick as the case may be. So I need to juice the ball.

Walk into any hippie store like Whole Foods (actually -- and this is where I demonstrate that I really am old, with an unwanted and barely apropos anecdote just this side of germane to the discussion -- I remember when Whole Foods really was a hippie store, back when I was going to school in Austin and there was only one Whole Foods in the world, and it was dirty, great, and run by hippies for hippies, long before it became Whole Paycheck, Home of the $5 Anjou Pear) (Disclosure: Beloved Wife buys most of our produce at Whole Foods) (Hey, I like my pears), and you'll find shelves of skin-specific oils and lotions and essential oils, and among them will be Jojoba oil, which is not really an oil per se but the expeller-pressed ooze from the seeds of a Jojoba plant.

Jojoba "oil" is amazing stuff. It's not an oil at all, but a liquid wax ester similar to the ester our skin produces naturally. There are oodles and Googles of info on why Jojoba is good for your skin, but I'll cut to the chase -- if your skin's in need of high-end moisturizing and/or you want the very best aftershave you can buy, go get a bottle of Hobacare Jojoba for 12 bucks and prepare to be amazed. Tap 3-5 drops into your hand, rub your palms together, and rub them all over your shaven areas, and the rest of your puss too. Your skin shines for a moment or two and then the Jojoba sinks nicely into your skin, leaving it looking normal. What a difference this stuff makes after you use it for a few days. You'll never go back to your old aftershave after you use it for a week.

I was crowing about what a difference Jojoba made to my winter-dry skin to the Fisher King, my higher skincare authority. I told him it was hands-down the most startlingly effective aftershave I'd ever tried.

"Ahh, that is all well and good, grasshopper," he intoned, clacking his teeth on the stem of his opium pipe, "but have you tried Rosehip Seed Oil?"

So I did. And he's right, in some ways it's even better than the Jojoba. The finish is a bit shinier, which I'm not crazy about, and there's also a bit of a scent happening as well, which is okay I guess but I added ten drops each of lavender, peppermint, and rosemary essential oils anyway just to give it a scent more to my liking.

But ye gods, does this stuff love your skin! Loves it long time, G.I. Joe. You finish your shave with 5 drops of Rosehip Seed Oil and pretty soon you're going to start getting carded again at R-rated movies. I can't believe how good this stuff is as an aftershave. It's extraordinary. So simple and realtively inexpensive ($10-20 for an 8-ounce bottle that should last well over a year), yet so amazingly effective at both soothing your skin after a shave and moisturizing it for the long haul. I apply Rosehip Seed Oil twice a day, after my shave and then again at bedtime, and my skin looks and feels better now than it has in years.

Rosehip Seed Oil is a big-time shavegeek discovery, and once again I must pay fealty to the Fisher King for yet another mind-bending rec. All hail the Fisher King! May he live forever, surrounded by glorious fields of poppies and fine old razors of bygone quality.