When I was a little girl, I remember my daddy using a safety razor to shave. If I was up when he was getting dressed for work, he’d let me sit on the commode with the lid down and watch him. Sometimes, I got to be present for the changing of the blade. Watching the blade housing open when he gave the bottom of the handle a twist always seemed like magic. I believe I had even convinced myself that my dad invented the razor in addition to many other household items we used regularly.
My favorite part, however, was the shave soap and brush. The soap was about an inch thick, round, and it fit perfectly inside a coffee mug, leaving enough room at the top to stow the brush in an upright position. My dad should have kept such an enticing trio in the overhead cabinet, far away from curious hands. Instead, it sat on the vanity in plain sight and within reach of my small but competent grasp.
I believe mom’s footsteps had been drowned out by the clinking of the brush against the ceramic sides of the mug, but I knew my experiment had been foiled again when the shadows of two arms began to loom nigh. She surmised that I was just playing with it by giving me some baloney about wasting soap as she escorted me out of the bathroom, but even I knew then that it was for science.
My mom and I just differed somewhat on our definition of play in this context. I just couldn’t understand how that brush was able to make such a luxurious lather when my washcloth wasn’t able to do the same. Consequently, I blame my genuine curiosity of how things work. But my mom didn’t see it that way. She saw a mug overflowing with what could’ve passed for whipped cream and me, whisking at a fever pitch with that bewitching brush.
But I digress.
If daddy wasn’t running behind, he would let me lather the soap for him and apply it to his face. (So you see… my dad actually ignited this curiosity in the first place.) Part of the fun of it was making him up to look like Santa Claus. The other part was the before and after. Watching him pull that razor across his face, revealing the smooth skin underneath. It was fascinating to me. And when he was all finished, his skin felt so nice and smelled so good. That was always the best time to give him a kiss on the cheek. And so I would.
My shaving curiosity continued well into elementary school. I was around 10 years old when I took it upon myself to shave my own legs for the first time, without permission, and with my mom’s used razor.
I learned very quickly that this was a mistake. It hurt. The first stroke of the razor, I mean. I didn’t think it was supposed to hurt. Then, I saw it. The cut on my left shin was about half the length of a piece of Dentyne chewing gum and almost as wide and was already letting down my leg and into the bath water. My first instinct was to rinse it. Bad idea. That only made it sting worse and bleed more.
I got out of the tub and used a washcloth to stop the bleeding, pondering all the while how I was going to hide this from mom and also how I was going to finish this job so that I could wear shorts again. After all, I had only made one pass with the razor when I learned that this skill is harder than it looks to master.
After the bleeding stopped, I reentered the tub, lathered back up, and very carefully pulled the razor across my leg. The second pass was more successful. I felt brave enough to soldier on, and eventually, I was hairless from the thighs down.
After my bath, I sauntered into the living room and plopped down in the middle of the floor in front of the television. I wasn’t even settled in when my mom’s voice rang out, “Did you shave your legs?!”
How on earth did she notice so fast?
“Yes.” I knew there was no point lying.
“Well, let me see them.”
I stretched my legs out on the floor in front of her. My mom’s eyes fell immediately on the cut on my shin. She didn’t yell or scold me. Instead, she went to the bathroom for medication and a bandage. After caring for my wound, she told me that I was really too young to be shaving my legs. She also explained the now obvious danger in doing such a thing at my age, unsupervised. But she wasn’t mad. Especially after I explained to her that I had been teased at school about it. After that, she taught me the right way to use a razor, and I’ve been shaving my legs ever since.
Oh, I’m sure there was some behind-the-scenes debate about it being too early for it, but my mom, who was also no stranger to the schoolyard bully, was good at persuading him.
Eventually, I ended up hating shaving like most young girls and women. Besides, I moved on long ago to a new experiment:
Why is the washcloth still underperforming in the shower? I may have to deconstruct a mesh bath sponge to get to the bottom of this one.
Photo Credit: “Merkur and Badger Brush” by Charlie Essers is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0