What's your shave?

With astronomical gas prices, a ****ty economy, all these natural disasters and a general foul mood in the world, I thought I'd lighten things up a bit. So, what's your shave?

Equipment
Currently using the Gillette Fusion (5 blade one) with Gillette foam. However, I am now switching to one of those old-fashioned safety razors. I ordered two and they should be arriving at my place later this week. One is a Merkur Vision 2000 and the other is an old PAL adjustable injector razor. I also bought some shaving soap (complete with the badger brush!) and tried it out yesterday and, I have to say, my face felt much better compared to when using the foam.

I also have this Panasonic wet/dry electric razor that's good, but electrics never shave as close as blades do.

Oh, and I tried out the Schick Quatro Turbo that has the trimmer at the end and that was actually really good and I had minimal cuts and scrapes.

Now, I really love the Fusion and everything and it's given me the best shave of my life. But it's just really, really expensive to keep replacing those cartridges and they say the safety razors give a closer shave and are much, much cheaper in the long-run. Using other cartridge-based razors irritate my skin and they aren't so good.

If I have a goatee, then I'll trim it with a Remington beard trimmer.

Shaving Style
I shave against the grain all over my face. I have sensitive skin and not the heaviest of beards, so I can do that. It's much smoother that way anyways. I couldn't really do that with the other razors, but with the Fusion, I can. I need the baby-ass smooth feeling and shaving against the grain is the only way I can achieve that.

Shaving Frequency
It really depends on my mood and how lazy I am. Sometimes everyday, sometimes every few days, sometimes just once a week!

Facial Hair
Again, it depends how bored I get. Sometimes I'm clean-shaven, sometimes I have a goatee. Sometimes 2-3 days stubble. Right now, I have one of those really thin goatees complete with the "chin straps" around the jaw line. Looks cool, but it's hard to maintain. If I have facial hair, I usually keep it trim and "tight-looking" and trim it very regularly.

Now, men and women, what's your shave?

I'm a Mach 3 Turbo loyalist with Barbasol shaving foam.

I'm currently working on the goatee and mustache but I find it impossible to maintain. How do you guys trim your beards/etc...? How often do you trim them, and is there a lemgth that's "too long" for facial hair? I'm new at keeping the hair on the face...

I try to trim my facial hair everyday or at least three times a week. Again, it depends how lazy I am. I have one (or several) of those beard and mustache trimmers that have those beard length settings. I usually trim mine at the first (or shortest) or second (second shortest) setting, but usually the first. You can buy those trimmers at any drug store and they're around $15-$40, depending on the model.

http://www.google.com/products?q=beard+ ... fox-a&um=1

I use a super-short hair clipper to trim my facial hair. I don't razor shave. I use a disposable Gillette 3-blade Turbo to shave the edges of the shadow that I leave. Then sometimes I'll use that trimmer everyday, sometimes I'll let it grow out for a week or two. Depends on my mood and my plans.

On the rest of my body, I use another regular hair clipper for some parts, and I little razor-work here and there (I don't use the same actual razor as on my face).

nothing fancy here, just disposable 3-blade razors and regular soap.

I'd been using a brush and shaving soap with a Mach 3 or Fusion for the last three or so years, but I recently switched to a safety razor. The technique is taking some time to get used to, but other than that, I really like it...even with my bad technique, it's a little less irritating than the Fusion, and I suspect it will get better once I figure out what I'm doing.

And as my brother put it when he suggested I try a safety razor, the savings in cost of blades will pay for my 100-400 rentals...

I use a Norelco electric razor (it's about 4 years old I think). With the beard, it takes me about 30 seconds to shave with an electric razor. I also have a Norelco beard trimmer that I use every couple of weeks to avoid the "Grizzly Adams" look.

Bit of an update. I got the safety razor in the mail the other day and tried it this morning. It's an amazingly close shave! Probably the closest and smoothest I've ever had. The large head is surprisingly maneuverable too, even on the upper lip. It's really good that you can adjust the blade setting too and that's good for me since I'm a beginner with these safety razors and I still don't have the right technique. But I'm sticking with this one rather than the Gillette Fusion.