soapy liberation
Some time ago I stopped using shampoo, and it's been ages since I used a separate face-wash, but not until today did I finally manage to cut the last cord tying me to the soapy clutching hands of big shower. Don't worry, I haven't stopped bathing entirely: I just replaced my bar of hippy soap from Whole Foods with Leah's even-hippier home-made soap. The orange flavor. It feels so liberating.
Unfortunately, I'm still stuck with commercial shaving cream and deodorant. But that may be only because I'm insufficiently creative and inventive. A quick google search tells me that there are a whole lot of recipes out there for homemade deodorant (or maybe just one recipe copied many places; I only read the first link). As for shaving cream, there are similarly many recipes, but interestingly I find that most of them are written by and for women and refer only to leg shaving. The one article I found aimed at men pretty much just suggested using soap. Or shampoo, conditioner, detergent, peanut butter... you know, whatever is handy. Soap sounds promising.
I have long listened to Leah and the other hippy women of our acquaintance discussing these sorts of topics, so I'm sure I could seek out suggestions from them. Women have an advantage in this anti-corporate-cleaning project, because as I understand it they actually think about personal grooming at times other than when they're actually engaged in it. Me, I can't even remember that I need to replace the bar of soap in the shower until I pick it up, at which point it's too late (I had a couple of essentially soap-free showers before I finally managed to bring up the home-made bar from the basement). Any forward planning on the subject feels a little weird to me, honestly. Does writing this blog post make me a metrosexual?
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Note that when I say "the one article" I mean in the 25-30 seconds of searching that I allotted for this blog post. There may be others. But I couldn't think about the subject for any longer without going to chop some wood or something first.
For what it's worth I stopped using shaving cream entirely but not fancy razors. I use the latest Mach whatever but the blade lasts an age because I'm not using shaving cream. I bought the last thing from Costco over two years ago.
The basic way to step off is to use hand soap if you need it for awhile and then just get in the habit of shaving directly after showering. If I don't shave immediately after showering I just skip the day entirely. If that's not an option then you'll just need to be better than I am about it I guess. I find that the kids distract me or I'm rushed out the door. My work couldn't care less about such things.
I did this probably 4-5 years ago now. This was my inspiration for doing so: http://www.lewrockwell.com/tucker/tucker65.html
Thanks for the link; I enjoyed reading it (lewrockwell.com/tucker/tucker65.html for those who want to click). I always shave right after showering—I didn't even know it was possible to do otherwise. Maybe that's why I've never been bothered by irritation. I also only shave three times a week these days, using non-spraying cream from the Body Shop (a wonderful Christmas gift). But maybe I'll do some experimenting...