In October of 2025 I went to Maine to close down our cabin and – conditions at the cabin being what they are – stopped shaving.
This photo, which I posted on Facebook, is from 6 January, 2026 – the 12th day of Christmas – and was documenting the state of the beard and announcing that the beard was going away and the Santa hat was going back into its box until next Advent.
I purchased special equipment for removing the beard. I had a mirror on a stand which could flip between normal 1x and magnified 3x. I had a very small rechargeable clipper plus an even smaller trimmer (and nose-hair clipper) that also runs on a battery. Later, I also acquired a “beard apron” that you can attach to your mirror with suction cups to catch all the falling, cut-off whiskers – but the first attack on the beard was just over laid out newspapers.
A digression about razors
For many, many years I have been shaving with this type of disposable razor. This one is a Schick Extreme 3 Sensitive Skin Disposable Razor that costs more-or-less $2 and I would replace once a month, on the first of the month, unless the shaving experience was bad for some reason that caused me to replace it early. That almost never happened.
As I was contemplating returning to shaving, as one does, I was poking around on the web and came across the ads for the Henson razor; machined from aircraft aluminum by shaving aficionados in Canada.
I liked the sales pitch about how well made this double-edge razor was, and was amenable to the arguments they made about how ultimately cheaper it was using 10¢ disposable double-edge razor blades rather the $2 disposable razors. I also fell for the pitch for the elegant aluminum stand and some special goo to put on your beard before shaving.
My infatuation with the idea of double edge razors did not stop there. The Hansen package was costing around $125 by the time I was done. That’s ten-years worth of disposable razors at the pace I had been using them. I’m old enough that I cannot confidently say that was a good tradeoff from an economic point of view.
The Hansen advertising now continued in emails about shaving. They wanted to emphasize how important it was to prepare your whiskers for shaving. Change the blade often! Make sure you don’t leave the razor and blade in a nasty wet shower. Enjoyable up to a point.
But I wanted to be more empirical about this whole experience. So I bought a much cheaper so-called travel razor (it comes with a pouch!), also with a stand. It’s adjustable with that numbered ring below the blade. The razor and stand are heavy and substantial-feeling. The blade cover is held on with a spring mechanism. It also has great big channels and openings for rinsing the blade. Under $20, but I bulked up that Amazon order with a couple of blade disposal boxes and a $9.99 pack of 100 blades – all of the other places I’ve looked at for double-edge blades are smaller quantities at more like 20-25¢ each.
I’m sure the shaving experts at Hansen have better experimental design, methodology, and measurements than me. All I can do is try out the different razors and see what my impressions are. And I’m not feeling in a sufficiently exploratory mood to try out a straight razor. I find that even handling the double-edge blades makes me feel like I have to be extremely cautious.
So far, though, my trying out the different razors has left me with the impression that there is absolutely no difference in the results I get, but those results do vary slightly depending on the number of shaves a blade (or set of blades) has already done.
Before getting to the full Santa beard by the end of Christmastide, I had this version on 11 December.
Halfway point
After growing a full beard for many weeks, I found I was reluctant to make it all go away at once. The main thing I had noticed that I did not like was that whiskers close to my mouth would get in my mouth. So I did not want to continue the mustache part nor the stuff growing below my lower lip. And I had no fancy for side whiskers or sideburns. But this small patch on my chin I thought I’d try for a while.
This led to another sojourn on the web to see what various beards’ names were. I had seen people with this sort of beard before, but the strongest impression I had was the fellow who stilt-walked in the Amherst July 4th parade as Uncle Sam – so I thought of this as an “Uncle Sam beard” but it’s just one variant of a goatee.
Everyone hated it! My wife didn’t like it. The people who stick needles in me at the Red Cross Center when I donate platelets didn’t like it. It had to go!
So after a trial run of most of January with the Uncle Sam beard, I came to a crisis point. I needed a photo for my campaign to be elected as a Library Trustee and I needed for the beard to be gone. The night before the photo I pulled out my mirror, my beard apron, and my clippers and buzzed off the whiskers. More than 99% of them were plain white, but there was a sprinkling of darker strands in there. Except for the photos, I saved nothing.
I’m still trying out the different razors. I went to look for my old, old shaving equipment and found only the shaving brush. The blue patterned mug with shaving soap was long gone, nowhere to be found. I’ve tried shaving cream, the special Hansen goop, shampoo (with conditioner), and just plain soap and they all seem to work the same for me, but they have different fragrances.
I got a lot of fun Santa comments while wearing the Santa hat and beard in December and even more in the first part of January; I suspect I’ll try this again next year, starting Columbus Day weekend, which is when I usually go up to the cabin for a few days to close it down for the winter. During November, there are official movements relating to “No Shave November” or “Movember” that I don’t participate in, but give some cover for the scruffy and disreputable-looking stage when one starts growing a beard. And I can think about trimming, shaping, and shaving some parts that might make it look better. And I can explore “beard oil” and beard combs!