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Saturday, August 23, 2014

Are Weepers the Cost of a Consistently Close Shave?

In my experience, blood-letting shaving errors fall into three categories: 1) cuts, which are the most troubling, slow to heal and disappear, and due to the greatest pilot error; 2) nicks, which are usually still due to pilot error, but after a touch of styptic disappear more quickly than cuts; and 3) weepers, which I characterize as just shaving too closely: taking a little scrape of skin with the hair, and as a result, opening a capillary that oozes blood. Weepers are often so superficial that I don't even feel them being opened up.

Nicks and cuts are rare in my shaving experience, but weepers are all too frequent. This is due to my love of the close shave combined with my tendency to get both a bit careless and aggressive with my strokes at times. Another factor may be just a hair too much pressure of razor against face in the effort to get a better shave in fewer passes. I also find that my slant razor (Merkur 37C) both gives me the closest shaves in the fewest strokes, as well as probably leading the field in the production of weepers.

I sometimes get repeat weepers because I keep shaving quite closely the same slightly-injured patches of skin day after day, and once a weeper is created, it may need some rest -- a break from the close shave -- so it can properly heal and subsequently endure without complaint the passing of sharp steel across skin.

The good news is that weepers, unlike nicks and cuts, usually seem to disappear from view once the oozing of blood has stopped, whether on its own or by a splash of water, an alum rub, or touch of styptic pencil.

What are your thoughts and experiences regarding weepers? Feel free to leave a comment.

Happy shaving!

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