Shaving Ethnography: Observation 4

For my fourth observation I decided to observe an older female. This was because I had observed a young male then an older male and found that there were differences in the way that they experienced shaving. Likewise I feel that there will be a similar observation with young and old females. 

Female

48

My participant shaves her legs in the shower. She informs me that she shaves her legs when they feel prickly or look like “spiders on her legs” which she clarifies as meaning long black hair. She says her husband complains about her hair when it gets too long as it feels prickly and uncomfortable when he gives her leg massages. She gets right to it when she is in the shower, she says it is because she does not have long in the mornings because she has 3 other family members who need the shower in the morning so she cant dilly dally. She holds the soap in one hand and the razor in the other. It is a two blade razor with a static head. She tells me she prefers razors with moisturizing bars as they feel less sharp on her legs and help to avoid razor burn, she makes a comment about how frustrating it is that there are always several razors in the shower because other people get new ones when the bar is depleted meaning the old ones just sit in the shower will she moves them. While this is happening she has wet the soap and razor in the water stream, she says she likes the water to feel hot so she can avoid goose bumps on her legs. She puts her leg up on the shower shelf and brings the soap up from the bottom of the foot to her knee and follows it with a razor. She moves very quickly and soon her whole leg is finished. I ask her is she is afraid of cutting herself or of getting razor burn. She says that she wont cut herself and that she uses soap so that she wont get razor burn. I get the sense that she feels that because she has been doing this for a while she is no longer wary of razor burn or the occasional nick on her leg. She does the other leg just as quick. She opens up the milk honey moisturizer that another participant used, it fills up the bathroom with its smell again, she doesn’t use it on her legs though. I ask her why she doesn’t she says its because the soap already moisturizes. After this she finishes her shower. When it comes time to dry herself she is rough, not careful as the men were on their newly shaven surfaces. She also informs me that she hardly ever moisturizes with body lotion either. I ask her why, she says that it takes too long and it feels weird when she puts her pants on.