When my father taught me how to shave, he showed me two ways to staunch the flow of blood from nicks. One is the ever-popular little squares of toilet paper, which can get the job done, but have their problems -- the squares aren't exactly fashionable and if you take them off at the wrong time, the bleeding starts all over again. The other option is a styptic pencil, a chunk of aluminum sulfate that looks like a stick of white chalk. You touch the styptic pencil to the nick and it coagulates your blood. Yeah, it might sting for a moment, but it stops the bleeding instantly and the pain reminds you that you're a man.I've asked around, and there seems to be a generational divide among men. Those over 60 regularly use styptic pencils, while the younger set has hardly heard of them. I thought that the advent of the safety razor (a razor with a guide that prevents you from cutting off layers of skin deli-slicer style) might be the dividing line between the styptic and non-styptic generations, but I discovered that it's only a partial explanation. Yes, the styptic pencil was a more standard part of men's shaving kits when straight razors allowed for wounds with arterial spray, but safety razors became big in the U.S. when the military issued millions of Gillette safety razors to soldiers in World War I. My dad would have started shaving in the late 1940's, long after the safety razor had established itself as the follicle slicer of choice.
The use of a styptic pencil is probably passed down from father to son. If your dad never introduced you to it, you make do with little squares of toilet
paper. That's usually okay when today's 348-blade, quantum-sculpted safety razors make it nearly impossible to inflict major wounds. But the next time you slice your neck right before you intend to put on a white dress shirt, remember that there's an alternative. One that makes you part of a rich and manly heritage.
