Too much shaving stuff?
Talk to anyone in the traditional wet shaving hobby, and they will tell you that it is easy to get carried away with acquiring shave gear. Some have called it SAD (Soap Acquisition Disorder), BAD (brushes), or RAD (razors). Many of us agree that the chief principle at work here is FOMO (fear of missing out). There is also the idea of Chasing the Dragon, which means you are trying to chase the high of the theoretical “perfect” shave.
Regardless of the reasons, many of us, myself included, find ourselves with too much gear. We run out of storage space. We spend too much time deciding what we are going to shave with today because we have too many choices. Soaps that we really love may sit unused for months because we have so many others to get to.
More Stuff Does Not Always Equal More Enjoyment
There is a concept from economics called the law of diminishing returns or the law of diminishing marginal returns. The idea is that, in general, the more input of a certain good thing results in increased good output, but only up to a certain point. To extend that to hobbies, owning more of the things related to our hobby increases our enjoyment, but only up to a certain point. There is a point at which the joy we get from getting new items results in marginally less enjoyment than we got from the previous item. Furthermore, it can reach a point to where our joy starts to decline. I tried to illustrate this concept in the image below.
Law of Diminishing (Marginal) Returns applied to hobby purchases
Clearing Out the Clutter
I am trying to clean out the clutter from my shave den. When you hear the word “clutter,” you may think junk. However, most of what I am calling clutter in my shave den is not junk. It is good gear. It is just not the gear I enjoy using the most. Here are my current shave decluttering questions that I have adapted from other decluttering sources, plus a few of my own. These questions help me decide what to keep, what to sell, and what to give away.
Shave Den Decluttering Questions
I have talked about this recently on some of the Discord servers I belong to. One issue that was raised is that it is difficult to get rid of things we spent money on because we have to usually sell it for less than what we paid for it. Not getting all the money back does sting. However, that money you spent is sunk cost, meaning you can’t fully get it back, and it is best not to allow it to drive your future decisions. Plus, not only do you get some money, you also get freed-up storage space, freed-up head space, and the ability to use the items you truly love more frequently. And if you PIF (pay it forward) it, meaning gift it to someone, instead of selling it, you also get joy from that.
What about you?
Has your shave den grown too large? Or is there no such thing? How do you make decision regarding thinning out your shave den? Are there other questions you would add to the decluttering questions I propose above. Let me know in the comments.
