The real shaving DE community seem to agree with this. They end up with a variety of razors, a variety of blades, a variety of soaps and creams and a variety brushes. Then they use them in rotation, or as and when they feel like it, just acting on a whim. Let’s face it, shaving has the potential to be a pretty boring ritual. Having this variety of choice of quality options massively enriches the experience. And if we can bring nerdiness and technology to it then it has to be a lot better.

For instance in this hot weather some like to use the Proraso cream from Italy with it’s high menthol and eucalyptus content. After shaving with this you can feel your face glow.

This is a whole world away from the almond smell and completely different lathering characteristics of Cella Crema Da Sapone soap. Amazing stuff, so lush.

Then you could switch to a traditional Palmolive shaving soap stick (the European version) for that traditional barber’s smell. It is a genuine high quality product that only costs less than 50p and it will give you more shaves than several aerosol cans of foam or gel. The tallow base it uses makes an exceptional shaving soap. This is not sold in America so keen real shavers there buy this over the internet or carry it back in their luggage.

For blades you could switch from the all round excellence of a Derby (from Turkey) to the super smoothness of an Iridium (from Russia) to the mega sharpness of a Feather (from Japan). Or for economy with quality there are Vidyut Super Max blades (from India) for a little over 2p each.

For razors you could switch from the very highly rated British Edwin Jagger DE89L to the aggression of a German Merkur slant bar to the history of using a 70 year old Gillette Tech from America, to the precision of one of the Feather razors from Japan.

With brushes, badger is the best for creams, but lots of people are now using boar brushes, especially with soaps because they lather up better. They are cheaper and take a while to break in and become soft. The Italian Omega brand, available from Amazon, have a fantastic reputation and some lovely coloured handles! They vie with the Portuguese Semogue brushes for who makes the best at each price point.

You can take a risk and buy cheap badger brushes from China, after all that is where most of the world’s badger hair comes from. When you get lucky the value can be startling.

The choice is truly infinite. Just count the four elements of the shave: razor, blade, soap/cream and brush that you have in your collection. Then do the maths, multiply them together to get all the possible permutations. I know that if I do this I could go for several years without having the same shave twice!

All this is possible because of the wonders of the internet. You can shop the world.