Straight razors aren’t especially harder to use than safety razors once you get the hang of them. But you do have to strop them regularly instead of just using a dirt-cheap blade a few times and tossing it in a sharps box for later recycling. And you need to sharpen them at least once a year. Old-school double-edged safety razors are the best of both worlds, cheap and also well-suited to lazy people (me).
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I’m not keen to take a straight razor to my face.
However, I once got straight-razor shave from a professional barber, and let me tell you, it was more than the best shave I ever got – it was a luxurious pampering experience, full of multiple courses of hot towels and foam, because hot towels and foam.
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I prefer to use a women’s handle and a men’s blade. The blades Gillette makes for women aren’t very good for anything unless you really, really enjoy bloody kneecaps. I used Mach 3 for years until my lady’s handle broke, which was after they started selling only the Venus. Next Costco trip could involve picking up a big pack of Mach 3 disposables, Gillette can fuck right off with the Venus, they’re shite.
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Can’t find it online, but in 1975 there was an SNL fake ad for a razor (the “Triple Trac”) that wackily had a third blade on it.
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Wat.
This blows my mind lol
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Dorco are made in Korea. The double blades (they go up to 7!) are a bit over $1/blade in quantity, but the company has sales all the time which can drop the price well below that. I have one, like the feel of the handle very much.
Also the many unused blades the kids stuck in there. And anything else small/ flat enough to fit.
In those simpler times a slot could keep a kid like me amused for hours. Days.
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I think it’s still, and has always been throughout human history, a common entertainment for young people to put things into various slots.
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Yes the “razors are over priced” thing does start with the safety razor and double edged blades. Keep the handle cheap as a loss leader to drum up business for the blades. The current cheap and friendly situation with the blades is down to them being old news, with only moderate demand. And the current cartridge razor pricing schemes are just an extension of that old model. A bit more extreme these days though, lots more forced obsolescence.
I don’t shave, it does horrible things to my sensitive face. I clip things down to stubble with a small set of whal clippers. When I did shave I found straight razor shaves at the barber were the only approach that didn’t hurt. I recently loss track of my razor, I may pick up a safety razor for those situation where I need to shave. I haven’t previously tried one.
I’ve actually being seeing those in drug stores around town.
I’ve tried friends electric shavers in my search for something that won’t break my face. In my experience they irritate far more than the beard trimmer/clippers, and often only get things marginally closer. Less irritation than modern cartridge razors though, in good kit they seem less prone to pulling as/more than they cut. I’d put it about on par with the old 2 blade razors with a fresh blade. Which were the only ones I ever found moderately comfortable to use. Ultimately since I tend to maintain a beard (though not atm), and have little interest or need to be completely clean shaven all the time it wasn’t a cost effective way to handle the occasional clean shave. But I did consider it. It was just cheaper to hand onto the cheap cartridge handle I kept in the main and steal a blade every 8 months or so from some one who wouldn’t notice.
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Razors? Pft. This is the only way to shave:
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King Gillette’s razor blades were among the first disposable products in the world. That disposability, in and of itself, was something of a betrayal of his socialist principles whether he realized it or not.
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I always thought it odd that Superman could turn it on and off, unlike Cyclops.
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As others have said, closeness. With an electric, you will always have a foil between your skin and the blade, and that’s just never going to be as close a shave as a naked blade against the skin.
Shaving cream actually causes a worse shave than with just water. It gives you a visual indicator of where the blade has already been, without regard to how good a job it did. So you’re less likely to go over that area again. If you just use water, you have to use the touch of your free hand to judge how well an area has been shaved, which is a vast improvement of just seeing where you’ve scraped off the shaving cream.
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Whale clippers?
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Some men just aren’t meant to exist without facial hair… like chuck norris.
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I use these Personna blades which occasionally turn up in groceries, but I get 10 packs from Amazon for what the store charges for 1. Amazon also had the razor handle – it was Gillette, but had some other name that they evidently used for the Trac II in India.
Amazon has some Trac II/Atra blades even cheaper than that, but they’re bulk-packed with no labeling and didn’t want to gamble on the quality control (or lack thereof).
I used to use double-edge safety razors, but when I went back to 'em I just kept carving up my face.
EDIT: The best razors I ever used were single-blade, disposable Wilkinson Swords, but I haven’t seen 'em in years.
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I’ve tried Harry’s, but not Dollar Shave Club. Harry’s was pretty good. The shave isn’t as close as a Mach 3, but not bad. I have sensitive skin and shave at most 3 times per week. Always get really close though. With Harry’s I couldn’t shave quite as frequently.
Worse, the razors kept breaking at the hinge. After like 3 or 4 uses, they would break. Once this happened while I was in the middle of shaving before a business meeting in Colombia. Had to finish with a broken razor. Went back to Gillette. Harry’s just released the new blades. I’ll probably give those a shot.
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I actually nick myself less with a single-blade safety razor than I did with a 3+ blade model. Perhaps I just learned to be be more careful, but I don’t recall ever really changing my technique – I actually seem a bit more cavalier with the single blade.
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We had a metal cabinet like that when I started shaving (with a Gillette double edge). I like to think that the subsequent owners have not renovated, and the blades I discarded are still in the wall, so there will be a source of my DNA in case there is a demand for clones of me in the future.
I do. I switched a few years ago for convenience - no soap, cream, water etc. The first two I had, both Philips, were no better than “good enough”, not as close as a blade, but the Philips I’m using now is a big step forward. On a good day it’s comparable to a blade. It’s not one of their expensive models either - about $60CDN.
I picked this one up at an estate sale. I think it’s late 19th century, made by the evocatively-named Wade & Butcher company. Unfortunately the horn handle is broken at the pivot. It’s a beast, really heavy in the hand. The blade is a full inch (25mm) wide and 1/4" (6mm) thick at the spine.
Am I going to shave with it? Nope.
“He never shaved the whiskers
From off of his hoary hide.
He’d just drive them in with a hammer,
And bite them off inside.”
- The Frozen Logger
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gXr31zLBxM
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