A cheaper shave.

Regular gimmick three, five, eight bladed razors pull then cut. The replacement blades are wicked expensive and don't last for shit. Get yourself a safety razor and you'll never go back. The blades are so damn cheap, I bought 200 of them on eBay for about 20 bucks. Best part is, the shave is much closer, you'll have less cuts once you learn how to use it and it doesn't pull like the Gillette Super Quattro 40,000's.

Hell, ever since I started using a safety razor I don't even use shaving lotion or soap (just nasty chemicals anyways you don't want that absorbed into your skin). I just use water and my blade, less cuts, closer shave and for me at least the blades last forever. My expenses for shaving have gone down to about 10 dollars a year! I love safety razors and I guarantee you will kick yourself for not ever trying one.

I think my next adventure in shaving is to progress to a straight razor. Still don't know how much I trust myself with that, but I know just like the safety razor it is a learning process. Before I learned how to sharpen blades this probably wouldn't be an option, now that I know how to make edges hair popping sharp... I may have to try it out. I guess I could always just use my FFG Delica to shave with hah... I'll reserve that for when I'm camping and forget my safety.

Do yourself a favor and go on eBay, buy a safety razor and 100 blades. It will probably cost you about 20 bucks. Try it out for a month and come back in here and tell me how much you love me for saving you a ton of money.
 
Old style wetshaving is the way to go. I bought a lot of stuff when I began, but got nothing for the last year. Bought in bulk, DE blades are really cheap, and a straight razor, well, you never buy blades.
 
cybrok said:
Old style wetshaving is the way to go. I bought a lot of stuff when I began, but got nothing for the last year. Bought in bulk, DE blades are really cheap, and a straight razor, well, you never buy blades.
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It really is nice, when I used to use the Gillettes I was probably paying 10 bucks a week for razors... that is crazy. At that point I would've been better off just using my Delica. I really enjoy the old wetshave now, with the Gillette I would use shaving cream and it still felt rough. Amazing the difference a single razor sharp blade makes.

Have you tried using a straight razor before? One year on my birthday my GF bought me a hair cut and a shave at an old time barber shop. That was my only experience with a straight razor. The safety razor seemed to get a bit closer, but the barbers blade may have not been as sharp. I would think the safety razors would ultimately be sharper and get closer just because they are thinner... who knows.
 
I have to shave every day and i use the shick quatro. Ive found that the replacements are a little bit cheaper that gillette and the blades last longer, but like mentioned before, you have to keep them clean. I also sometimes switch between my shick and an electric razor.
 
I used a Shick Quatro disposable and got a really great shave for about 2 weeks. It was much smoother and easier then the cheap persona disposable I had been using.
 
Double edge razor all the way. The cartridges are far cheaper, last just as long if not longer and will ALWAYS cut cleaner than any cartridge.

This is blade forums. We above everyone else should understand that a single wicked sharp blade is going to cut better than 3, 4 or 5 kinda sharp ones.
 
SMI said:
I would think the safety razors would ultimately be sharper and get closer just because they are thinner... who knows.
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You got it.

Razor blades, as scalpels, are crappy steels, recycled most of the time. But they are so thin they get sharp as hell.

It's a little like SAKs, not the best steel, but the blades are so thin.
 
I am at an age when the DE razor was the most common razor when starting out shaving. I can remember buying blue steel blades when I was broke and springing for the platinum blades when they were on sale and I had the funds. I switched over to disposable razors when they made their appearance in the 70's. The first Bics were horrible, the Good News by Gillette were better, the Micro Trac by Gillette were great, switched over to the Schick Slim Trim razors as they were as good as the Micros for less money. I have tried a lot of items that have come and gone over the last 4 decades, wasted money on 4 different electric shavers. Anyone else use the continuous band razor marketed by Gillette? You had to move the blade to a new edge by cranking on a small lever. Very hard to rinse out the wiskers in the corners of the razor.
As a side note, anyone remember the 70's SNL skit poking fun at the multiblade razors when they came out? They accurately pictured what was to become the three bladed razor.
 
If you have ever got a paper cut, then you know that something does not have to be a "super steel" to be sharp. But, the paper edge will not cut hard material and will not last long. Razor blades cut hairs, almost one-at-time. And we only expect a hand-full of shaves from a edge. So, they don't need to be 154CM. The good ones are wickedly sharp, but have poor edge retention. That's fine for the intended use.
 
timsclips said:
Anyone else use the continuous band razor marketed by Gillette? You had to move the blade to a new edge by cranking on a small lever. Very hard to rinse out the wiskers in the corners of the razor.
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Yep, I used that blade for a while. Interesting concept. I think my first blade was the (single edge) Shick Injector.

First house I lived in (built in '57) had a slot in the back of the medicine cabinet for you to discard your used blades into. I guess there must be a lot of houses out there with thousands of old double and single blades inside the walls.

Now, I'm trying to decide if I want to go back to a DE set-up. Merkur HD seems pretty universally well-liked. I hate the high cost of multi-blade cartridges, but I'm not willing to give up the smooth, close shave they generally provide.
 
Shavemyface mod here. I use DE razors with Feather blades. I can go a week with one blade and then I switch it to my Slant bar razor for blade buffing. Feathers are about a quarter a blade if in bulk, so what, $1.00 a month for blades? That and a badger brush is what it is all about. Shaves closer than any three bladed razor I used, and of those, I liked Schick.
 
I've been using a Merkur Futur with Merkur blades for years. I wonder if I should try the Feather blades. I've read they're the sharpest but I'd rather not severe an artery.
 
I usually buy my blades off of eBay for my safety razor, but haven't needed to buy them for a few years now. I usually get 200 for about $15 bucks. I don't think I've bought them for around two years now and still have 3/4 of the first 200 I bought... it is crazy.
 
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The Feathers are sharp, really sharp. Just respect the blade and the blade will respect you.

-Tye
 
Grouch said:
I've been using a Merkur Futur with Merkur blades for years. I wonder if I should try the Feather blades. I've read they're the sharpest but I'd rather not severe an artery.
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If you been DE shaving for years it wont be a problem. I have a futur as well and was able to dial it in even better after switching to the feathers (which I did after only 3 months of using a DE). For me, the sharper blades actually made me less cut prone because they require the futur to be dialed up as high.
 
www.westcoastshaving.com is where I get my blades.

I switched to DE about 18 months ago after I went to the store to pick up a few things -- a dozen eggs, a loaf of bread, and... what else was I supposed to get?... oh yeah, a pack of razor blade cartridges (Gillette Sensor which I has used for over 25 years) -- and handed the checker a twenty expecting change back. She stood there with her hand out and said, "That will be $28.98"

"What!?!" I exclaimed looking at the three items.

"Well," she replied gesturing to the screen, "The blades alone are $24.99"

"Oh," I said, fishing through my wallet for another $10, "I guess so."

On the way out, carrying my precious cargo, I thought about how I had just paid $25 for five razor blade cartridges, $5 each! But, if this package was typical, one cartridge would be defective and not even yield a single shave. The others would each produce about six shaves. $25 for 24 shaves! I was paying over a buck a day just to shave!

I had in mind to switch to a straight razor. But, as I researched that, I discovered the DE option.

Is it "old fashioned?"

Is it "classic" or "retro?"

NO! Grandpa never had blades which are polymer and ceramic coated and tungsten, platinum, and chrome plated and made in an ISO-1000-certified factory. To call modern DE shaving "old-fashioned" or "classic" or "retro" is like calling the latest, greatest, fastest PC "old-fashioned" because the basic shape of the plug which it uses to plug into the wall dates back to turn of te century... the previous turn of the century. All that is "old-fashioned" about modern DE shaving is the shape of the blade.

My favorite BIC chrome-platiinum blades sell at Westcoastshaving for one hundered blades for $20. I get an average of six perfect shaves from each.... about three cents per shave.

I save about a dollar a day, and that is real savings... money I am not spending. A dollar a day adds up --and up and up and up -- over a year. A dollar a day will end up at the end of the year buying you a nice knife -- or maybe three nights stay in a nice hotel in Atlanta for Bladeshow.

And what shaves they are! Today, my worst shave is an order of magnitude better than the best shave I ever got with a Sensor cartridge.

I urge every guy to look into DE shaving. It's not hard. This is how practically every man... from ditch diggers to Nobel Prize winners... got himself shaved for generations. If they all could do it, then so can you.
 
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Gollnick said:
www.westcoastshaving.com is where I get my blades.



My favorite BIC chrome-platiinum blades sell at Westcoastshaving for one hundered blades for $20. I get an average of six perfect shaves from each.... about three cents per shave.

I urge every guy to look into DE shaving. It's not hard. This is how practically every man... from ditch diggers to Nobel Prize winners... got himself shaved for generations. If they all could do it, then so can you.
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How does a double edge razor compare to a straight razor? Simpler? Also how much of an adjustment is this over using something like the MachIII?

I followed your post about six months ago about how much money you're spending a day on shaving and I honestly probably think of that particular post at least twice a week. I have to be clean-shaven for work every day and it's really a financial investment to continue using the MIII razors. Each time I kick myself for continuing to purchase them because it's something that I'm just throwing away.

I've been thinking of switching for a while now but I'm afraid that I'll end up butchering my face so it's prevented me from going down this route. But at $25 for five razors it doesn't seem financially sound for me to be going down this road anymore. I'm really interested in what you have to say on this subject, you're math on it last time was really impressive in cents/day savings.

Thanks.
 
"The switch" is not hard at all. My first DE shave was bloodless and was as good as anything i ever got from a Gillette cartridge. There is a guy, Mantic, who has a whole pile a great videos on YouTube. Allocate an hour or so to that and you'll get spun up-to-speed fast. In a year and one-half of this, I have nicked myself a few times, but not very often and nothing serious or anything which caused people to call my scar-face. As I said, this is how every guy used to shave. If they could all do it successfully, then, with just a bit of effort, so can you. It's not called a "safety razor" for no reason.
 
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