Shaving with an old-style safety razor

Reverend Conehead

Well-Known Member
Messages
9,938
Reaction score
11,822
I'm set up to be able to shave either with the modern 5-blade premium razor from Dollar Shave Club or with an old-fashioned safety razor that you could have bought in 1940 if you needed to. Even though the DSC one has all the modern features like a lube strip and those five blades, I keep going to the old safety razor. I actually prefer it. I can get my shave done faster with it, and it's easier to clean out. I don't notice a difference in closeness.

The advantage of the modern razor is you can shave in any direction you want to without it irritating your skin. With the old-style razor, you need to be careful never to shave against the grain, meaning against the growth of the hairs. But I use old-style shaving technique, and never have a problem. And the big advantage is it's CHEAP. You can find those plain double-edged razors most places that sell modern razors. I just got a pack of five blades for $3. I'll get about 4 shaves per side, so that's 8 shaves per blade. So that's 40 shaves for 3 bucks, not including shaving gel, but the shaving gel cost would be the same as with the modern razor. I use modern shaving gel rather than the old-fashioned shaving cream that you lathered up with a brush in a bowl.

I got my safety razor from a TV offer by that Pawn Stars guy, but they're around everywhere. I noticed they had one at the store where I bought my razors just now. In the feedback online about this razor, a bunch of people slammed it, saying that it gave them razor burn and they cut themselves, but that's due to poor shaving technique. They're shaving against the grain and/or pressing too hard. With an old safety razor, there's no pivoting head, so you need to adjust it to the contours of your face.

I'm willing to shave with old-school technique to keep my costs way down. I understand that some people may not be. If you'd rather shave in whatever direction you happen to feel like and just go for it, then maybe the safety razor isn't for you.

Here's my safety razor. It's about 12 years old now, and is holding up really well. Even if it pooped out, replacing it would not be that much money. I think the one at the store was something like 25 bucks.

oldstylerazor.jpg


It's aged, and its holder has a little rust, but it's still fully functional.

And here's my DSC one.

Dollar-Shave-Premium.jpg


I can say the DSC one is really nice. It gives a comfortable shave, but those 5-blade cartridges don't give as many shaves as a plain old-style razor. It definitely costs more to use.

My other choice was my Philips Norelco electric razor, but it saw such little use that its battery has gone totally dead on me. You can see it in my other post about using a soldering iron. The electric gave me a pretty nice shave, though definitely not as close as either of these wet razors.

Edit. I'll include the electric razor picture in case you don't see the other thread.

Norelcoelectric.png
 
Top