Thursday 3 March 2011

The Edge Of Reason

I have been complaining about the price of shaving supplies for a couple of decades now. Shaving cream, not so much, but the blades... OMG! It seems ridiculous to me (and has for a while) to pay nearly $20 CDN for a few razor blades. Blades that, as a rule, only last me a couple of shaves, despite their super-fine edged multi-bladed glory. As a consequence, I end up not shaving a lot of the time, because:

a: I'm a cheapskate
b: I admit it, I'm lazy
c: no time

So I figure; if I can knock out one of those excuses, I'll be shaving 33% more than before, right? (Please do not correct my aspirational math.)

A seed was planted by my friend Bob, who came out of the wet-shave closet on his blog, and the comments there by other friends. Another friend, Joel, recently was extolling the virtues of straight razors, and I was intrigued until I saw the price of stuff he was looking at. Collector's level Solingen blades not made since the 1940's, etc... Whoa... But he did show me some intriguing Canadian websites to buy high quality shaving supplies really cheap. In the process of looking over his shoulder and talking about it, I remembered I had a couple of old safety razors inherited from my grandfather and his brother, hidden away with my old collection of Zippo lighters. Hmmmmm... this merited some investigation.

This weekend, I found the Zippo collection, pulled out some sad looking grimy old razors, and had a close look at them. A little scraping and scrubbing with an old toothbrush revealed that they were merely coated in a film of old shaving cream and dust. Water didn't seem to touch it, but vinegar did great! A little bowl of vinegar and a toothbrush had all three of them looking pretty decent, but still dull, and one had rust stains from a blade that had been left in when my great-uncle died, and was only removed when I found it in some cache of stuff years later. I was mumbling aloud about fine steel wool when Betty suggested baking soda: eureka! 10 minutes later, they were shiny and clean and looking like the included picture. Awesome! Three vintage Gillette safety razors!


Being a techie nerd, I was attracted to the fancy one with the butterfly-opening top. My first experience with that one made me look like a murder victim from CSI... I left more of my face in the sink than on the front of my head. That wasn't gonna fly.

I had to wait 2 days to grow my skin back before I could try again, and then I picked the brass one. It handled very differently, was much lighter than the last, and way easier to use. I got away without requiring a blood transfusion! With a little practice, this could be the one I use on a regular basis.

I haven't yet tried the other chrome razor, but the blade-guard is the same smooth "bar" type as the heavy fancy razor, and I think that was part of what didn't work for me. It's a nice looking razor though, so I intend to try it for my next shave, and hope for the best. It doesn't seem as heavy as the fancy one, so maybe it'll work out.

I spent a scandalous 8$ on a can of Proraso shaving cream, and 6.50$ on overpriced Wilkinson Sword blades, but I'm set for a couple of months. Now if I decide to pursue the "wet-shave way", I have time to try some of the blade samplers out there, and get myself a decent brush.

Also: maybe it won't be 3 years before I post to this blog again. :) I'm considering starting to write regularly, but it's difficult for me to discipline myself into doing it.

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