Some people have a single razor. Some have a small handful. Me? I got eighteen in my regular rotation, one at work, two different ones in my GoBags, one for other travels, plus half a dozen or so in storage that I for one reason or other can’t or don’t want to let go.

And even so, I am not sure I got enough razors. So when is enough enough?

There are a couple of vintage razors I would love to get my hands on. A Schick Automatic, for starters, a Bessegg, as well as one or two 30’s Gillette one piece razors. An early Gillette New wouldn’t be amiss either. Not because any of the razors I own is unsatisfactory, but because I would like to have them.

In the same vein, and for the same reasons, there is one or two current razors I would enjoy owning as well – the adjustable Tatara Muramasa springs to mind, due to the unique way it adjusts.

And while I do have almost thirty razors and wishes to add to the collection / rotation, I only have seven brushes in my rotation. Plus a brush at work, two travel brushes, and a home made brush I trot out on occasion. And I have no desire to get any more. Perhaps I might replace one or two, but not add to the pile.

So why is it that I have enough brushes, but not enough razors? When is enough enough?

Part of it is, I think, simply because I find razors inherently more interesting. By changing such things as the thickness of the cap, the blade angle, the blade exposure, the centre of balance, and a myriad other variables… the entire feel of the shave changes.

As an example, consider the Gillette Old Types I own. One is from a 1918 Khaki Kit, the other is an early 20’s flea market find. The former has a thicker cap, the later a longer handle. They are both good shavers, but despite being similar, they are different enough to notice the differences. And different enough to appreciate the differences too.

A second example is my Schicks. While my E2 and G4 are very similar, there is enough difference in their level of aggressiveness that I cannot treat them the same and expect identical shaves.

And either of those are vastly different from my EverReady, either of my GEMs, the Phillips Phillite, my Tatara, my fifties Gillette‘s, my Evolution, and so on and so forth. There is just so much to grab my interest about various razors, without even getting into some of the weird ones that got patented over the years.

Brushes? Brushes, to me at least, simply don’t hold the same amount of interest. Some are softer and holds water better. Others have a pleasant scritch and don’t take as long to load. And some are just plain awful (I’m looking at you, cheap supermarket brush with a nylon knot). And that is more or less it. I worked out that I prefer boar and horse – and I’m going to leave it at that.

So when is enough enough? I think enough is enough when the curiosity and desire to own more have been sated. With brushes, I reached that spot some years ago – I was gifted a reasonable good badger, and found that it wasn’t as life changing as I had believed. But when it comes to razors, there is still more to discover, more to learn, more curiosity to sate. I may never reach the point where enough is enough as far as razors are concerned.

As a side note I don’t think any of the above applies to lathers, aftershaves, and other consumables. The correct number of these is n+1, where n is the number you currently own. Even so, I have gotten picky about the +1 that I buy these days, since I am a bit tight on space.