Some razors do, to be polite about it, age less well than others. But when it’s a razor that cost me slightly less than 3 US dollars to begin with, a five year service life really isn’t bad at all… it’s all of 60 cents a year.
When new, the Yuma was shiny, full of promises and very, very cheap.
I must say the Yuma – a cheaply made razor with a hollow handle and paper-thin head all made from “who knows what fell into the pot” zinc alloy – has given remarkable good shaves, wear, tear and oxidation have eaten away the molecule thick “chrome” coating. This means that while the razor is technically usable, it simply don’t glide across my manly cheeks with any degree of ease any longer… the whole surface is covered in zinc oxide which is used as an industrial abrasive, in effect the opposite of what you’ll want for smooth shaves.
I guess I could ship my Yuma out to be replated by the professionals, possible in something more fancy than plain chrome… but it’s not worth doing that with something that is so cheap and cheerful. So I guess it’s time to put it back in it’s presentation box, put it on the shelf and look for a replacement in my rotation.
Update: Over on my favorite shaving forum a fellow gentleman pointed out that the Yuma might be made from aluminium alloy, rather than the zinc alloy I have been assuming for years. If it is aluminium it’s some of the least quality alloy of it I’ve seen… but that would mean that I could – in theory – repolish the head and get back the original shiny finish. I might give that a go at some point, just for fun.
This advertisement would not fly today… I’m amazed it even flew back then. Just take it off baby, take it all of…
Equally interesting to the medicated shave cream is the injector razor… anyone up for IDing it?
A few years ago Brian Krampert – the man who makes one of my favourite aftershaves – posted an in depth history of the Valet Autostrop; a razor I consider to have one of the more steam-punky looks of them all.
If you haven’t read it already, I strongly recommend going and doing it now – it’s a very interesting read.
Found these while I was looking for pictures for Tuesday’s post:
Twinjectors is something I’ve never heard about… but they must clearly have been a thing, and as far as I can tell they came out at about the same time as first twin blade cartridges – but they don’t seem to have been on the market for very long. Even my favorite shvaing forum – the Shave Nook – only have a single post even mentioning the Twinjector; a want-to-buy post from 2013.
A few more pictures I found while digging for more information:
The Schick Injector Twin:
I suspect the various twin blade injectors were plagued by the same fault as most multiblade carts; clogging between the blades…
All in all an interesting little oddity that I’m happy I stumbled across in my meandering trek across the internet.
shave
SHāv/
verb
1.
cut the hair off one’s face with a razor.
“he washed, shaved, and had breakfast”
synonyms: cut off, snip off;
2.
cut (a thin slice or slices) from the surface of something.
“scrape a large, sharp knife across the surface, shaving off rolls of very fine chocolate”
synonyms: plane, pare, whittle, scrape
“shave off excess wood”
3.
pass or send something close to (something else), missing it narrowly.
“Scott shaved the post in the 29th minute”
synonyms: graze, brush, touch, glance off, kiss
“the shot just shaved my arm”
noun
noun: shave; plural noun: shaves
1.
an act of shaving hair from the face or a part of the body.
“he always needed a shave”
