Tag Archives: Thoughts while shaving

Shaving on the Go

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While a well selected, well packed travel shave kit will – normally – allow you to shave on the Go… you still need a suitable place to do the actual shave. A tad of water, decent light and not being stressed out is all I ask for… honestly.

I have pondered solutions to this issue…

  • An electric sounds like an option, until you realise you won’t always have the option to plug it in or recharge.
  • Dry shave! Did that once or twice, back when I was still using carts. Results in many, many bumps, nicks and swears.
  • Hammer the stubble in and bite them off on the inside – or maybe not, come to think about it.
  • Let it grow… as much as it galls me.

Shaving on the Go helps normalise the situation a bit for me… but it seems like there will be times I can’t do that.

Yes, I’m a little annoyed.

Mugs, bowls and scuttles

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Mark – also known as mantic59 – has written an interesting article on the history of shaving mugs and scuttles.

For instance; did you know that back in the day people though that shaving rash came from using sharing the same soap, so people could buy their own personalised shaving mug for use in the barbershop?

A good read, all told – more so since I’m playing with the idea of buying a scuttle.

Military shaving – or not

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In my defence, I was looking for a good photo of a military issue DE-razor… but I must have picked the wrong combination of search terms.

Impressive and war-like though they might be, I think I’ll stick to my goatee and moustache…

Thoughs on the Gillette FlexBall

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Unsurprisingly, the multinationals are once again promising us a smoother, closer, better shave… meet the Gillette FlexBall, coming soon to a store near you:

  • Handle allows blade to pivot – why is this a good thing? I want my razor to go where I tell it to, not crosswise and slicing me open. It’s a gimmick, although one that looks like an interesting piece of engineering; a small universal joint.
  • 20% fewer missed hairs – I though that is why you had 5 freaking blades to begin with? Funny how I use a single blade, two passes and have zero to none missed hairs…
  • Cuts hair shorter – which in the case of me and other traditional wetshavers means scraping off the top layer of skin. Also; 23 microns – that is one 50th of a mm, or just shy of a 1000th of an inch. Clearly a major step forward there…
  • Increased skin contact – which is another way to say the previous design was sub-optimal. Also keep in mind that more contact isn’t automatically a good thing – it could simply mean 23% more razor burn…
  • Compatible with earlier cartridges – I’ll give them that one; it’s actually a good idea and will make the buy-in easier for the consumers.
  •  Battery-powered? I’ll take that to mean this one vibrates as well then – because sharp blades on a wobbly stick needs to vibrate with at least 120Hz to shave your mug, I guess…

Want to impress me Gillette? Release a line of DE razors again – fixed, adjustable, three-piece, TTO, anything. Match that up with decent quality soaps and creams – the kind that needs a brush. THEN I’ll be mightily impressed.

How about a bronze age razor?

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Or, more correct, a reproduction of one?

Ravn Forhistorisk Støbeteknikk (Raven Prehistoric Casting Technique) offers many neat reproductions for sale, and this bronze age razor (13-1200 BCE) caught my eye. One can be yours for just 44€ – cheap all things considering. If I was into straights, I would be ordering one right now – but even if I’m not I can show of a shiny piece of workmanship.

More band razors

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Continuing on from Tuesday…

From what I can tell, the head of the TechMatic was replaced with every cartridge – which means that the shave could change from cartridge to cartridge. We all know that the quality control on disposable cartridges isn’t always top notch and it would only take a couple of misaligned cartridges for the razor to gain a reputation as a face-shredder. Since cartridges are no longer made for them, there is basically no way to know today if the reputation as a horrible razor is deserved or not.

Looking at an open cartridge, it’s obvious to me that keeping tension on the band will be a major challenge – and one more place where quality control can fail.

Also, I have learned that there were many band razors out there in addition to the Gillette TechMatic;

The Wanie Rollband was razorblades on a roll for use in your regular razor.

The Razor Six had positive control of the blade and tension via a toothed wheel, but required the user to snap off the used portion of the band.

The Reel Watch Razor had a take-up spool like the TechMatic

The Warder-Hudnut Reelshav looked like a audio cassette.

And the Schick Auto-Band which was Schick’s counter to the TechMatic, and even looks much the same.

People been spending a lot of energy making the basic idea work over the years…

Wind up razors?

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Does this old patent from 1910:
 
relate to this razor from the mid 1960’s:
?
For what it is worth, a lot of people online claims that the Gillette TechMatic was the “worst razor ever” – the head assembly failed to hold the thin strip of steel flat, resulting in cuts, weepers, and scraped skin.

Shaving cream and April Fools

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There is one added benefit for using proper shaving creams, as opposed to the canned goo; so called friends can never freeze your creams, use a hacksaw to open the can, and dump the resulting mess in your car where the resulting mess will thaw, expand and fill every nook and cranny…

Another look at the cost of shaving

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Continuing from Tuesday; I’m still poking at the internet to figure out just how much cheaper traditional wetshaving can be, compared to cartridges, and I’ve found another article that takes shaving cream into account.

Caveat; it’s from a online retailer of shaving gear… so there will be a bias. The math is sound though, and his data on the longevity of carts is from the manufacturer.

Cost of shaving – a breakdown per shave

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Every now and then someone makes the claim that you can save a load of cash by switching to traditional wetshaving. Having a bit of downtime, I decided to hunt the internet for data points, and came across – among a lot of other, semi-related articles – one article that at least seemed to have done the math.

His breakdown?

  • Going electric costs you 0.08 to 0.16 USD per shave – with a high up front cost.
  • Using cheap disposables bought in bulk costs 0.08 to 0.11 USD per shave – or about the same as a gifted electric.
  • Carts sets you back around 0.39  USD per shave – it adds up, even if you eeek the last bit of life from the blade.
  • If you invest in a razor sharpener, both disposables and carts runs to about 0.02 USD per shave – much more reasonable.
  • Traditional DE they claim run in at 0.05 USD per shave – although that is at just two shaves per blade.
  • Traditional DE with a razor sharperner ticks in at ~0.03 USD – or about the same as disposable and carts when sharpened.

Keep in mind that the breakdown don’t include pre-shave soap, shave soap, brushes or aftershaves… in fact, I suspect that if the author had invested in a decent shave soap, he would get a lot more than two shaves out of each blade without nicking… or he could be using a less then good brand of blades.