Thursday, February 21, 2013

Your Third Option For Shaving

For nearly all my life I assumed you had two choices when it came to shaving: a disposable razor, or an electric shaver. Sure, there were lots of razor options - from cheap CVS brand to battery operated, multi-bladed monstrosities, but they were all more or less the same. Many years ago I had a cheap electric razor, and quickly decided that an old school blade was better.

Sure, some time ago I heard rumblings of a third shaving option, but that involved far more than a new razor. To do shaving right, I was told, involved brushes and mugs and soap and aftershave and, most importantly, time. So while it was novel to consider, I never did anything about it.

A few weeks back I started an experiment. I splurged and purchased a $6.00 shaver and a few dollars worth of double sided safety blades at Rite Aid. After installing the blade in the shaver I realized what I was holding in my hand: it was exactly the same thing as the disposable / cartridge razors I'd been using for years, at a fraction of the price.

This last weekend I finally put the setup a to the real test. I shaved one side of my face with the new setup, and the other side with a multi bladed contraption. I asked Shira to guess which side was which. She got the answer right: she guessed the slightly smoother side, with a tiny cut was the new razor, and the side where I missed a spot was the multi blade one. Bottom line, the combination setup worked just as well, if not better, than what I had been using.

The economics are almost staggering. The same shaver I bought a few days ago, is now on sale for $3.45 (with free shipping!) and you can get 100 blades for $8.63. Figure you use a new blade a week, that's almost two *years* worth of razors for half the price of a 12 pack of fancy disposable razors.

I'm not saying that you're going to like the replaceable blade system more than your fancy 3 blade Gillette system. But you're a fool for not at least trying, right? And if you want to get fancy supplies, go ahead, but as I've learned they're hardly required.

Gillette and friends are truly marketing geniuses for convincing the likes of myself that a cartridge razor is my only option for shaving with a blade. Seriously, how did they pull that off?

1 comment:

  1. Welcome to old school shaving! :) If you need some additional help learning this way of shaving I have some videos that might help: http://www.youtube.com/user/mantic59 (not sponsored!)

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