Razor blades - extortion or what?

[mike]

Are razor blades soon to be the new world currency?

£5.40 for FOUR! Gawd this is crazy. I don't know what's happening here but it seems every 5 mins there's new blade with even more edges on it promising an "even closer" shave.

For years I was quite happy with Gillette GII but it seems some bright callow youth somewhere needed 2000 edges - but the management beat him down to 3 or 4.

And the strange thing is the replacements for the "old-fashioned" GII (if you can find them), don't really fit properly and even if they do, seem to have blunt edges. Another scam (I think) is that the wobbled-headed razors *have* to have exactly the right head otherwise you can give yourself a good slicing before breakfast. (They judder effect is remarkable)! I recall that with the fixed head ones, if you could get the head on it - it would at least work.

GCSE question 1. If there are 200 types of razor in the shop and 5 million types of head, what is the chance of a grumpy old bloke getting a decent shave before a new design is announced? Explain your answer.

(And before anyone says it - No I don't want to grow beard!)

[Vortex]

During my 30 years or so shaving career I've used 1, 2, 3, 4 and most recently 5 bladed razors with upgrades normally being "forced" by equipment loss (typically razors left in hotel rooms).

Bought a 5 blade (actually there are 6!) Gillette Fusion last year on impulse and it is amazing. Being fundamentally tight I make the blades last as long as possible. Seem to go minimum 10 weeks between changes.

15 quid for an 8 pack though! Complete stitch up. At least they'll last me18 months.

Incidentally my father somehow has blagged his way onto Gillette's long term test team. Every few weeks he is sent new blades free, in return all he has to do is answer a simple questionnaire by email.

[Guy King]

The message from mike contains these words:

Bic sensitive disposables work well for me. I can get about five shaves from each one.

[The Medway Handyman]

A lad my daughter knows sells them on e-bay and makes a tidy sum from doing so. Apparently he has a mate in Germany, where they are much cheaper, who sends them over.

Worth looking online I suppose - unless you lnow any Germans?

[Frank Erskine]

The trouble is that they're French...

[fred]

A useful tip thanks, I suppose it's to do with the size of the market, wot with both men & women needing to shave in Germany.

[The Medway Handyman]

ROFL!

[Don Spumey]

It'll make them more economically viable if you hide them from the missus....they'll last three times longer! :-))

Don.

[Tony Williams]

About the same vfm as an M.E.S 15W lightbulb or (say) an online Norton Security Centre upgrade.

[John McLean]

Tesco's have their own dual blades. I always clean the blades with an old tooth brush after use, to get rid of the build up. Jaymack It's not what you know, it's knowing where to find it.

[Andy Dingley]

Here's a tip: Cheap single-bladed disposables.

If you didn't shave over the weekend, then the bristles are a bit longer and the 47-bladed ten-quid-a-shave TurboMax clogs solid and works badly. Shave first with the cheapest and cheeriest from the supermarket bargain bin. It works _better_. You can always give it a polish off with the hydra-headed beasty afterwards.

Oh, and "King of Shaves" shaving oil is everything they claim of it. You really do only need 3 drops. Amazing stuff.

[Broadback]

This reminded me that my Father used the (now old fashion) slotted blades that fitted into the razor. He kept a jam jar and when the blade became blunt he would wet the inside of the jar the place the blade inside then work it round and round to sharpen it for reuse. Can't do that with the modern ones! :-)

[Lobster]

Oh I just use SWMBO's toothbrush^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h Yes, using an old brush is a good idea.

Actually that's one reason I've found for the branded blades being better than the supermarket versions: the branded ones tend to have a gap at the back, so water can flow through the gap between the blades and wash out the bristles; however the cheapie ones are just moulded into the plastic heads, so you can't get water flowing through the gap and they clog.

Nobody's mentioned it, but there is a school of thought which says that the whole "shaves you close then closer still" concept, with that little cartoon of the blades cutting a bristle which we all remember, is just a load of total marketing bollocks, and that none of them work any better than a single blade. There was a thread (and link to somebody's 'research' website IIRC) on

a couple of years ago, but I can't find it now.

David

[The Natural Philosopher]

Can you still get these blades? frankly that sort of razor is what I started with, and they still turn up now and a again in car boot sales..and frankly, I'd go back like a shot if I could..

[Jim S]

BUT that really does clog the multi bladed type. For the 'day after' a no shave day, use 'soap/foam/creme' over the oil to keep the blades clean.

[Stuart B]

These do ?

[The Natural Philosopher]

[Dave H.]

I still have and use a couple of Rolls razors - single-blade safety razor in a case with a stone one one lid, a strop on the other and a clever rack/pinion/friction clutch so that one can waggle a handle and hone and strop the blade (which produces a noise like, well, a steel blade repeatedly whacking on a stone, only much, much louder!) - they turn up in junk^h^h^h^h "antique" shops now and then, and give a good shave for a single blade [x]. There are a couple or more variations, my favourite is the aluminium Viscount "travel" model, half the weight of the original nickel plated brass ones - they're still available[y] new, should anyone have the urge, through Caswell Massey Pharmacies, the Pharmacy at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York City!

Mine has gone for about 10 years on two blades, and if my girlfriend borrows it (unlikely, as it *looks* quite frightening), she can resharpen it in a few minutes...

Dave H. (The engineer formerly known as Homeless)

[x] The multi-blade razors do actually shave better than single - there's a phenomenon (do doo-bie doobie) known as "beard hysteresis" such that the first pass tugs the hair out of the follicle slightly and the hair takes about 50 - 100 milliseconds to return to rest, allowing a second ( to n-th) blade to remove slightly more of the hair. [y] On ebay they seem to only reach a few quid, less than a pack of blades... Check that they're complete and undamaged, broken hones and cut strops can render them useless.

[Mary Fisher]

...

Awww!

:-)

Mary

[Mary Fisher]

And you'd look awful! If you can't or won't grow a beard you MUST shave to look good.

Mary