Why the omission makes commercial sense#
A duller blade nicks you less. It also shaves worse, causes more irritation and razor bumps, and wears out faster.
Fewer cuts is what a first-time buyer notices. More replacements is what shows up on the balance sheet. Both point the same way, and neither has much to do with the shave.
The decade maths#
Upfront price is the wrong number. The handle is often free precisely because it isn’t the product. Shaving five times a week:
- Subscription cartridges — around $8 a month, roughly $1,000 a decade.
- The latest big-brand cartridge system — $17 to $18 a month, roughly $2,100 a decade.
- Electric — about $200 upfront plus a head each year, roughly $800 a decade. Fast, not as close.
- Straight razor — about $166 plus $40 a year for sharpening, roughly $566 a decade. The best result and the slowest.
- A double-edged safety razor — a $50 to $60 handle and blades costing pennies, under $200 a decade. Around eleven times cheaper than the big-brand cartridges, and it shaves better.
Blades for a DE razor run somewhere between three and thirty cents each. That’s the entire consumable cost.
If cartridges genuinely suit you, keep using them. Just don’t believe you’re saving anything.
What to use instead#
- A double-edged safety razor. Your grandfather’s method, and it survives because it works. A very sharp blade — Feather is the reference — in a slant Merkur head is an aggressive, excellent combination for thick hair.
- A modern single-blade system. Bevel or OneBlade. Thicker, sharper blades, less of a learning curve than a DE.
Lubrication is the other half#
A sharp blade needs something to glide on, or it finds your skin. Lubrication comes from fat, and more fat means better glide.
The useful rule: less water means more fat. Aerosol foams and clear gels are mostly air, water, and chemistry. Cream from a metal or plastic tube, or a hard shaving soap, carries far more fat than anything from a can.
There is no such thing as over-lubricating. If your face feels dry mid-shave, stop and put more on.
A brush builds a richer lather and lifts the hairs slightly off the skin. Boar bristle is cheap and harsh; badger is better; silvertip is the fine stuff, and good brushes can pass $200. If you’d rather not, a high-fat cream applied with your fingers gets you most of the way there.
Map your face once#
Hair grows in different directions on different parts of your face, and shaving straight down means you’re cutting with, across, and against the grain at random.
Spend ten minutes at a mirror working out which way each area actually grows. Sketch arrows on a diagram if that helps. You do this once and it pays out for the rest of your life.
Then use passes: with the grain first to take the bulk off, across second, against last for the closest cut. Against the grain alone is too much for anyone’s face. The quick version is with, then against.
Two more that matter#
Prepare. Hot water, a hot towel, or simply shave straight after a shower. Then a high-fat pre-shave oil as a barrier, then the cream. Two to ten extra minutes, and it’s the difference for anyone with irritation or sensitivity. Finish with a soothing post-shave.
Give it ten goes. The most common failure is switching, cutting yourself once because the angle was wrong, and going back. The angle takes practice. Judge it at shave ten, not shave one.
And keep the electric#
Not as a replacement — as a tool. Electric plus a good cream gets you a decent shave in three or four minutes, which is the best result-per-minute available. It also flies in hand luggage, which a DE blade does not.
A few small things to try:
- Work out what you spend on blades in a year. Multiply by ten.
- Buy a tube cream or a hard soap and bin the aerosol.
- Spend ten minutes mapping your growth direction.
- If you switch, commit to ten shaves before deciding.
