I got my new razor in today. It’s a Parker safety razor using double sided razor blades. I had decided to go this route because of my dissatisfaction with the currently available multi bladed contraptions. Not only do they cost a fortune, they don’t shave all that well.
I talked about my initial thoughts and the use of a real shaving soap here. Today it was go day on the razor. It’s a little humbling to relearn something that you’ve been doing forever. It turns out that there are some significant differences between using a safety razor and a modern cartridge razor. First of all, the safety razor doesn’t pivot, so you have to manually adjust the angle of the blade on your skin. Luckily, the blade provides, shall we say, instant feedback on how well you are doing. It gets kind of tricky along those curvy areas around the chin and on the neck. The other thing is that you shouldn’t press the blade into your skin like we all do with the new razors. Thank God I read that before I started!
How’d it turn out? Pretty damn well if I say so myself. I didn’t cut myself at all! Of course, that was probably the longest shave ever. The first time I learned to shave, I didn’t have nearly as much to shave… This blade clearly gives me a much closer shave than the Mach 3 I’ve left behind, and this was a 15 cent blade! I’ll speed up the more I use it, so far I’m very happy with the purchase. For about $35, I have gotten myself a razor and enough blade to last over a year…
One of the better links I’ve seen for shaving like this is here. You ladies can take advantage of this too of course. My face feels like a girl’s!