DE razor works better for those who know how to use it. In my opinion of course.lolSo here are the results of my experiment with my shaving ritual in the morning before work:
I shaved one morning with my Edwin Jagger DE. I used pre-shave oil underneath VDH shave soap with a Vulfix badger hair brush. I did one pass with the DE. It was close in some spots, but pretty rough in others, and left it at that. While it was an acceptable shave for most of the day, and there was little or no irritation, by the time I got home from work it was thick enough that I could have shaved again.
The next day I did the exact same pre-shave prep but used my Gillette Pro-Glide Fusion cart (I know, hated on B&B...). I did one pass and got an extremely close shave with almost no irritation that lasted all day and most of the night.
I could have got the exact same close shave with the DE but it would have required multiple passes and double, if not triple the amount of time. I do have a heavy dark beard and I wonder if DEs work better for people with less thick or lighter hairs? So for me it's not a closeness issue, it's a time issue. And I'm a busy man, lol.
Anyone feel that they get a better shave with a cart?
- Thread starter cobainngc
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DE razor works better for those who know how to use it. In my opinion of course.lol
Question for those who can use one cart for a month or so (30 shaves with the same cart before replacing it, I gather):
What are you using most, canned foam, gel, jelly, soap/cream and brush?
I will start 2015 with January dedicated to carts and plan on using them in an effort to replicate the incredible number of shaves some of you get from a cart.
What are you using most, canned foam, gel, jelly, soap/cream and brush?
I will start 2015 with January dedicated to carts and plan on using them in an effort to replicate the incredible number of shaves some of you get from a cart.
i got 20 shaves from an Axe razor and cart with nothing more than Barbasol.
I have a real beard because I am a man and cannot get the same shave as a madame such as yourself with one pass on a DE
Which was the whole point of my experiment. I can get a good shave with my DE, however my point is, it was too time consuming for those of us with real beards and real jobs who need to shave in the morning. Tootles.I get a month of smooth shaves with a Fusion Proglide. I simple wet my face. Let it stay wet for a minute or two. Put on some Gillette Foamy and shave one pass. That's it. No magic, no fuss, and real fast.
So how many shaves would that be?
What a condescending first statement, in my opinion of course. I can shave with a DE or SE and get a good shave, but there's one cart, the Schick Hydro, that I think is better. It's not a contest to see who's right, and has nothing to do with technique, just personal preference.
To answer the second, I use either proraso cream, a soap puck, or canned gel. They all work, but I prefer the proraso.
I would go with DE. My skin is better after the shave (all day), no in-grown hair, and just a blemish free feeling. I used carts for 18 years, and always did WTG x 1. I feel more relaxed and comfortable, post shave, now.
I have the same experience as the above. Carts are faster, and I rarely got any irritation from my Schick Quattro, and the shaves were fairly smooth. But I would get ingrowns on my neck area on both sides, and occasionally I would get somewhat severe patches on the left side. No face washes, acne lotions, nothing would help. With the DE, the ingrown hair problem is almost entirely gone, and my face/skin is in much better condition. For those reasons, I don't think I can even go back to cart shaving.
30+. I also get 7+ shaves with my Muhle R106 with either a Feather, Gillette Silver Blue, Astra, or Personna Lab Blue blade. I guess I just have whiskers that cut like butter. I also have no irritation with either razor.
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I cannot speak to 30 shaves specifically, but two eight-packs of Schick Hydro cartridges lasted me over a year and a half of pretty close to every day shaving. (When you fly from the West Coast to Japan, and you arrive ten real hours after you left, but you are 28 hours ahead on the clock, did you shave that mornong? Damned if I know.) During that year and a half, when I was at home, I prepared this way: :
1. Wash face right at the beginning of the morning shower using Neutrogena Original Unscented soap, rinse, and
2. Apply a drop of Burt's Bees More Moisture with Baobab hair conditioner, rubbed on my beard, and left on while completing the shower, then rinsed at the end of the shower
3. Lather with Vulfix 2234S Super Badger brush with one (among various) inexpensive shave soaps or creams, among them Colonel Conk Amber and Provence Santé Green Tea, and Em's Shaving Cream Unscented.
4. Schick Hydro cartridge razor (either 3 or 5, no difference).
When traveling, I usually used Kiss My Face lather shave cream applied as if it were a brushless shave cream, or Aubrey Organics Men's Stock Northwoods brushless shave cream.
Since I purchased a Mühle 33K252 Silvertip Fibre (synthetic) brush earlier this year, my travel prep has become more like my home prep, because the Mühle is an easy travel companion.
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It does sound condescending indeed, even if ended in lol. Oh well, sensitive skins around.
The OP sounds inexperienced to me since an acceptable shave to him is one with little irritation... Hence the condescending statement. I do apologize to anyone offended.
Which Hydro, 3 or 5?
How many shaves can you get from one Hydro cart? I realize each of us have different pain threshold/tolerance levels and it is hard to have a reference when it comes to describing an "acceptable shave".
Good to know carts work equally well with soaps or creams not only canned foams or gels.
Lucky you.
In your situation I would use carts exclusively. I have never tried recent/modern carts, the one I stopped at is Sensor Excel. IIRC I could never get more than 10 shaves out of one and the last two or three were cruel.
There is no difference in quality of shave between a Hydro 3 and Hydro 5. The Hydro 5 has a "flip trimmer," if that is important to you; the Hydro 3 costs less and is better for shaving in tight spaces. You pays your money and you makes your choice.
I have seen no evidence -- none whatsoever -- that any Schick Hydro cartridge will give anyone a good shave with "canned foams or gels." In fact, I have seen no evidence that any razor will provide a Badger & Blade "good" shave with "canned foams and gels." My humble suggestion: let's observe the standards of ceteris paribus (you can look it up) and compare the two configurations of blades without tying either one's arm behind its back.
Nope. The DE is much better for me. Sometimes when I'm in a hurry I use a cartridge, but by lunchtime I'm wishing I had gotten up 5 minutes earlier and gotten the DE instead. But since whiskers vary, you might have a different experience.
And my ASB feels much better after a DE. It feels kinda like putting on sunscreen after a cart shave.
And my ASB feels much better after a DE. It feels kinda like putting on sunscreen after a cart shave.
Actually I was the one you responded to. And I am not the OP. Perhaps you misread my comments. Never did I say an acceptable shave was the one with the littlest irritation. It was a time issue. I did one pass one day with a DE and one pass the next day with a Fusion cart in the same amount of time and compared the closeness and quality of the shave. The difference in irritation was minimal. I know how to get a close shave with DE. And a closer shave with a DE takes more time no matter what, as I have learned.It does sound condescending indeed, even if ended in lol. Oh well, sensitive skins around.
The OP sounds inexperienced to me since an acceptable shave to him is one with little irritation... Hence the condescending statement. I do apologize to anyone offended.
From what I can tell carts deliver a perfectly good shave for most average men (face it our merry band isn't average), but they only deliver a good shave quickly if you use a top of the line cartridge (Fusion, etc). However, what I've found out in the last couple of days is that an older cart like the Atra or Trac II can deliver a smoother shave than a DE when used like a DE. Twin blade cartridges also don't seem to suffer from the "sandpaper effect" that the modern 3 blades+ razors do; to me there isn't a big difference in irritation between one blade and two.
You don't get as big of time benefit with the older carts though, maybe just a couple of minutes saved.
You don't get as big of time benefit with the older carts though, maybe just a couple of minutes saved.
The Sensor was very modern already. In fact, I think that the "downfall" started there. It has everything that modern carts have as well, from flimsy blades, springs, to silly strips.
I never used a Sensor though, since they did not fit the Trac and Atra handles.
Besides, I did not want to use anything with a slime strip. And who needs spring mounted blades!?
The Sensor was one of the first cartridge razors that I tried and bearing in mind that I was around seventeen, it just didn't shave closely enough. The Wilkinson Sword Protector was even worse. I got much better results from the GII (Trac-II).
The thing that started to make me question buying cartridges was going to the supermarket one day and finding out that they were secured with anti-theft devices. There was an article some time ago that said that Gillette's profit on their Fusion cartridges is 4,750 percent - a huge markup.
Cartridges are a racket as far as I am concerned and even if I found one that gave excellent shaves, I wouldn't use them on principle.
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