Extending the life of DE/SE blades.

[BigSpender]

"Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose."
- Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Back in the very early days of Gillette, people could not grasp the concept of throwing away razor blades. Many of you know the earlier story of safety razors with blades that could be re-sharpened and honed using various devices. So for awhile, Gillette allowed customers to send back their razor blades to re-sharpened and returned, for a charge.

Trying to figure out the cost of the blades in today's dollars is a bit tricky. But even with a 30x inflation factor from around 1910, they might have been $3 per blade, which is not cheap. But Gillette's marketing folks liked to point out how much it would cost you in time and money to go to the barber, not to mention the sanitary issues. (Hmmm, around 1918 that would have been a significant factor.)

So, if you got 10 shaves per blade, more or less as claimed, that would be 30 cents per shave, in today's money. Try getting a shave from a barber today for 30 cents (or even $3). (Nevertheless, there were some back then who still tried to sharpen those carbon steel blades, probably with more success than with our modern stainless blades.)

But that was in the earliest days. The cost seems to have come down for blades in the 1910s and 1920s. And America's disposable products culture was born.

Yes, it is interesting to see how long one can use a razor blade for, and understand the principles that cause degradation. I agree, there appears to be some sort of corrosion or other degradation that occurs between shaves. But this, I think, is primarily of interest to someone who only shaves once a week.

Unless there is a horrible disaster and worldwide manufacturing comes to a screeching halt, it is probably wiser to just throw out those used razor blades.

And if it does, I, for one, will be fresh shaved.*

-=-

* I have an ample supply of Sharp Swiss Titanium DE blades. As an experiment, I easily got 30 shaves from one blade; no special pampering, just shave every day and dry the blade. Others report getting twice that number. So, a carton of 100 blades could easily last 8 to 10 years. Yes, I think I am prepared.

I gave a neighbor one tuck, five blades, of the Sharp Titanium, two months ago. He is still using them.

 

[ERS4]

I don't know if keeping the blade in oil prolongs the life of a razor blade, but I do this because I don't like to keep the blade in the device after shaving and I know that oil prevents rust and prevents the formation of calcium deposits on the blade, phenomena that lead to damage premature blade. I don't use a blade hundreds of times as I see some of our colleagues doing with real success! Usually after 7-8 shaveings I replace the blade. Of course I have enough blades and I don't keep the blade in oil so I don't buy others.

After I shaved my head, I only rinsed with clean water and left the blades in the equipment. I rarely observe the occurrence of rust (Gillette super blue blades).

Each DE blade can give me 30 consecutive shaves.

Just sharing my experience, maybe the good luck is just because the water quality in my area is good.

 

[alin]

If you are throwing a blade away after a week of shaving, I don't know why you bother with any blade-prolonging activities. What can happen to a blade in a week that's tougher on it than shaving hair?

But our beliefs drive our choices and you believe a blade is damaged by rust and calcium deposits, exposure to air, whatever. So you do what you do.

I don't believe that. I easily get 2 or three weeks worth of shaves out of any blade I use. I've gotten over 30 a number of times and have gone as high as 50. I have left blades in razors for weeks at a time and receive good shaves from them. And as I said in my first post to this thread, I don't do anything but rinse the razor clean after a shave. Tap water. No special water, not distilled water. Municipal water. Also, no blade drying, no alcohol dips, no soaking in oil. My choices are driven by what I believe, and that is razor blades were meant to go in a razor and shave you until you are done with them.

You're right, I think I use my blades too little. I will try with Polsilver to see if I can use it for 30 days without feeling big quality losses.

 

[BigSpender]

There are actually people who only shave once a week, for reasons I cannot for the life of me fathom. This can be a problem for DE blades, as most of the ones I have used seem to deteriorate after the first shave, even if they are not used. If I leave them around for a week, while using other blades, they are usually no good.

So, for a person who only shaves once or twice a week, this can be a problem if they want to get more than one shave out of a blade. And so I can see using techniques such as you describe to preserve the blade.

I saw a computerized device advertised to blow dry your blade while sterilizing it with UV light for only $59.95. While I was contemplating the utter absurdity of using one on a 5 cent DE blade that you could far more easily blot dry with a single square of toilet paper, I noticed the photo showed a cartridge blade. OK, that makes sense, almost, but not really. You can't dry a cartridge as easily, aside from using a hair dryer; alcohol, oil, etc. are also possibilities mentioned for cartridges. And cartridges can be much more expensive than a DE blade. So this almost makes sense for a cartridge, except that I doubt it makes much difference.

Those devices to strop cartridge blades are the ultimate idiocy -- they aren't a straight razor! Cartridge blades are coated, so by "stropping" them, you are removing the coating, reducing the blades' life.

As to using a Polsilver blade for 30 days, what's the point, unless you are a college student on a budget? I've got blades I could use for 30 days or more, but after 15 days the shave will inevitably not be as good as the first few shaves. The more important question is how many excellent shaves you can get from a blade, before it turns mediocre. Three excellent shaves is far better than 27 mediocre shaves.

So the other side of the issue is whether any of these techniques, such as coating the blade edge with oil, actually improves the shave? I looked this up online and found an article whose writer swore by applying coconut oil to your face before shaving to vastly improve the shave, reduce irritation and fight infection, due to the coconut oil's lauric acid content. As I get strong burning from applying coconut oil to my face after shaving, I began wondering if the article's author had actually tried using coconut oil while shaving. I look at the byline, and there is a tiny photo of a young woman. There's the answer.

Beware of freelance written online content: They are paid by the word, not the hour, and are highly motived to crank out content as fast as possible on any subject they can get paid for. This often means lifting material from other sources without attribution or fact checking. The people who run those websites often don't care, so long as they get clicks. Why even mention this? Sadly, some people are gullible and believe almost anything they read online.

Nevertheless, the most intriguing possibilities for prolonging a blade's life would be some sort of stropping for a carbon steel DE blade, as well as for SE boxcutter-format blades for old SE razors, which are thicker. This is not so much to save money as to improve the blade's performance. Thoughts?

 

[alin]

I arrived with the original Polsilver Super Iridium at the 8th use (half face only) and it still works well, I don't feel any degradation and shaving is still comfortable. I will continue with this blade all over my face until I feel a degradation or discomfort. At the same time the Polsilver blade degraded on the 8th use (half face) and I don't like how it feels on the face so I give it up! I am intrigued by those who can use a blade even for 50- 100 days. How do I do that? Do they have a very soft beard?
ps. I was a poor student many years ago.

 

[BigSpender]

I arrived with the original Polsilver Super Iridium at the 8th use (half face only) and it still works well, I don't feel any degradation and shaving is still comfortable. I will continue with this blade all over my face until I feel a degradation or discomfort. At the same time the Polsilver blade degraded on the 8th use (half face) and I don't like how it feels on the face so I give it up! I am intrigued by those who can use a blade even for 50- 100 days. How do I do that? Do they have a very soft beard?
ps. I was a poor student many years ago.

I am not familiar first hand with some of these contemporary upscale blades, such as the Polsilver Super Iridium; are they coated with iridium dust from meteorites?

What's the point of making a blade that will last 30 or 60 days if the sputtered edge coating will wear off after three to five days? And the better modern blades have coatings like platinum or chrome or PTFE.

In the old days, it seems razor blades were sometimes made from better steel than current blades. Sweden used to produce two grades of razor blade steel; now they only produce one. Whether other countries are producing superior razor blade steel, I do not know, but perhaps others here do. Some old blades easily lasted 20 shaves, such as Wilkinsons from the 1970s, or Gillette-Wilkinson India blades up to about 2010 -- others who know vintage blades could surely name others. The main reason, I assume, was superior, more expensive steel and more attention to quality.

Even if you get super steel, with tungsten and other good stuff in it, blades are coated, and the coating generally wears off before the blade steel wears out, This is why most companies don't produce ultra-long lasting blades, anymore. However, there are some hard, long lasting coatings, if they are done right. Ceramic, and tungsten ceramic, are very hard and durable, so durable that they may be stronger than the steel blade, itself.

Trying to get 20 or 30 shaves out of most $10 to $15 per hundred modern blades is futile. They simply weren't designed to do this, and at 10 to 15 cents a blade, almost no one expects it. If you are paying five cents per shave in 2021 dollars, what are you complaining about?

But since you ask, I will tell you how to easily get 30 shaves from one blade. Get a carton of Sharp Swiss Titanium Durablade blades. Shave daily. Mark your calendar. Blot dry the blade after each use. (Do not turn them over, but you can rotate them 180 degrees if your razor is asymmetrical.) Be prepared for a month or two of boredom.

My suggestion, though perhaps it would not make much difference, is to use Barbasol extra moisturizer or Vi-John shave cream in a tube, as they both have lanolin in them that seems to protect the blade, and they are mild, not extremely alkaline like most soaps. If you don't want lanolin, perhaps because you use a TTO, consider simply using regular Barbasol or Walmart Equate shave cream, also mild; just make sure you shake the can thoroughly each time, for at least 10 seconds. From reading the accounts of irritation from various shaving soaps, I have to wonder what effect this alkaline soap is having on the blades.

As to putting the blades in oil, while this might protect the steel, I can't help wonder whether this could harm some types of blade coatings.

Note: I have found the Sharp titanium blades to be consistently good. However, I have only done an endurance test once. Perhaps not all of their blades will last a month. Also, you should use several blades first to get a sense of what is normal performance with these blades.

 

[Dog Whiskerer]

I am intrigued by those who can use a blade even for 50- 100 days. How do I do that?

Excalibur Club - Blade Longevity DE, SE and Injector

What: A club with a focus on getting the longest useful life from DE, SE or Injector blades. Why: There have been a number of posts on "above average" blade life in the Blades forum, and elsewhere. These include the legendary "One blade in February" threads, and of course the 100+ shave...

www.badgerandblade.com