Markings on razor blades

[tinpanalley]

I've gotten really used to the 1, 2, 3, 4 markings on Polsilvers which helped me space out my shaving evenly on each blade. Just turns out I can only use blades for two weeks, so I go 1 and 3 one week and the 2, 4 side the next week. I'm trying blades though that don't always have a clear marking or branding that distinguishes one side from the other. What things do you do to tell which side you're on when you shave from one day to the next shave day? Can you put sharpie dots on them? I'm afraid of that ink running into freshly shaved skin. And I guess the follow up question naturally is, how much does evening out sides help to control the used sides of the blade? Obviously shaving dulls them, which is why I try to keep things even. Left to a random use I'd definitely just forget to keep things even.

Thoughts?

 

[Stuart Ganis]

I've gotten really used to the 1, 2, 3, 4 markings on Polsilvers which helped me space out my shaving evenly on each blade. Just turns out I can only use blades for two weeks, so I go 1 and 3 one week and the 2, 4 side the next week. I'm trying blades though that don't always have a clear marking or branding that distinguishes one side from the other. What things do you do to tell which side you're on when you shave from one day to the next shave day? Can you put sharpie dots on them? I'm afraid of that ink running into freshly shaved skin. And I guess the follow up question naturally is, how much does evening out sides help to control the used sides of the blade? Obviously shaving dulls them, which is why I try to keep things even. Left to a random use I'd definitely just forget to keep things even.

Thoughts?

What I do is this, after 3 shaves they are gone. No need to flip or mark blades. In a month I use maybe 8 to 10 blades.
For the price of 100 blades why push it? But that is me.

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[Runnin_Ute]

I flip after each shave.

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[maximedboisvert]

What I do is this, after 3 shaves they are gone. No need to flip or mark blades. In a month I use maybe 8 to 10 blades.
For the price of 100 blades why push it? But that is me.

Sent from my QTAQZ3 using Tapatalk

Same for me here. I rarely go more than 3 shaves with a blade. Why stretch them more than necessary is how I see it.

 

[Cal]

What things do you do to tell which side you're on when you shave from one day to the next shave day?

Like Brad @Runnin_Ute I flip my blade after each shave. Like most people, I use both sides of the blade when I shave.

Can you put sharpie dots on them? I'm afraid of that ink running into freshly shaved skin.

Sure you can. The ink won't run into your skin, but it will slowly dissipate. So if you use your blades for a long time you will need to refresh the sharpie dots from time to time.

And I guess the follow up question naturally is, how much does evening out sides help to control the used sides of the blade?

Only a few shavers do it your way. It's certainly feasible enough. The only way to find out is to experiment with different types of blade usage and monitoring your results (preferably using the same razor and the same make and model of blades for your experiments).

Bear in mind that your whiskers, skin, and face shape are different to everyone else's.

 

[John Rose]

Left to a random use I'd definitely just forget to keep things even.

Nah, not "definitely".
I'll assume that you take the blade out and rinse it after each use, and lose track of which side was up. That's about my speed, anyway. Left to a random use, the more you have used a blade, the closer it gets to 50% one side and 50% the other side. So, no problem there.

If you feel that you might be unconsciously doing something that favours using the same side over and over again, then do a coin toss. Heads: whichever way you picked up the blade, load it that way. Tails: flip the blade just before you put it in.
Or use the day of the month. On odd days leave it, on even days flip it.

What I do is this, after 3 shaves they are gone. No need to flip or mark blades. In a month I use maybe 8 to 10 blades.
For the price of 100 blades why push it?

Because lots of blades get better after 5 or 6 shaves. I'm just finding this out, after pushing an Astra SP to 75 shaves. I used to toss all blades after 6 uses, then bumped it up to 12 if I could.

You're doing most of the work of breaking them in, and not reaping any of the benefit. (Unless you're using Wilkinson Sword, GSB, or Feather blades. I have yet to determine if they can be pushed to beyond, say, 12 shaves.)

 

[BigJ]

Alternating sides of the razor during my shaves distributes the use evenly.

KISS around here (especially in the AM!)

 

[Mick]

I just looked at the last blade I used and for the life of me I can't tell which side is up or down.

To add insult to injury, I can't figure out which is left ot right.

Man.......

Maybe I should go back to using straight razors.

They're not as confusing.

 

[tinpanalley]

Nah, not "definitely".
I'll assume that you take the blade out and rinse it after each use, and lose track of which side was up.

Nope, when I rinse my blade because of how I'm holding it I know exactly which side was up. And yes, definitely. I don't keep track of things like that that are that small very well like did I make the same number of swipes with this side than I did that side.

Or use the day of the month. On odd days leave it, on even days flip it.

That makes more sense, but I still need a way to know which way I used last time. I only shave every other day, I can't ask the harddrive space in my brain to be filled with relatively useless info like that.

 

[Vulcan]

I had the same struggle when I switched over to Feathers - no more side markings on the blades. I shave every day of the work week, Mon-Fri, and change blades on Mon morning or Sunday if I'm feeling like getting a jump-start on my week of shaving.

Up until now I have always just flipped my blade in the middle of the week so there is a (roughly) even amount of shaves on each side of the blade.

how much does evening out sides help to control the used sides of the blade?
Thoughts?

Today, I started wondering the same thing as you - is there even a point to blade flipping?

After trawling through the forum it seems that most users don't buy into the idea of blade flipping and now that I have given it some thought, the idea doesn't seem to make sense to me either. I mean, we're shaving with the edge of the razor which is going to get progressively more dull with each use of the blade, regardless of which side of the razor is facing up.

I do rotate the razor with each stroke so I evenly utilize both edges of the blade but I think I'm going to stop flipping the blade over to see if there is any change in the longevity of my blades.

My add-on question to the knowledgeable folks here on the board is this: If there is no reason to flip razor blades, why do some manufacturers print the side/edge numbers on the blade?

 

[JTshaves]

My add-on question to the knowledgeable folks here on the board is this: If there is no reason to flip razor blades, why do some manufacturers print the side/edge numbers on the blade?

From what I've gathered by various YouTube channels, the numbers were placed on blades as sort of a quality control measure.

 

[dfoulk]

The numbers on the blades were put there by the factory for some type of quality control during the manufacturing process. Some will use them to track shaves but that wasn't the intention.

I flip the blade after each shave and use twelve sided dice to track how many shaves I'm at. I chose the twelve sided ones as I often get more than six shaves from a blade and I was binning blades at six shaves for no other reason than I'd maxed out the die I was using. I bought the 12 sided ones on Amazon for like two bucks for a dozen of them. Took a while to get here from China but hey it was only two bucks and to me this is the easiest way to track the number of shaves on a blade.

In using the razor I flip the razor over after each swipe and rinse it when both sides have been used and are full of lather, so I suspect wear is even for both edges during every shave.

I'm not sure how flipping the blade over makes a difference, kinda like using a knife seems to dull both sides of the edge equally, but I figure why not as the razor is apart to be cleaned after every shave anyway.

To answer your question about the sharpie, yes you can write on the blade as I've seen people here do it many times before. So, feel free to add a dot by a number or whatever marking helps you out to keep track of your shaves that way. I would avoid the actual edge with the sharpie but even then it shouldn't come off onto your skin once it's dried.

 

[tinpanalley]

I don't remember where it was, on another site, but somebody had shown the effects if wear on a blade after several shaves, and though relatively imperceptible (and possibly negligible) when only shaving repeatedly on ONE side of the blade, that side does wear off more than the other. On microscopic inspection it's noticeable. Again, don't remember where I saw this but I remember the images.

The reason this doesn't happen with a knife when cutting food, and I can speak to this because I'm a cook, is that a knife (if properly used) cuts straight down into something. And actually it's also an example of how even a knife can start to lose one side of its blade because if you've ever looked closely at a badly honed or sharpened chef's knife, you'll see the blade tip actually tapers one way. It's just easier to feel on a knife. On one side your finger slides off the blade. On the other you get a slight scrape.

I'm just saying, it may be for QC that the blades are numbered (which actually makes no sense though because both sides are mirror images, what QC could you possibly be inspecting by labelling both sides differently?) but you are tapering one side more than the other when you don't flip. How relevant is that to your shave? Who knows.

All I wanted to know is can I mark them, and while flipping may or may not matter, rotating certainly does and as I've said before, I simply do not have the awareness to be remembering exactly which side has gotten more passes. I like to stick to one per shave. With Polsilver that means I can do the 1/3 side one week and the 2/4 side the second week. We'll see, on an unrelated note, if these Personna Reds can give me the same kind of longevity, signs are good. Two very smooth shaves so far. Great blade for my face. Others I've tried have been awful.

 

[dfoulk]

Alright, thanks for debunking my knife blade comparison. That makes total sense to me so I don't question your response. It sounded like a good comparison to me though. Either way, I stand corrected and thank you for sharing the knowledge.

The marking information is explained in quite a few threads on the forum and when someone asked Gillette a while back they responded that the numbers were for quality control. As to how they use them I don't know but at least their response solved the mystery as to why they are there. I didn't research it any further than that as I don't use the numbers myself.

As far as flipping blades to keep the wear even goes it might come into play with the guys in the excalibur club where they're taking a blade to 100 shaves or more. For most people it likely isn't a factor as we're probably binning the blades far earlier and not trying to get every shave from a blade. Still I do it anyway because why not.

As far as keeping track per side and only using one side of the razor for each shave goes, for me it's easier to just do each swipe alternating sides of the razor. I tried it using one side per shave when starting out and it seemed like a bit of a hassle. So this way I don't have to keep track of which side of the blade got how many passes as they each got pretty close to equal usage, seeing as though I'm alternating the sides of the razor for each swipe. I can tell when I've used both sides as I don't rinse the razor until both sides have lather on them. So that keeps them pretty much even. I don't have to worry about using the wrong side by mistake either, which is something I'm sure I would do by mistake as well. I'm usually tired in the morning so simple is better for me.

If I'm using one side ever so slightly more than the other this way then we're back to the it probably doesn't matter thing as we're likely binning the blade before we need to anyway.

Still to each their own so whatever works for you is the best way. Move forward knowing that you can use the Sharpie to mark your blades however you'd like.

 

[ackvil]

I don't see how flipping a blade extends the life of the blade. You don't cut your whiskers with the side of the blade but with a cutting edge. The bottom side of the blade does not do the cutting - the edge does. Both sides of the blade are in contact with your skin and do the cutting at the same time.

I think of a razor blade as a knife with a sharp, thin cutting edge. Take a piece of twin and cut it with a razor blade or knife and they both work the same way.

 

[Invicta]

I don't see how flipping a blade extends the life of the blade. You don't cut your whiskers with the side of the blade but with a cutting edge. The bottom side of the blade does not do the cutting - the edge does. Both sides of the blade are in contact with your skin and do the cutting at the same time.

If I understand you correctly, both bevels to an edge cannot be in contact with the skin. The bevel nearest the cap rides the skin. Flipping the blade allows the other the bevel to come into play. The manufacturer coats both bevels so it would seem sensible to use both bevels. The caveat is that when the edge is worn, no amount of flipping is going to improve it.

 

[ackvil]

If I understand you correctly, both bevels to an edge cannot be in contact with the skin. The bevel nearest the cap rides the skin. Flipping the blade allows the other the bevel to come into play. The manufacturer coats both bevels so it would seem sensible to use both bevels. The caveat is that when the edge is worn, no amount of flipping is going to improve it.

There are a few ways to test your theory. (1) Shave exclusively with the blade in the razor in the same position until it is dull and then flip it. If you can get decent shaves after that you are correct. (2) Using everything the same shave with the razor one way and count the number of shaves. Then shave flipping the blade each day and count the number of shaves.

I don't believe you shave with the bevel - you shave with the cutting edge where the two bevels meet.

In the video below you will see that the entire razor blade is coated - not just the cutting edge. You can also see that when the blade is tested it cuts as if it were a knife, i.e., the cutting edge cuts the paper.

 

[John Rose]

And yes, definitely. I don't keep track of things like that that are that small very well like did I make the same number of swipes with this side than I did that side.

I certainly would not worry about the number of swipes. I'm assuming that you mean per edge.

That makes more sense, but I still need a way to know which way I used last time. I only shave every other day, I can't ask the harddrive space in my brain to be filled with relatively useless info like that.

Then a coin toss it is.
Randomization will even it out in the long run, because given a larger number of coin-toss results, the number of heads will get closer to equaling the number of tails.

I was going to say to flip the blade itself like a coin, but that seems to be unwise, especially if you cannot resist the reflex to grab it mid-air and slap it onto the back of your opposite hand for the Grand Reveal.

 

[Invicta]

I don't believe you shave with the bevel - you shave with the cutting edge where the two bevels meet.

I was not suggesting you cut with the bevel but one bevel rides the skin (how much depends on blade reveal). Whether the blade is at 30deg or steeper at say 60 deg, only one bevel is in contact with the skin but as always, the edge does the cutting and when it is worn, no amount of flipping will improve it.
The bevel does ride smoother over the skin with the coating but I have yet to shave with a blade without a coating. As I understand it, all blades in modern production have some sort of coating.
With regard to coatings, it is very hard to get a coating on an edge but there may be a little bit of overspill near the edge. Hence why the edge appears to get sharper; the oversplill is being cleared.
I flip the blade daily because of very hard water issues and give the surface a light pinch and wipe through tissue. I cannot allow scum and debris build up because of the hard water. None of the coatings seem to keep that scum off the blade.

 

[tinpanalley]

I was not suggesting you cut with the bevel but one bevel rides the skin (how much depends on blade reveal). Whether the blade is at 30deg or steeper at say 60 deg, only one bevel is in contact with the skin but as always, the edge does the cutting and when it is worn, no amount of flipping will improve it.

You are 100% correct. It is not physically possible when shaving, unless you scrape the blade at a 90 degree angle to your face to completely scrape the blade evenly. However, with the use and frequency we're talking about, it's a negligible amount, I'll agree to that.

I flip the blade daily because of very hard water issues and give the surface a light pinch and wipe through tissue. I cannot allow scum and debris build up because of the hard water. None of the coatings seem to keep that scum off the blade.

When I lived in Paris a few years ago, this was the bane of everything my wife and I did that had to do with water: washing dishes, anything skin related from showering to washing your face, rinsing things was impossible you had to wipe them down, kitchen and bathroom counters, our kettle, and among the worst was shaving. If you left a wet blade without wiping it bone dry, when you came to use it again, it felt like a pumice stone. But even a nice clean blade didn't matter half the time because the hard water was never gonna let you lather a soap together properly most of the time anyway. It's a hideous experience I know all too well, we lost appliances and utensils to the damage of hard water and went through more vinegar than ever before in our lives and I don't envy you at all but I thoroughly sympathise.