OMG! Will the madness never end?
- Thread starter South Dakota Guy
- Start date
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It's no more zany than this wondrous gadget!
I'm holding out for the 8 bladed model made of spent uranium originally purposed for Abrams tank discarding sabot rounds.
Why do people hate cartridge razors so much? I can shave just fine with them...90% of people do. 7 blades in the cartridge is not like doing 7 passes with a DE razor. Why people think this is beyond me. Do a 3 pass shave with a 3 blade cartridge razor and do a 9 pass shave with a DE...the former will be fine but the latter? It'll probably tear your face up quite a bit. Let people use the kit they want.
Duck tape two of these together and you have 14 blades
What’s the slogan? Delivering razor burn in a single stroke?
Some do and I can get a good shave with one but the DE works better. The cartridge was designed for a single WTG pass so that does not get as close as the 3 passes on a DE shave; the final ATG pass with the DE gets very close. Put a nice blade in and the shave is very enjoyable; fantastic because replacement blades are at relatively low cost.
The disadvantage with the cartridge is the cost and that is seen by the astronomical price of Fusion/Sensor/Mach3 cartridges. This forces the user to either change more frequently or suffer the tugging with a worn cartridge. Replacement cartridges is where the huge profits are made.
It's all relative, I can get as many shaves with a Fusion cartridge and a tuck of Feathers and they cost approximately the same. And with the $50 for a medium range DE razor I could buy enough Fusion cartridges that would last me for years. But nowadays, when I go cartridge, I use Wilkinson Sword/Schick Quattro Titaniums at $6.50 for 8 cartridges and I'm good for 120 shaves. The whole DE saving thing is an urban legend.
I've been shaving with cartridge razors a lot longer than DE or anything else, but that doesn't mean that I love them. At some point I just had enough and I decided to try something else. It was either electric razor or DE razor and i'm glad that I chose the latter. My reasons to change to DE were - the carts gave me irretation on the neck, they didn't last very long, the price, if I haven't shaved a few weeks the shave will be terrible, getting the same quality of BBS which I get with DE/GEM would be a bit harder to achieve and will most certainly irritate my skin a lot. Match 3 feels definitely better on my skin than the Fusion with 5 blades.
“Lubricating strip with antioxidants” 
I shave daily and the razor will last a minimum of 5 years, much longer with reasonable care.
Blades last me 10 to 30 shaves depending on blade, call it 30 blades per annum on average. Life cycle costing over 5 years for the two items is {razor + blade} £10 + £3.00 = 13.00 p.a. which is about $17
No urban myth there, it is a fact. I also get better shaves with the DE which is an added benefit.
Thankfully, I am not a collector, it is just a small passtime.
I recently got 105 straight shaves from a BIC Flex 4 cart. I bought a 4 pack on special for half price. Total cost $4.75. So in the end I could get 420 shaves from a four pack of cartridge razors for the total cost of $4.75. That is MY experience. Cheaper than a tuck of blades from a Supermarket here in Australia.
- Thread starter
- #33
I started this thread not to make fun of cartridge shaving and shavers. I have used cartridges most of my life. Having said that, you are going to have an impossible task convincing me that a 7 bladed cartridge is going to give me a better shave than 5 blades or three or even two. That said, if you think 7 blades works best for you then have at it. Personally, I never could stand a 5 bladed cartridge. My cartridge of choice (which I still use when I travel) is the Schick Hydro 3. I hate the Hydro 5 and I give the free Hydro 5 sample they always include in my cartridge pack to my wife who doesn't mind them.
I see your point and you are also member of the Excalibur club so a DE blade last you forever.
But, since I returned years ago to traditional wet-shaving after decades of carts (Sensor and Mach3) and electric razors, on every forum I always read:
1) "OMG carts are so expensive", "I turned to DE because carts are too expensive",
2) "Multiblades flesh out my face to the bone",
3) "Soon we'll see 10-15-20 blades carts" and so on with memes attached.
Cyclically, on every forum I've frequented, this debate pop up. I have my thought and in my opinions on this religion war:
1a) Of course, if you consider the price of a single cartridge they are much more expensive than DE blades, but people always focus on the highest price of the Gillette Fusion (Pro-Shield, Proglide and so on). Mach3s and Sensor cost half than that, and other brands other than Gillette are way cheaper. With proper shaving technique and adequate blade care, cartridges last me up to five times a DE blade. I've read zillion of times people that toss a blade after three shaves. I've once read a guy's journal that pushed a Fusion cart over 180 shaves. @ajkel64 pushed a cheap Bic over 100.
1b) Carts come with their dedicated handle almost for free. I don't want to talk for everybody but commonly the usual path for a new wet-shaver is: buy a new razor. If it is too cheap, soon we want a better one. If it's a nice $30-$50 razor (EJ, Muhle R89, Merkur 34HD) they are too mild, we need a more efficient one. Then acquisition disorder kicks in and we end owning dozen of razors with people spending over $150 for the new big thing until the next awesome-brand-new-marvel comes in (insert your Blackbird/Timeless/etc). How much have we saved avoiding carts?
2) Wet-shavers talk a lot about irritation caused by cartridges. They have bad memories about their pre-DE times when shaving was a chore and stick to those old nightmares. How about their prep back then? Did we use pre-shave creams, super-fatted soaps, skin foods, hyaluronic acid post-shave treatments? No, often the first canned foam we could put our hands on, a drugstore aftershave and we were good to go. And how about the technique? Face-mapping? No, a quick and unwilling two-pass WTG/ATG shave on inadequatedly prepared whiskers.
3) Gillette introduced the five-blade cart almost 15 years ago and then stopped adding blades forever. Actually the only new cart they introduced in the meantime is a two-blades cart. Dorco, a South Korean company that didn't had other qualities to add to the table, first introduced a 6-blade (2008) and a 7-blade carta few years later (2014). No other company went that route and actually the most used Dorco blades are 5-blade carts rebranded for private labels.
Gillette most selling carts by far are 3-blades.
To cut the story short, always in my opinion respecting others', "Carts are too expensive" is an urban legend and "Carts tear my face off" is a false myth. And I shaved this morning with a Schick L1 and the shave before was with a Gillette Slim Twist.
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Hydro 3 doesn't do the job for me and the Hydro 5 is too bulky. I stay in the middle-ground, Schick Quattro and I'm an happy camper. But as always, even with carts, YMMV!
Chandu
I Waxed The Badger.
I would say it this way. Well designed razors shave well, irrespective of the number of blades. The Dorco Pace 7 gave me a better shave them some carts with lesser blades and some with lesser blades gave me a better shave than it did.
I didn't buy into the number of blades idea, but rather looked at the shave I got. Also the crazy amount of lube some of them put out is just too much. There may be some users out there that don't use enough soap, foam or gel that the lube strips improve the shave for, but I'd be happy with them gone all together.
One important aspect is that as the number of blades gets higher, you need less/no cushion and just slickness. If the lather is too thick, it simply hydroplanes the razor.
As we discuss multi-blade carts, there is a new single blade cart that just came out. There is a thread about it in the Modern forum, I'll leave it up to the reader to venture over there. But here is the razor in question. No lube strip and no pivot. I don't mind a pivot IF it's well executed, but many fall short on that and either don't make it pivot in the right place, or have the right amount of tension in the spring.
UNO Shave Co.: Shop Single Blade Razors
Welcome to UNO Shave Co. The world's first single blade disposable cartridge system and the best single blade razor on the market today. Buy single edge razor blade cartridges today.
unoshaveco.com
- Thread starter
- #37
The Schick Hydro blades definitely put out lots of lube. I was able to do touchups to my hearts content without reapplying shaving cream. That is something I have learned to do only at great risk while using DE razors. If I oversleep and need a quick shave I won't hesitate to use the cartridge razor. I can quickly swipe at my stubble while half asleep without fear of injury. The DE razor forces me to take a little more time and a lot more skill and I am getting better shaves now than in my cartridge days. I have learned a lot since switching but if I apply the same care and skill with a cartridge razor that I do now with a DE I am fairly certain that I can get just as close a shave.
Nobody's stopping them.
This is a shaving thread, so if a person
Don't like carts, they can post it if they
Want to.
I like the Sensor Excel and Mach3. I can get a close semi-comfortable shave with a mach3. I have never tried anything with more than 3 blades, because in my opinion, it's all marketing hype.
A lot of talk about cartridge vs DE cost. I think it all depends on which blade and how many shaves you can get out of each blade.
I don't use cartridge anymore, but I used to get legit mach3 blades on ebay for about $1.35ea and they last me 30 shaves.
If I did my math correctly (in order of most expensive first, based on *my* shaves per blade):
Derby Extra are $0.11 per shave (1 shave)
Feathers $0.08 per shave (2 shaves)
Mach3 are $0.04 per shave (30 shaves)
Shark SS are $0.04 per shave (4 shaves)
Wilkinson Sword are $0.01 per shave (7 shaves)
I am curious to know what these nonsensical 7 blade cartridges would cost *me* per shave. I assume they would be the most expensive.
Assuming 30 shaves per blade, at Amazon 12pk price of $2.58ea, that's $0.80 per shave.
Just think of all the DE stuff you can buy with the money you're saving by not use a 7 blade cartridge. Haha. J/K
A lot of talk about cartridge vs DE cost. I think it all depends on which blade and how many shaves you can get out of each blade.
I don't use cartridge anymore, but I used to get legit mach3 blades on ebay for about $1.35ea and they last me 30 shaves.
If I did my math correctly (in order of most expensive first, based on *my* shaves per blade):
Derby Extra are $0.11 per shave (1 shave)
Feathers $0.08 per shave (2 shaves)
Mach3 are $0.04 per shave (30 shaves)
Shark SS are $0.04 per shave (4 shaves)
Wilkinson Sword are $0.01 per shave (7 shaves)
I am curious to know what these nonsensical 7 blade cartridges would cost *me* per shave. I assume they would be the most expensive.
Assuming 30 shaves per blade, at Amazon 12pk price of $2.58ea, that's $0.80 per shave.
Just think of all the DE stuff you can buy with the money you're saving by not use a 7 blade cartridge. Haha. J/K
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Yep, I just got one of these and I've got a couple of shaves under my belt. You can read my first shave impressions here and my second shave report here if you're interested.As we discuss multi-blade carts, there is a new single blade cart that just came out. There is a thread about it in the Modern forum, I'll leave it up to the reader to venture over there. But here is the razor in question. No lube strip and no pivot. I don't mind a pivot IF it's well executed, but many fall short on that and either don't make it pivot in the right place, or have the right amount of tension in the spring.
UNO Shave Co.: Shop Single Blade Razors
Welcome to UNO Shave Co. The world's first single blade disposable cartridge system and the best single blade razor on the market today. Buy single edge razor blade cartridges today.
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