What happened when I boiled a razor

[Fnord5]

The travel Tech razors I've seen have aluminum handles. Clean, bare aluminum reacts with oxygen (dissolved in the water) to form a thin oxide coating.

For other razors, I see no reason to boil but I also have a tough time understanding how a quick dunk in 212 degree water would harm a nickel plated razor.

Indeed. Which is why my commercial pots and pans are all dingy gray where the water line is.

 

[Tzar]

Put it in vigorously boiling water and left it for a bit over five minutes. Turned off the heat, let it cool down, and whoa! The two pieces of the head didn't look any different, but the handle was now a very dingy, dull, gray. Didn't look actually horrible, but no longer matched the head.

I concur with you. I boiled for 10 minutes a Gillette Tech M4 3 weeks ago, and the handle became a dull gray indeed. I need to get that MAAS paste to get it shiny again.

I am not going to boil razors anymore. It's going to be Scrubbing Bubbles and Barbicide for me.