I was astonished to read this piece by Malcolm Harris in the NYT Sunday Magazine - it felt like I was reading my own words. It reads like an alternate draft of a couple of different essays and chapters I’ve written. Delighted to see it in such a prominent place, even if it is fundamentally old news. Harris did a beautiful freshening job, IMHO.
Whenever I see these type of articles, I’m a bit skeptical because Fusion blades last way, way longer for me than the estimations the writers come up with.
The other factor is time. I found that I could easily shave with a Mach3 cartridge in about 5 minutes less than I could with a safety razor. I shave 3 times a week, so that’s about 13 hours a year. It takes maybe 8-10 cartridges to do a years worth of shaves, which costs about $35. Trading $35 for 13 hours of doing things I want to be doing is a no-brainer, IMO.
There’s no question the blades clog up more easily and are far, far more expensive than even the best single blades. Whether a blade is uncomfortable after five shaves or fifty is up to the individual, I guess, but I like (1) being able to use a truly sharp blade and (2) not spend a fortune to do so.
Do you shave your entire body? I don’t think I spend 5 minutes shaving, and that’s with a brush, lather tin and safety razor, and some careful shaving around a mustache and small beard.
The discussions among experienced shavers I’ve read follow this argument down to: fancy blades promote faster shaving for inept users who have never learned proper shaving technique, whereas a week spent learning proper technique makes one a much faster shaver even with simple gear.
Vintage Gilette Red Tip for about 8 years now.
I’ve tried the Fusion blades too; I was able to get about two months of shaving from one cartridge. However, I’ve found that I much prefer the Schick Quattro. I buy 8-packs of Quattro cartridges online for about $15; It usually takes me over a year to use them up.
When I read that sentence in which the author sadly describes his “hair-clogged” cartridges, my first thought was, “Why didn’t you rinse them out, you fuckwit?”
I shave my entire head and Harry’s cartridges last me a couple of weeks each. They ship them (and gel) to me once a quarter for less than a vente crappachio at Starbucks. I could never shave everything that quickly or cheaply with a safety razor.
ALL HAIL TECHNOLOGY!!
Yup. That’s a no-brainer. The Fusion cartridges are open in the back, and all it takes to rinse them out is running a little water through them from behind.
My first razor was an old fashioned safety razor I bought at the local drugstore along with a pack of 20 blades that I never finished before switching to electric. In a couple of brief periods that I shaved completely or only had a mustache and goatee I used the early disposable razors, quite economical at the time. Once this century I bought one of those cartridge razors and then couldn’t ever find the right cartridges again. Now I wouldn’t bother, I have a corded electric hair clipper I adjusted to get as smooth a shave as any electric and does better at beard trimming than any cordless model. I also have a straight razor but rarely use it. When I really want to get cleaned up I just go to the barber shop now that there’s a decent one in town.
I guess if I was going to shave my whole face every day I might have used the cartridges for a while but joined one of the shaving clubs by now because it’s just as easy to use a safety razor as anything else.
With bottled water.
Too soon?
As the blade sets get finer and finer and more wrapped in guide plastic, they get harder to rinse clean - not of loose hair bits, but of the oily, sticky residue.
But I bet that nasty Gerolsteiner stuff would burn 'em clean…
It took you a week to learn to shave? What are these ancient secret techniques that take a weeks worth of study to learn how to do properly?
I think what he was saying is that it took him a week to learn and adequately practice the proper techniques for shaving efficiently and effectively, probably with an old-school safety razor as mentioned in the linked article.
And I’ll affirm that while the cartridge razor doesn’t take any significant skill to produce a decent shave, the safety razor does. You have to get that angle between the razor and your face right, and learn how to hold it straight. You have to learn what parts of your face necessitate various blade angles and strokes. Cartridge razors require none of that- you just go in whatever direction you choose, and the blade angle is preset. You can’t screw it up. But nor can you improve on it, and you pay for the privilege.
And FTR… Astra blades are not that good. There are better ones out there- Gillette Silver Blue blades are my current choice.
It goes beyond the blade, but you hit the nail on the head about both having and needing more control with a safety razor.
Shaving prep and followup are just as important for a good shave - and just like the real thing, the packaged, lube-strip, fixed-approach versions let you get away with less prep and care, but at a price.
A week spent really learning how to shave, not just monkey your way through the strokes you learned when you were 15, will really pay off… but as long as you can sleep through a 2-minute shave with a $5 cartridge razor, you won’t bother.
Damn right. Basic principle of relative value – for some men, being able to “sleep through a 2-minute shave” is desirable and worth the cartridges. There are other skills I’ll bother mastering.
Because there are so many variables, there are only a few blades whose quality people generally agree upon. Best: Feather. Worst: 7 AM (made in Bangladesh)(not Gillette 7 O’Clock), Sharp (made in India) (ironic).
I tried a blade sampler and most of them seemed about the same to me, with the above exceptions. I settled on Astra. But there are plenty of people who disagree.
I thought this thread was going to be about the new-new razor and blade model. Now with added subscription!
My son bought me one of these razors. To get replacement blades, you’re meant to subscribe to a regular delivery plan. Brilliant marketing. I don’t intend to do it.
Okay.
Let’s see: perhaps fifteen minutes a morning for five or six days, scattered over a week or two weeks depending on beard growth and other things, spending extra time applying and mastering new techniques to learn to shave the way a barber would do it and all men really should learn to do it. Result: better shaves, as fast or faster as before, and with the ability to use $1/week blades… for life.
Or, skip that hour and a half of applied effort and shave badly, if quickly, with $3-8 a week blades… for life.
You’re right, a complete waste of time. Don’t know why I bothered.
I don’t either. Why in the world does it matter to you how others choose to shave? It doesn’t affect your ability to walk around in the wonderful glow of your own pretentiousness one bit.
NYT, I think I missed following you on your math. Your article says $7 to shave per day. My math is sketchy (assumes 100% depreciation in year one) but here goes:
$33 = nearly indestructible permanent handle
$10 = Blades for 500 shaves
$10 for 500 shaves works out to $7.30 for 365 shaves. {assumes ((365/500)* $10) }
Total year one capital outlay: $40.30.
$40.30/365 = $0.11 per shave*
*Assumes Cost of Labor to be fixed and equal for all such devices, and as such can be factored out of the result without consequence.