I’ve had a full-time goatee for 20+ years and I use an electric beard trimmer for that. If I go too long on the rest of my face (typically 4+ days), I use that trimmer to cut down the parts I will need to shave. I could see having issues if I was trying to shave a weeks worth of growth with just my Mach3.
As noted above, I only use Mach3’s, and they always get jammed with hair enough so that I have to use high-pressure water from a bidet at full blast and a couple of minutes of careful manipulating to clear the mess from between the blades after a shave, lest it be rendered useless.
I don’t shave daily, but roughly once or twice a week or so. I don’t have heavy facial hair.
Are you rinsing often as you shave? I shave a bit, rinse, shave a bit, rinse, and so on.
Maybe it is difference between fine and course facial hair? I think mine would be considered medium.
I have quite course facial hair. I rinse about every other pass. I also rinse from behind. That’s the nice thing about the Mach3 and the Fusion5 - they have this nice, open back that makes rinsing the razor easy.
Shaving game:
I rinse after every two or three strokes, because the blades stop cutting from the hair muck, so maybe a dozen times during a shave. Then after shaving, the blade “intervals” are clogged to the gills with tightly packed hair n’ stuff. That needs a concerted effort to get out (the rinsing only cleans the blade edges). So much so that if I’m traveling and there is no bidet with high enough water pressure, I can’t get the blades cleared.
Cleaning and drying the Mach 3 after every use extends the use life to months and months, given that I don’t shave nearly every day.
Sink banger here. Thick whiskers, cheap supermarket-brand plastic multiblade razors, hot water and liquid hand soap. Banging has increased since retirement - shaving every day definitely made the jams easier to clear.
But I seem to remember years ago someone made a razor with a spring-loaded bar between the blades that could be pressed forward to shove the gunk out. My memory sucks so bad I can’t decide if I actually had one at some point or just saw it advertised. Anyone else remember those? Anyone still make something like that?
Yep, also a safety razor user. Between the single blades, and the bricks of lather, it is so ridiculously cheap that I feel like I’m doing something illegal, like the Gillette Cops will be busting down my door with their 4-tubed battering ram. I got a blade sampler pack for free when ordering some lather bricks over a year ago and have still yet to run out of either.
I’m using a “slant bar” razor that hits my follicles with a more aggressive angle of attack, like a linebacker diving for the knees of a frail punter.
I’m a bit like Winston Smith in 1984. I’m still using a plastic disposable twin-blade from 2023 or thereabouts on the small amount of real estate not covered by an otherwise full beard and mustache. I think there’s a refill or two for a “permanent” razor somewhere at the back of one of the bathroom drawers.
I’m here to say: It works!
I shave twice a week and I used to get typically 8 shaves out of a blade. Shaves 1-5 are great. Shave 6 is when I see degradation of the blade with some minor pulling. 7 is worse and 8 is where I decide it’s time to chuck the blade.
Starting with my last new blade, after each shave I started sliding the blade up the mirror a few times. Shaves 1-5 seemed to be the same, and at 6 I still noticed that slight degradation, but I am now on shave 12 and it is still like shave 6: Minor degradation, but not unpleasant enough to toss the blade. Not sure how long this will continue, but it does seem to work.
The cost of the blades isn’t a big deal to me, but reducing waste is important to me. So, I’ll keep doing this.
I throw away the blade when it no longer does an adequate job. Saving a few dollars is not worth a bad shave; having a shave take even one minute longer than usual is also not worth the aggro. But I could easily get sixty shaves out of an average blade for very little extra effort, even if I shave my pits etc.
It works, but in my experience it is not worth trying to sharpen the one blade trimmer on the opposite end, which seems to stress the joint and cause that to fail.