Bought a Merkur 33C, a synthetic Parker brush, and a mühle soap bar thar I received today.
Not as close a shave as I’m used to, but my skin feels a lot less irritated than it used to after a shave. Cut myself twice, on my upper lip and on the underside of my chin.
arr this be the one, matey…
best of both worlds. that comb side is great for when you have returned from 1 week camping in the wilderness. very aggressive.
https://www.fendrihan.com/products/fendrihan-mk-ii-full-stainless-steel-double-edge-safety-razor
Fendrihan house brand is a pretty good value for an all stainless razor, in a wildly overpriced space. I used Merkur for decades starting in the 80’s but got tired of corrosion killing them in the damp coastal climate I live in. Merkur’s are chromed zimek, which is european for pot metal (US English). Makes for exquisite castings but the chrome doesn’t last in a humid/damp climate. As Merkur prices slowly crept up to ~$50 over the decades, in the late 2000’s I finally went looking for all stainless. Haven’t looked back since. Fendrihan also makes a head that has one closed side and one comb side. That’s the one I like. Might have been discontinued. It’s an aggressive razor- even more so than the Merkur slant, but you get used to it. Develop a light touch. It becomes second nature after a while.
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get the merkur slant…
it’s aggressive but you’ll get used to it.
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Sir, this is dull men’s club. Talk of sharp razors is prohibited.
I started shaving like this years ago and never looked back. I feel it’s better for the environment. I like whisking up the shaving soap, it takes only ten seconds, so why bother getting it in a can?
Meh. I started shaving with my dad’s “safety razor” (it was just a razor, back then, no need for distinguishment). I get a closer, more comfortable shave with disposable, multi-blade razors.
I think a lot of younger (than me, which is many) men got suckered by the hype, frankly.
your beard thickens as you age if you are a normal caucasian.
check back with the safety razor once you hit your mid 30’s and you lose the twink beard of your 20’s.
I did too until I was shaving too much with it. So we headed to town one Saturday morning and went to the drug store and I bought my own Gillette Slim Adjustable razor. And while I have bought other razors over the years, I have and use that Slim regularly. Best damn razor I own.
A lot of the move away from safety razors was the introduction of cheap plastic razors. After that, razor blade companies stopped making cheap blades and went to selling razors that needed to be replaced regularly and making them more money.
you can buy a lifetime supply of double edged blades on amazon for like $22.00… usually made in some foreign country where they never lost their common sense.
compare to plastic/metal cassettes like harry’s or whatever…
Yep. But they don’t do the math…
I can get a “baby bottom smooth” shave with a DE. Is it better than what I could get with multiblade plastic razor? I don’t know.
What I do know is that those multiblade heads cost around $4 each, and my preferred DE blades cost about 8¢. Not to mention that there is no plastic in sight, and the amount of waste is minimal.
I had to go back to shaving with a disposable for a week when I forgot to pack my safety razor and it was awful. Dulled before the shave finished, uneven stubble here and there, razor burn. Never again.
I think a lot of people that try safety razors and didn’t like the results got shitty blades. The quality of DE blades can vary wildly between producers, which can be understandably frustrating for someone just getting into it that doesn’t want to study a nerdy forum for hours to get a good shave.
I shave with a disposable razor and with one razor, I shave my face, back, chest, ass, and below navel area from that same razor. I change the razor every month. I luckily use shaving cream most of the time.
Fun fact, shaving creams contain phtalates and parabens. These chemicals (they re monomers really and break down in the blood) are what is referred to as microplastics in the public discourses. Both have been proven to be extremely estrogenic, ubiquitous and non-biodegradable.
It’s so bad for you, it has been proven to change gender expression in young children during play if these children had elevated concentrations of them in their blood:https://www.researchgate.net/publication/375990822_Long-term_exposure_to_exogenous_phthalate_masculinity_and_femininity_trait_and_gender_identity_in_children_a_Chinese_3-year_longitudinal_cohort_study
besides shaving cream, what other sources of these chemicals should we watch out for?
Teflon (t-fal and all other non stick pans, a good replacement is simply a seasoned carbon steel pan)
Use glass tuperwares instead of plastic.
Silicone cooking utensils only preferably, metal is of course okay, stay away from any other plastic other than silicone in the kitchen). Silicone is non-porous, cannot foster bacteria and burns at 400C rather than melt. I advise good quality silicone since curing is the predictor of durability and is what impacts price in silicone manifacturing.
Try to not smoke cigarettes specifically, cigars and pipes are fine even vaping. The reason is cigarette paper is sprayed with BFR (a flame retardant) so as to reduce the risks of cigarettes causing house fires if someone falls asleep with a lit one in their hands. PhilipMorris will kill you quicker with additives than tar from tobacco.
Avoid fast foods, as well as grease or water repelling clothing (even Gore-tex and others). They re PFAS coated, mcdonald’s food for example is wrapped in packaging that does not stain despite the food being very greasy because PFAS coatings are heavily used in the ready-made food industry.
Try to avoid frozen meals or already prepared food you did not cook yourself (that sadly includes trader joe, I consulted for them once and they are not better than everyone else when it comes to forever chemical uses, Costco on the other hand is very careful manifacturing-wise and that is where i shop) since the packaging uses a lot of polyethylene and styrene which as an engineer myself I wonder how on earth we allow them in the food industry.
Canned food since the steel of cans is coated with a thin layer of epoxy on the inside ( this includes canned drinks and canned alcohols ), cosmetics, parabens for fabrics (dry cleaned clothes, enterprise carpet cleaning services, and artificial textiles such as polyesther in clothing, try to stick to natural cotton).
Finally the most important; all fragrances, cosmetics and UV blocking chemicals (sunscreen is horrible for your hormones). Fragrances in particular are terrible for the environment and for you as well. Non perfumed soap and detergents have a big impact on the environment. Finally, if you have kids, do not let them put non-silicon toys in their mouth, and avoid recycled paper products (toilet paper made of recycled paper for example).
Thanks for the detailed response. I didn’t realize that canned food was a concern.
UV blocking chemicals
Does this include sunscreen?
You re welcome bro, I m sure it ll help a few folks in terms of stuff no one shows you at school, I just became careful with time due to working in factories and learning about surface additives and polymers over time.
And yeah, sunscreen is up there with disposable paper cups for coffee for instance or disposable utensils (the bamboo/wood ones are just as bad as the plastic ones here).
Food wise, I say eat what you can afford but if you can shop somewhere, head to costco (their business model works well in this case to provide you with high quality goods and high production standards, and buy whole foods, nothing that you could not cook yourself at home. It can be tiring if you treat these microplastics like the plague since you ll become obsessive (I definitely get like that at times) but as long as you make proper choices, a trip to a fast food or a frozen pizza every once in a while won’t kill you.
That’s really too bad about sunscreen because I’m pale as they come so I feel like I need to pick between getting sunburnt or ingesting microplastics.
I feel ya, my family is african from western sahara personally so I ve never put on sunscreen nor gotten sunburnt, In my opinion the best you can do is expose yourself for durations under 3 to 4 hours, wear a hat with a round lid (cowboy for example) and wear long sleeve light clothing. Depends on where you live, but you should really have problems only when you get close to the equator during the summer. In my opinion, as much as it sucksm the alternative would be to use a cosmetic that might make you sterile through time, give you gynecomastia, lower your sperm count, raise diabetes and high blood pressure risks or worst case, cause neurodevelopmental disorders in future children you may procreate (adhd and autism spectrum disorders are known to have a link to it).
Small brochure on the subject that may interest you: https://www.endocrine.org/-/media/endocrine/files/advocacy/edc-report2024finalcompressed.pdf
That’s why I don’t let my children shave.
Also for those concerned, you can easily find shaving cream that doesn’t contain those like you do with your shampoo’s, etc.
I found good old glycerin (soap) to be the best possible shaving cream, i just emulsify it with a brush and shave,
You need to look for some real tallow soaps. those make lathers that are superb. But glycerin is cheaper so is more common.
I got one from the dollar tree and while the blades it came with were serviceable, I ordered some feather blades and it had been an absolute pleasure.
I tried one of those Dollar Store razors for fun. I would recommend buying a better quality razor personally. There are good inexpensive 3 piece razors on Amazon.
another +1 on Feather. I got a pack of different brands, 5 razor blades of each, and Feather was the sharpest and lasted a fairly long time too.
Razor blades are very YMMV thing. Lots of people like Feathers. I would choose a 4" angle grinder over a Feather blade myself. Even my Slim Adjustable won’t make them work.
I have a taste for Gillette Silver Blues and Sputniks. But those are getting harder to find these days. so I have found Racers from India to be a pretty good replacement. But my Slim can get at least a decent shave out of most blades.
Yeah, good blades make a ton of difference. +1 on Feather brand
Congratulations! I will happily certify this as a Dull Man Experience™️. Absolutely classic 👏
MÜHLE Traditional with Astra blades have served me well, haven’t managed to cut myself yet! Some razor burn but that’s from being a lazy git and not always soaking with a hot towel before going at it 😅.
Not as close a shave as I’m used to
How many passes did you do? I’ve found that once you develop your technique and become more comfortable with using a safety razor, the cuts will be fewer and the shave will be closer. I also learned that you do one pass with the grain, a second pass against the grain, and a third across the grain. When I do this not even babies’ bottoms can compare.
Congrats on saving money and the environment (in a small way). You’ll have to figure out responsible disposal of the blades. I took a condensed milk can, carefully pushed a big knife into the top of it, drained it fully, and labeled it “sharps.” I keep this under my sink with a piece of tape over the slot. Each time I retire a blade it goes in the container. Someday my descendants will tape it securely and it will go in the trash (because I’ve been shaving this way for well over a decade and have yet to fill it, but also I really stretch the life of my blades for no good reason).
I get much closer shaves with my Merkur 33c safety razor than I did with cartridges.
I’ll suggest another order: go 1. with, 2. across, then 3. against the hair. Against is the most skin irritating and largest risk of nicks, so may well be done with the least amount of work.
Also, warming the area to be shaved with warm water (or shower as you mentioned) does a lot for the closeness of the shave, don’t skip out.
I find brush and lather mostly to make shaving smoother and lessen skin irritation, not make for closer shaves, but your mileage may vary. Also consider warming your blade (I run it under the warm water) between passes, I find it also helps for the smoothness although can’t say why.
If you have to apply force to the cutting (rather than letting “gravity” do the work) you probably need new blades. They are supposedly single use, but I can typically get 2-3 shaves in on a regular blade, and even up to six shaves with some blades (Korean Dorco platinum is my favorite).
Adding force is the only way I get nicked nowadays, but it goes fast when I do, so I make sure to switch blades even between passes if need be.
Also, depending on your face and skin, you might want to try a safety razor with a different blade angle, there are handles that give a (slightly) more aggressive shave — meaning closer shave but (slightly) higher risk for nicks and irritation.
Best of luck!
I find it so funny that they used to just put a hole in the wall and you would shove old razors in it. A hazard for renovators 60 years later.
Yep, found this in my old house during a renovation
There was a 3 inch deep pile in my wall when i pulled down the tile, weird surprise to find.
Next time (in like 30 years when you finally fill up yiu current can, use the church key method (one medium sized, triangle hole on one side, a smaller on the opposite side) and then after draining/rinsing, use a Dremel to cut a thin slot towards the top.
When you fill that can after 30 years, you just hammer the top down and seal the hole that way.
What razor blades do you use? I started off years ago with Astra ones. They gave a good shave, and I like that I could get 2-3 shaved out of each side (so 4-6 in total per blade) before they became too dull. But they are made in Russia, and for moral reasons I switched to Feather (which are made in Japan). The Feather ones give a great shave, but they are really only useable once per side.
I use these:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07Q1JNPRH
I have neither thick not tough hair, so they last me two weeks easily. I also strop them on the underside of my arm in the shower to stretch their life.
I’d always wanted a vintage Gillette or a Merkur but have always been too cheap. I think my original handle was a drugstore special and then I upgraded to an Edwin Jagger. With that handle, my particular hair, and extraordinary lack of skill, I found Astras to be very good (I thought they were made in Türkiye but just checked the box and you’re right - they’re Russian. But my box is probably close to two decades old.) I got some Persona Blues and also found them to be similar to the Astras under the same conditions. I’ve picked up a variety of blades over the years, including Wilkinson Sword (crap, but from a store going out of business sale) and some that I’ve traded with people who also use DE razors.
I never tried Feathers with those handles because I had always read they were mostly for bloodletting and yes, didn’t last very long. Since I changed my handle to a Henson, I’ve found that I can shave with anything because it’s SO forgiving. I could probably cut myself if I tried, but this thing lets me use even Feathers with confidence, and I don’t get ingrown hairs anymore. I can even do my dangly bits safely (yes, even with the Feathers). I’ve posted once or twice about the Henson so I want to be clear that I don’t have a horse in this race, but for me it was a game changer. I think finding a handle that works for my hair type and breathtaking lack of skill, then matching blades to that, was the key.
I’ve also found that DE shaving aficionados just love talking gear, so if you meet anyone IRL see if they would be down to swap blades. I’m sure the shaving companies will also sell you a blade sampler pack.
tl;dr: Persona Blues are probably my favorite, Astra is also great but has some baggage, and give Wilkinson a miss. If you’re using Feather pay attention and don’t let anything startle you.
Thanks for the recommends. Yeah, you definitely have to be careful with Feather blades. Although I only found them a bit more ‘cutty’ than Astra’s.
If a guy wanted a Henson… where would he get one?
Just from their website, but I did a Black Friday special from Grown Man Shave in the US a few years ago - it was $66 for two handles. It was a buy one, get one, and I gave the other one to a friend. In exchange he gave me a Bevel handle that he liked but didn’t love. The Bevel is super heavy, which some people like, because the handle should be doing the work. I haven’t tried it.
Interesting, thank you!
I use… some random double edged safety razor I found on Amazon a few years ago. It’s fine, but I have been thinking about an upgrade.
I did two passes, the same as I did with my plastic Gilette. It’s a skill issue for sure, I have shaved with the same razor for about 16 years, and this shave isn’t that far off from my previous shaves.
Another tip that helped me early on is to not skimp on the lather. I would soak then wring out a washcloth in the hottest water I could get from my tap, or microwave the towel for like 30 seconds (YMMV on timing). Once it is just cool enough to touch I wrap it on my lower face and neck. Do this again between each pass, before lathering. And when lathering, really use that brush. The point is to soften and lift the hair and to open your pores, and I noticed a big difference in how irritated my skin gets if I’m in a rush and don’t do these things. And yeah, git gud lol
I shaved right after a hot shower where I had thoroughly washed my face and beard with s face wash and a scrub. I kept reapplying the lather, but probably got the angle wrong when I cut myself.
I’ve been using a Merkur for 3 years now and I still can’t figure out how to not nick myself at least once.
I think the contours of my face just don’t work for the design of these tools. It’s a shame.
You face is fine, you handsome devil you.
Technique matters. Head angle and how hard you press with the razor matters. The brand of razor blades also matters. And even the shaving soap/cream matters too.
I think you should ask yourself why you keep using the razor if you nick yourself every time?
but It’s more fun when other people get asked those questions. I don’t want to spoil it for them.
After switching to safety razors many years ago I still haven’t used a single pack of double sided razors for it. I honestly don’t understand why people buy the plastic razors when it is neither more convenient or cheaper. Think I have the same brand head on mine, you gotta watch near the edges because they’re more likely to cut you.
I’m about halfway through my second box. It took me about
107 years to get through the first box.I agree about not knowing why people keep using the plastic disposable ones. Best I can see is a reluctance to change a habit and/or a fear of safety razors. But it’s well worth the switch.
Genuinely might just be unawareness. I have been using safety razors for a long time, but I was only introduced to it by a forum post somewhere long ago. Nobody I know personally (especially in the family) uses them. Stores in my area don’t stock razors or handles. It was just by chance that someone posted about them and that I saw that post that got me to switch.
I honestly don’t understand why people buy the plastic razors when it is neither more convenient or cheaper.
Exposure is definitely a big part of it. The only reason I’m using one is because some podcasts / YouTubers I liked were extolling them and I looked into it. I can’t recall ever seeing a safety razor for sale at any big grocery or drug store. I guess I could have just missed them. But they stock what gets advertised most, and by an immense margin: The dodeca-bladed monstrosities in either pussycat pink or blackout tacticool gunmetal. AFAIK, that’s what everyone I know uses. I get asked every now and then if I can recommend my barber for a shave, then I mention the safety razor, and most guys have no idea what I’m describing to them.
Also, no matter the design, safety razors have an air of “old fashioned” that I think most people just cannot appreciate now. The notion that they’d ever have to do anything besides use the product and send it to the landfill is enough to make most people nope out immediately, and here you’ve got disassembling, reassembling, replacing parts, proper disposal… All that takes time and attention that most people can’t reconcile.
It’s not that much longer. If the extra 3 or 4 minutes is that critical, and that’s using a soap and brush to make lather - you can use creams too, stop hitting the snooze and just get up already.
In any case, shaving is one of those activities us men can do to pamper ourselves every day. We need to learn from women that’s it’s OK to smell nice, and that jasmine scented shaving lather made in a warmed double shaving bowl with your favorite brush is a treat you should experience. You are worth it!
So guys, let’s stop looking a shaving as a chore that needs to be done. Instead, make your shave something to look forward to and enjoy! Start you day out right!
Yeah, I had looked into safety razors years ago, but as the price gap was bigger back then I dismissed them.
Now I paid the same price for this handle, and the blades cost next to nothing. Only a bit of a learning curve.
I bought a cheap metal safety razor for like $10 and a pack of 100 blades for under $10 like a decade ago and am finally getting down to the last dozen or so blades. So less than $20 for a decade for the hardware and I think I spent more on shaving gel during that time.
You can soend more, but really don’t need to.
