New owner of a safety razor. Advice sought.

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I decided that paying $15 for a pack of four Gillette Power Fusion blades, only to have said blades fail after one or two uses, was just stupid. I am now the owner of a Merkur 23C solid chrome safety razor, made in Germany. The blades are durable and cheap. I have yet to use it, and seek advice from those who shave with safety razors. I realize that I will cut myself, however I can slice myself open with the supposedly cut-proof five blade razors out there, so I'm no stranger to cuts. I have mild dyspraxia, I can shave but I tend to cut myself. I simply finish shaving, then liberally use Band-Aids. I realize that the safety razor does not "pivot" in the way high tech razors do, and I'm ready. Anything else I should know?

I usually cut myself with my safety razor if I'm using a particularly cheap brand of blades.

Just use water and a good shaving soap (I use a hypoallergenic soap applied with a shaving brush).

Oh boy, I love safety razors.

Well, you should try shaving with warm water if you don't already. Rub the cream in well. Also use hot water to basically heat the razor up somewhat, like run it under hot sink water for 10 seconds. Technique, I don't know, bunch of youtube videos about that, you'll learn a bit in time, I started shaving with one a year ago and the transition wasn't too crazy. Make sure you lather the neck well, and be careful, the neck is sorta hard to shave well with a DE. I personally think a lighter razor could be easier to transition with, I used a cheap Chinese razor to start, and then later a cheap plastic Dorco DE. You might like it heavier, though. Again, be careful on the neck, easy to irritate. Don't really have to worry about cuts much with a DE, not any worse cuts than you'll get with a cart razor. I think one thing too is, don't apply lots of pressure, try to let the razor do the work. Only apply just enough pressure, it's not a lawnmower like a cart razor.

For razors, it's mostly a matter of personal taste. You're probably gonna wanna try a few razor handles and blades combos to see what you like best. Like some people love Derby blades, I hate them. So try a few brands of blades and see what works best for you. Also, razors vary, too, by aggressiveness. Some people like aggressive, some like mild. For a milder razor, maybe try a Weishi or Feather Popular. The reason I say this is because a different razor and different blades will bring a vastly different shave, that's part of what makes DEs a bit complicated. So don't give up if this razor doesn't work out.

Lastly, if you totally utterly hate DE shaving for whatever reason, there's always Gillette TracII/Atra. For those, the patent ran out on the carts, so my local Family Dollar sells TracII compatible carts for $2/10, Walmart sells them for like $3/12. You won't usually be able to find a handle in stores, though. Ebay has Gillette GIIs, though, which are Trac IIs made for the Indian or Euro market. There's other TracIIs and TracII knockoff variants around, too.

Good luck and I hope you like it!

Update:

Used the razor on Monday. I used Wilkinson Sword blades from Wal Mart at $1.75 for a 10 pack. I noticed that the DE razor irritates my skin a lot more than the five blade one, but that may be because I scraped the blade edge over the skin, and likely pressed too hard (I do this when writing too, I press way too hard). Despite that, the only real cuts I got were around my nostrils, which is a difficult to shave area. I like that I don't have to "inch" my way up my thick chin hair with the DE unlike the five blade which gets hair caught in the blades, and that I don't have to make several strokes to get all the hair on my jaws. I threw away the Gillette Fusion handle I had and plan to give the Fusion blades my mom bought me back to her. I really like the safety razor. Did you know that Gillette was investigated in the UK because they sold a four pack of Fusion blades costing 28 pence to make for nearly 10 UK pounds? Cha ching. The same four pack is $15 in the US. I realize that this is the whole Gillette business model, sell the razor cheap and soak them for the blades, but I would rather not pay David Beckham's endorsement salary.

Well, first thing you should do is sign up to Badger and Blade forums. It's a really cool forum there, for discussion about double edge shaving. They're really nice there. I made a post asking for the best razor for about $20, and someone sent me soap, expensive shaving cream ($10 a tube), a brush, styptic pencil (get one of these for cuts, it seals the small cuts up without bandaids), a few different kinds of blades, and my Weishi razor I use almost daily. Also, you can trade, sell, or give away any shaving things you don't like on there. Some good razors are the vintage ones. I've gotten vintage Gillettes for like $2-3 on there before. It's not uncommon to find some for $10 or so. It's my opinion it's best to try a few razors and see what you like. You can also buy an adjustable, an older Gillette adjustable runs like $30 on those forums, with the more expensive ones (Gillette Fat Boys) like $60ish. Merkur makes an adjustable for like $60ish, too. The older Gillettes are made better than Merkurs, though. Merkurs are stamped out of usually zinc. Whereas Gillettes were stamped out of brass. I've not personally tried a Merkur, though. If you wanna stay with what you got, it's fine, just if you get frustrated, maybe try like, a Feather Popular or something. Feather Popular is made in Japan I believe.

Anyway, for the blades. I bought mine from ebay. http://www.ebay.com/itm/130536620984?ss ... 1439.l2649 That's the guy I bought them from. Shipping was super fast to me (in the Northeast.) I'd say it's best to try out different blades, though. Me, I was lucky and got given some blades for free either as gifts or with my purchases of various razors, so I've tried a decent amount. So far, Astra, Lord, and Personna are my favorites. The absolute cheapest place to buy blades is from this seller in Turkey. Bestshave.net . The only problem is they're in Turkey. Their shipping is cheap, like $6-10 depending on what you order, but it's done via economy shipping, so it'll probably take you 2-3 weeks. However, they got the Astras for like $8.50 per 100. So if you're super prepping forever, might be the place to order from. But you can get pretty vastly different shaves out of different blade/razor combos, though. I think that's one reason why DEs lost market share/won't catch on again very quick. One man's perfect razor/blade may be another man's hell, and at the very least there's thousands of razors out, and probably hundreds of brands/types of blades around, too.

You should get the hang of it all, though. Just go slow and be careful. Remember, you're not rubbing the hair off like with a cartridge, you are cutting it. So there's no need to lawnmower over your face like a cartridge.

EDIT:
If you're not sensitive to smells, a good aftershave is nice. A good cheap aftershave is the Family Dollar/Vijon brand Old Spice clone. It's actually closer to the original Old Spice than Old Spice now, because Proctor and Gamble bought Old Spice and changed the formula in the 90s. And yes, one of the nerdy folks on badgerandblade verified this in a lab. Yep. If you can't handle the smell of aftershave, use a little rubbing alcohol instead.

I prefer to use shaving oil. The skin stays nice and lubricated, and you can see what you are doing.

Yeah, I think the Aspie special interest thing may apply to me and razors. To be fair, once your technique gets a bit better, blades will make less of a difference. Razors are sweet, though. I gotta make a rack for all my razors I got coming. Yay razors.

It might help you if you go on youtube and look up double edge razor technique videos. For me, I've been shaving with one for over a year so the whole thing is fairly routine for me by now. Might be good for you to see if your technique and blade angle is good.

As far as the blades, eh, it's your first shave. A lot is technique and just getting used to it. Do try different blades, but technique is important.

I have one safety razor that I absolutely detest. It is one that has been in the family for 40 or 50 years or more.

For some reason, this razor seems to bend the blade in a kind of a bow. It is clearly intentional for the way the razor is made, but I can't imagine why anyone would do that. I think that every time I've tried to shave with it, I cut myself.

All the other safety razors I have (left over through many years of use in the family farmhouse) are just fine.