Why The Switch?

Why The Switch?

Why The Switch?

As you research straight razors, safety razors, barbershop shavettes, and the like. You may be asking yourself why you are even bothering going through the trouble of changing your shaving method/routine. First, let’s explain exactly why shaving has changed over the years. Although shaving has changed it hasn’t evolved, we argue it has only regressed. Why is that? Money. Gillette, Schick, even harry’s are only after money and want to keep you coming back to them to waste your hard-earned money. That’s why every cartridge is proprietary and why they are constantly developing new ones. Gillette made the brilliant realization that there was more money to be made by making a product that was meant to be thrown away after so many uses, and thus cartridge razors were slowly introduced to the world. Multiple blades don’t mean a better shave, in fact. Science proves that it is much more harmful. Five times more blades running along your face means five times more irritation and that much more of a risk for ingrown hair. The increase in price is really disgusting and we want to explain how exactly they are milking your wallet over the long run.

Price

Gillette - This is one of the most common cartridge razors available on the market.




 

The cost for a 12 pack of cartridges is $43.99, that’s about 3.67 per cartridge.

But how long do they last? From research, we find that their cartridges last a week until they start to tug and become irritable.

Shark Blades -  These are are a very reliable, sharp brand of double-edged razor blades. And they sell a 100 pack of blades for about 7 dollars. They aren’t hard to find either!

 

This was straight from amazon. That comes out to $0.07 per blade. But how long do these blades last? About a week. 700 weeks of shaves for less than 10 dollars. Personally, I can’t remember the last time I bought blades! And you know what makes it even sweeter? They work with any safety razor. You don’t have to worry about your model becoming obsolete, the same safety razor will last your lifetime and more. You could even hand it down to your children. To take it a step further, you could shave with a straight razor. A blade you never have to replace. All you need is a strop to realign the blade every couple of shaving sessions. 

Performance

The biggest “culprit” in shaving fraud is the multi-blade theory. Big razor brands claim that this is a step forward to shaving with their “revolutionary” shave technology. When it doesn’t make much sense. The common razor cartridge has multiple blades extremely close to one another. This prevents the razor from cleanly cutting each hair in a single pass. As the blades pass the skin it is extremely easy to tug a stray hair. The close tolerances also make it extremely easy to clog up with hair. The single blade of a straight or safety razor makes this issue almost non-existent to the user.
Another big issue that seems to be brushed over is ingrown hair. Ingrown hairs are caused when you shave with a dull blade and hairs are cut below the surface. Because almost all the work of a cartridge razor is done by the lead blade, it is very easy to nick those hairs below the surface and cause irritation and ingrown hair. More blades, more problems. 

One of our mission statements is putting the man back in humanity. Life is more complicated than ever before. Technology has advanced further than our ancestors could imagine. But some things don’t need to be more complicated or require instructions to perform. Some problems didn’t need solving. We believe shaving is one of them.
Thank you so much for reading.
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