So I’ve seen ones that’s use safety Razors and others that are just built into a handle. But I think there is more blades it is supposed to be safer? But one blade gets you a better shave, but all the commercials show more blades get better shaves.
How does all of this work?
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So I got sucked into a form of safety razor shaving that was kind of cult-like around this dude who was obsessed and his specific products. He had something like a 20-page rant about razors and it was pretty good to know.
The multi-blade razors use something called “hysteresis”. That’s a fancy word to say they’re designed so the “first” blades sort of lift and pull the hair upwards so the “later” blades can cut it lower than the skin level. When everything works out that leaves you with a very smooth shave. But for a lot of people it also leaves them with lots of ingrown hairs and other uncomfortable problems.
A safety razor doesn’t do that. There are some techniques that sort of pull off the same thing, but if you think about the Physics it’s never going to be able to cut deeper than the skin. So for the people who get ingrown hairs from hysteresis razors this is the best approach.
It’s also a lot harder to cut yourself with the multi-blade razors. You can certainly do some stupid things that’ll cut you but in general the angles they’re set at just makes it really hard to cut yourself unless you try. You don’t have to have a lot of technique with them because of this, they’re great for brain-off shaving. With a safety razor, you still have to pay some attention to the angle and direction of your blade or else you can cause a lot of irritation even if you don’t outright cut yourself.
Which one has the “best” shave is pretty subjective. I’d argue the best shaves I ever had were with that cult-like Hydrolast product and safety razors. But Charles Roberts, the guy who made it, died and took the secret with him. I have tried a lot of other soaps and shaving creams with both a safety razor and a 4-blade razor. I feel like the 4-blade one gives me the best shave if I’m in a hurry and just want to look better for a Zoom meeting and just want to use a canned shave cream, whereas the safety razor is best if I have the time to really focus on making my lather and being careful with my shave. Both do a lot better if I use *2* blades per shave. Hair is tough stuff and the blades dull much faster than you’d think.
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