The art of shaving: DE Safety Razors

A mundane chore of shaving is now become an art; not every morning unfortunately because I have moved on from traditional or so called modern shaving tools and techniques to better eco-friendly and luxury shaving products that take time and patience. Every day is a new experience and every experience has a new learning and there is a lot more experienced than said in this post but here is a good insight on the subject.

I can live with a stubble and I can go without a week of shaving my face to get that stubble look. However, I dilly dally my shaves from once a week to 3 times a week. I must admit ever since I was sold to the idea Gillette is the best a man can get, I didn't bother to move to a different shaving experience. This was until I stumbled on a really good set of YouTube influencers in the space of wet shaving who introduced me to the many shaving techniques, products and options out there for such a mundane task. I was stuck with my cartridge razor Mac 3 by Gillette; that came with 3 blade disposable cartridges and offered the convenience of a close and quick shave saving me any nicks and cuts during my shave. As time went by, I found the cost of shaving i.e. replacing the cartridges was becoming a burden. I would ideally pick up a set of 12 cartridges in one go and use them throughout a year - doing the math 1 cartridge a month. Also disposing those cartridges in the bin was so convenient that I did not factor in the waste I was dumping into the environment. These blade cartridges were housed in a plastic case with 3 blades parallelly stacked on top of each other. They also offered a lubricating stick with the blade and the razor handle had a swiveled head that could flex based on the contoure of your face giving you less effort in adjusting your grip while shaving.

When I actually started with wet shaving like all the professionals I got influenced by on YouTube; the first thing I replaced was the cartridge razor. It was good bye to the Mac 3 razor by Gillette and hello to a DE razor from so many brands and manufacturers. DE stands for double edge and the reason it's called that is because it houses a single blade with both the edges that are sharpened to give you that shave. There are 2 types of DE razors, they also use the term DE safety razor - open comb and closed comb. Apparently, the open comb is for a thick and coarse stubble or for a really thick beard. The closed comb is for the daily/ weekly shaver who needs to get a stubble off. The open comb razor has teeth/ comb like finish on the bottom of the blade head. Where as the closed comb has a safety bar. Now those are 2 main variants of the DE safety razors but in them you get different types too, long handle, short handle, 2/3 piece etc. These are different types or more variants that make up the razor and help one decide on which type they would like to use. I went for the butterfly head DE safety razor, it is easier to clean and load the blade in. By the way the blades are really cheap and you do get a lot of brands that manufacture them; word of caution is handle with care or you will end up cutting yourself or someone can be hurt when you dispose of them - so don't dispose them directly to the bin. I save all the used blades in a box and when disposing them I tape the lid with a blade on the outsidewith a used blade so that it is understood that the box contains sharp blades and one needs to be careful.

I know a lot of terms have been used in the post assuming that you are familiar with them, trust me if I started explaining each one I could have a book titled the art of shaving. If you enjoy this mundane task, let me know in the comments - what kind of razor do you use and why?

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