Shaving

I've been shaving daily (well, almost daily...call it 5-6 days a week) for many years now, and since they sent me a razor when I turned 18, I have always used the Gillette Mach 3 cartridges. A couple days ago, I realized I needed to buy some new cartridges. So I go to the store, and just like every other time, I shake my head at the obscene price of the replacement cartridges. $18 for 5 cartridges. Just disgusting.

I bought some, but I'm going to be bringing them back to the store soon. I decided to make the switch to wet shaving with a double edge (DE) safety razor. An initial investment of about $60 including the razor, a stand and a badger brush, along with about $40 in creams and blades (starter pack of various types of blades, pre-shave lotion and shaving cream) and I'll be set for a long time. All indications are that the shaving cream will last much longer than the canned stuff I've been buying (which I've never liked anyway) and once I find a blade that works for me, a pack of 100 blades will be around $10.

The package on the Gillette cartridges I bought claims each one should last about a month. Shaving every day, that's about $0.12 per shave. In my experience they last about half that long before the razors start to dull and give a "less than optimum" result. So lets say about $0.20 per shave. A good DE blade should give about 5-7 shaves, and at around $10 for 100 DE blades, will be way cheaper, almost 10 times cheaper. Plus, the razor handle should last me the rest of my life, and looks awesome.