Originally Posted by
cpcohen1945
My opinions, for what they're worth:
a) If you want "quick", the DE wins. No stropping, no oiling, no fussing at all. Rinse it off, and when the blade dulls, put in a new one. And I find that a DE shave goes faster than a straight-razor shave, just because I have more confidence that I won't hurt myself.
b) Only you can decide what "dull" means. But it's going to happen after 2 - 5 shaves, in my experience. You won't get months of use out of a DE blade. [The Feather blades, on the high end of blade prices, cost about $0.50 each -- something like $0.10 per shave.]
The cost comparison is something like this (using Feather's as the DE blade) for 365 shaves per year:
Cost of DE blades: $36
Cost of annual honing
(including postage): $36 (roughly)
If you learn to hone your own razor, your annual honing cost goes down, but you'll have to buy one (or more) hones -- minimum cost about $20 for a barber hone. And you'll have a whole new hobby to deal with!<g>
c) You can buy a first-class DE razor (Edwin Jagger DE89, for example), new, for about $40 (plus postage). You can buy a Gillette Tech for anywhere from $5 (I got lucky!) to $20 at an antique shop. So it won't be horribly expensive to get started in DE shaving.
You'll either like it, or not. It's worth trying out.
Charles