Thread: Sterilizing "New to Me" razors

I use hydrogen peroxide to sanitize mine.

I use an alcohol based hand steriliser, the type they use in hospitals. I think it is mostly alcohol, so i just use it on the blade, nowhere near the scales.
I was wondering if it is possible to autoclave the wapienica razors, which are all steel. I have an 18 litre pressure cooker left over from various mycology serilisations i was doing last year, so i guess you could probably use it for an all steel razor. Just not sure if it would create tarnish on the blade at all as when i sterilised a scalpel blade it went black probably due to some aluminium foil i had in there on top of a jar.
Nick

Can I ask why anyone would want to autoclave a razor? Autoclaves are for use on heat resistant material only. What do you think you're dealing with here? Ebola? Use Milton fluid - it's essentially a 2% bleach solution used for baby's bottles and will kill anything likely to be anywhere near a blade stone dead. If it doesn't kill what's on the blade then you my friend are living somewhere mighty dangerous! Seriously - what is this obsession with sterility? Just be careful and don't cut yourself in the first place!

Blueprinciple - In case you missed it, bleach solution, even a 0.5% solution will attack metal blades and pins. Autoclaves are not really that hot, only about 250-270 deg F. Some, but not all, scale materials can probably handle that. An autoclave is actually the only way to sterilize a razor, the other methods discussed only disinfect. The biggest concerns are hepatitis B and C. I'm personally not worried about B since I have been vacinated.

Originally Posted by fccexpert

Blueprinciple - In case you missed it, bleach solution, even a 0.5% solution will attack metal blades and pins. Autoclaves are not really that hot, only about 250-270 deg F. Some, but not all, scale materials can probably handle that. An autoclave is actually the only way to sterilize a razor, the other methods discussed only disinfect. The biggest concerns are hepatitis B and C. I'm personally not worried about B since I have been vacinated.

Barbicide is approved by health departments for hep b&c and hiv

Barbicide is certainly an adequate disinfectant, but it contains alcohol, which may attack celluloid scales.

Originally Posted by fccexpert

Barbicide is certainly an adequate disinfectant, but it contains alcohol, which may attack celluloid scales.

Have a small container with a lid that you can hang the blades in with the scales on the outside. That way you can sterilize the balde without touching the scales.

Scientists agree that a fragile virus such as HIV does not survive well in the environment but the jury is still out on exactly how long it can survive outside of a host.

studies have shown that drying of HIV-infected human blood or other body fluids reduces the theoretical risk of environmental transmission by 90 to 99 percent within several hours.

This is according to Avert an international aids charity.http://www.avert.org/faq1.htm#q22

Hours? What happened to seconds and minutes?

variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease or mad cow has proven to be resistant to sterilization and might be spread via the reuse of surgical instruments http://www.sciencedaily.com


Read more, ask more, and learn more. Do as much as you can to separate the wheat from the chaff. Then make an educated choice, decision and hopefully not a mistake.

Where does one buy barbicide? It is drugstore stuff, or specialty store, or online from a barber supply store? I've never seen it for sale anywhere ... although I've never been looking before.

BTW, the Feather AC plastic handle is claimed by Feather (on the Classicshaving website) to be up to the rigours of the autoclave. Zellers was out of autoclaves the last time I was there, so I can't say from personal experience. ...

How about this: https://securewsch02.websitecomplete...d.asp?prod=267

Inside a closed container. After washing carefully with soap and water.

Just an idea, J.

*edit: Just saw the subject was "sterilizing". This doesn't sterilize. Not a bad idea to quarantine those new razors for a while though, LOL.