Thread: How do you prolong the life of a safety razor blade?

I just started shaving today with a safety razor blade made by Merkur. I also have the Feather brand.

Does anyone know of a method to make these blades last longer. I hear there are several ways to do this. Please share.
Thanks,
July10newbie

i feel as if that is a silly idea.. you are saving tons by not using mach3s or fusions or whatever.. you could seriously shave once with a feather and throw the thing away and still be saving hundreds a year.. don't become one of those freaks that try to use the same blade for 8 months.. enjoy your shave.. you are already way ahead of the game.

Hones for safety razor blades turn up on ebay regularly: Lilycraps are the ones you find most often: GREEN DEPRESSION GLASS RAZOR HONE STROPPER NEAT - eBay (item 200495112658 end time Jul-17-10 13:01:59 PDT)

I have got an Escher in the same shape and a Schwedenstein: you won't find those very often. Worth a try.

Yeah, your DE blades should last between 5-7 shaves...that's about as long as a M3 cartridge lasts. A quarter for a blade instead of $3...big difference. Just toss it and grab a new one.

Originally Posted by vthomlinson

i feel as if that is a silly idea.. you are saving tons by not using mach3s or fusions or whatever.. you could seriously shave once with a feather and throw the thing away and still be saving hundreds a year.. don't become one of those freaks that try to use the same blade for 8 months.. enjoy your shave.. you are already way ahead of the game.

+1 I change DE blades after 3 shaves. Here in NZ I pay 35 cents per blade, the newest cartridges cost about $5.50. With that difference there's no point in trying to prolong the life of a blade!

although i rarely shave with the DE.. and use feather platinums.. i like the idea of buying a pack of the no name blades at the 99¢ store.. from what i can tell just by looking at them at the store.. they are personnas.. which i hear is a good blade..

i'm in love with my artist club.. but the blades are not sold locally and i have to get them from classicshaving.. i have the merkur hd for emergencies and i love the idea of a cheap... (excuse me.. i mean INEXPENSIVE) blade available to me at all times.

they are called disposable for the reason of them being disposed of..

Originally Posted by vthomlinson

i feel as if that is a silly idea.. you are saving tons by not using mach3s or fusions or whatever.. you could seriously shave once with a feather and throw the thing away and still be saving hundreds a year.. don't become one of those freaks that try to use the same blade for 8 months.. enjoy your shave.. you are already way ahead of the game.

I disagree. Resources on this planet are finite and our population is still growing. Waste is never a good idea if it can be avoided. My wife treats her DE razor the same way I treat all of my straights. After use, she shakes water off the razor (I wipe it off of my straight) and dips the head of the razor (with the blade) into a solution of mineral oil in rubbing alcohol (1 to 200 ratio). This evaporates water off the blade and leaves a coating of oil behind.

You may be able to find an old blade stropper in an antique shop. They look kinda like a pencil sharpener, except a rod comes out, you fix the blade in it, and then push it back in; crank it a few times, pull out the rod, and the blade is ready to go.

I've still got my grandfathers, and I'm still using it. It's a nice way to refresh the blades, as I don't use my DE very often.

Vulcan has the answer. You need to scour the antique shops to look for the DE blade stropper that probably goes back to pre-Depression times when blades were relatively expensive and held dear. When I was a kid, 50 and a bit years ago, my friend Ed had one which may have belonged to his grandfather. It was a neat tool - mount the blade and turn the crank. The leather covered wheels would contact the blade, rotate, turning away from the edge, jump back, the blade would turn over and the still turning wheels would come back into contact to strop that side. The spin and flip would continue as long as you turned the crank. And the gizmo was nickel plated. Very nice.

good luck,

Good call! Yes, I've got one of those that I occasionally use for my wife's blades. The one that I've got is a Twinplex. It works quite well. I've checked the edges before and after on a microscope and it really does refresh the edge.