Thread: My advice for DE newbies; blades

I am relatively new to DE myself (3/25/14). I am not near as experienced as most on this forum. After doing this 'hobby' for a year now, I would like to share what made the largest difference for me.

I have tried astra, crystal, and derby blades, only. this is my only experience with different blades....and they are different.

However, i find that besides upgrading equipment and using a nice cream/soap, the number one thing i have done that completely eliminated burns, weepers, nicks, etc. is changing blades EACH DAY. Let me say that squeezing every ounce from a blade is not for beginners. If you are starting in the hobby, and you have a thick beard, just change the blades each day. At first, you will burn, you will nick, etc. is it your technique or is it a dull blade? get rid of that question and perfect your technique with a new blade. then and only then, should you experiment with blades and the # of shaves per blade. you never know how far to take a blade until you took it too far, especially for beginners. this=burn.

Step back and look at it...these things are between $0.10 and $0.25 each, for the most part.
that is in the ballpark of $1/week.

squeezing days out of blades is akin to trying to split a slice of bread to make the loaf last longer. a blade costs about the same as a slice of bread.

In my opinion, life is too short to sacrifice a great shave for an extra day out of a $0.10 blade.

Maybe this is due to my poor technique....and i am sure it is. Either way.....For me, with this hobby, I get great satisfaction from a great shave that i never did before....it starts my day off in a nice way.