Thread: Rinsing the razor

To rinse the blade I just used hot water from the tap.

To wipe the blade between passes or at the end of the shave, I carefully use a hand towel and grip around the spine to wipe both sides at once. Do not go near the edge with the towel else you'll run the risk of ruining the edge.

To dry the edge/bevel I dry my hands on the towel and run my thumb and forefinger along the blade and that way ensures Im doing the edge any harm.

Hope this helps.

As for the OP's comment about cold water preserving the edge, I've heard the same thing, and back when I was shaving in the shower with an M3 (so I didn't really have to pay attention), I thought about why that might be.

Certainly 212° isn't enough to harm the steel... much. The common wisdom is that you don't put kitchen knives in a dishwasher because it may harm the temper; the best explanation I found on this said something about repeated heating and cooling cycles. Any metallurgists have any thoughts on this aspect? Barring any contradictory science, I'm supposing that ten seconds (maximum) in even boiling water isn't really enough to draw out the temper of a razor. Besides, one uses a cartridge razor for, what, a week? Then it gets tossed and the user spends $1.50 for another cartridge. So losing temper isn't a reasonable explanation.

So it must be something to do with the actual steel. Again, I'm not a physicist, but I remembered that metal expands with heat and contracts with cold; I don't know about the physics of edge fins, but perhaps the reference was just to the idea that cold steel can form a sharper edge with equal honing.

I imagine that the skin reaction to a cold blade (especially under all that nice, warm lather with proven benefits) would outweigh the benefit of a sharper edge. So no need to bring in a bowl of ice water.

Oh, look. I'm getting pedantic.

-S.

The expansion of a straight razor edge due to hot tap water is not a practical shave quality factor. Even if it was, I'd refuse to believe it!