Harry’s Will Be Sold to Owner of Schick for $1.37B

Yeah, but you can buy a box of 100 DE blades for, like, $15. (Seriously: see https://www.westcoastshaving.com/collections/bulk-de-safety-...) So even if you change the blade every other shave, it still comes out cheaper.

This is a benefit of standardization: DE blades all have a common form factor, so any handle can use any blade. That means every DE blade maker is competing with all the others, which drives prices down. Cartridges on the other hand are all proprietary to the vendor that made the handle they fit with, so there's much less downward pressure on the pricing.

> if that isn't a strong indictment of saving pennies, I don't know what is.

The thing about a DE blade versus a cartridge is that with a DE the range of possible outcomes is much wider than it is with a cartridge. A DE blade can produce shaves ranging from "ow, I cut myself!" to "smooth as a baby's bottom", depending on the technique you apply to it. A cartridge won't ever cut you, but it'll also never give you as close a shave as you can get with a well-wielded DE blade; it provides a consistently mediocre shave every time.

To put this in terms HN readers will appreciate, arguments about DE versus cartridge tend to be kind of like arguments about vim/emacs versus IDEs. Vim and emacs users love to talk about all the crazy things they can do with their editor that no IDE can match, but they rarely talk about the learning curve they had to climb to reach that level of technique. Whereas IDEs tend to be less elegant, but by hewing more closely to modern desktop interface standards they let their users reach an acceptable level of productivity faster. Those IDE users will never reach the heights of wizardry that are possible with vim or emacs, but since very few programmers are true wizards anyway that doesn't really matter much to everyone else. Like the cartridge razor, the IDE is "good enough."

I feel like that some people (myself included at times) just like to develop skills with a steep learning curve regardless of how much benefit it actually incurs.

No, it's not. If anything there is a belief that DE blades actually stay sharp and last longer than cartridge blades. I don't know if there's any evidence to that, but the effect is that many DE shavers keep their blades for a number of shaves. I suspect that some are more inclined to swap blades frequently because the blades are so (comparatively) cheap.

A $30 Wahl Peanut with a few guides, and 5-10 less minutes wasted in the morning per trim... and you get a beard!

For me, after learning with a shavette straight razor, the DE is easy mode for when I have no time.

The majority of that comes from the handle, not the blades. You can buy 100/500 pack of blades for dirt cheap

I tend to just keep my facial hair trimmed. I try not to use a blade because it irritates my neck. I do Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, so I'm sure the grappling contributes to the irritation, which is partially why I've all but given up on shaving with any form of blade.

That said, I thin the price has gone up since they came out. Saw 12 refills for $25.99 at Target and I could swear they were lots cheaper when I first tried them.

I've used a DE with these https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0077LAJT2, https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B014HJKZ2C, and https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000NL0T1G. Amazon tells me the last time I bought them was almost 2 years ago. I shave about every week and a half, with a new blade each time, and I'm just about 2/3 through this one $8 box.

It takes some getting used to, but I haven't nicked myself seriously in a year or two. Seriously worth trying it out if you haven't already.

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2702518

https://www.amazon.com/Merkur-Long-Handled-Safety-Razor/dp/B...

I turned a simple aluminum handle when I switched to a DE safety razor, because I had the same reaction to what was available. Matched the thread of the one I purchased, turned the handle a bit longer and fatter, and then knurled the lower 3/4ths of it.

It's a very easy and fun lathe project with very few critical dimensions.

> It's sometimes pointed out that (in the past, at least, cannot confirm this is still true) Dollar Shave Co. is just reselling handles and blades made by a company called Dorco. While true, it turns out that buying the DSC-branded gear is actually cheaper in most cases than buying it straight from Dorco, unless you buy a lot at a time.

I can't talk too much about straight razors, I think they're a bit dangerous without a good amount of practice.

Safety razors are fine for below jawline shaving, though you will probably nick yourself a bit until used to it. I use a Merkur 25C and have a beard and I think it's excellent. Rarely nick myself. Could never use electrics or modern disposables effectively, they tended to load up and clog badly.

At first you will be slow, as worried about cutting yourself. You probably won’t actually cut yourself until you relax about it after while...

Overall, I still feel that a beard is much less hassle. Unlike a clean shave, I have to go a pretty long time without a trim for my beard to really become "unsightly".

This. I guess I can understand some people prefer how they look shaven, but I can't understand spending so much time and money to avoid looking how you really look.

Teenagers have higher risk for ingrown hairs because they have acne-bumped faces, giving a hair a target to grow into.

Is this because “alcohol dries out your skin and makes you look older”?

Yes, I agree. It would require - at least - adding a metal/lead core to the handle to give it some heft.

Now mechanical watches are popular again -- but a cheap mechanical watch manufactured today keeps far better time than a cheap one you could buy in the 1970s. This leads people who have only experienced modern mechanical watches to wonder why they ever went out of style.

Similarly, the market for safety razors today is far different than it was when cartridge razors were introduced. Back in the 1960s consumers could get their hands on just a few kinds of razors and blades, and the blades were not generally as good as the blades available today. There are simply far more, and far better, safety razors and blades available today than there ever were before.

Similar observations can be made about the fountain pen market.

The marketing for disposable systems also misleads people as to the price. Some of the people I've talked into trying safety razors were previously under the impression that safety razors were incredibly expensive, something like $200 or something nuts like that, and they had no interest in making that sort of investment. But in reality the first time you buy a safety razor and blades, you'll be spending less money than you'd spend for a new pack of cartridges. I got my razor for less than $10. It's stainless steel, I've had it for about 10 years without a spec of rust. Perfectly serviceable and cheaper than even a pack of totally disposable bic razors you find at gas stations (I used those once during a vacation; boy was that awful...)

[1]I can picture old western movies, ala High Plains Drifter, with grizzled characters cleaning up before/after some event.

What’s kept me away from safety/straight razors are: Learning/practice. I already nick myself with a regular shaving blade.

Time: while meditative, I am in a rush sometimes and don’t want to spend twenty minutes with lather/shaving (probably an exaggeration of time).

Choices: it seems too much like a hobby, where I can’t tell what a good “starter” is.

Apologies for formatting, this is phone posting.

Now that you mentioned it though, and especially what temp1831 said ($5 for a year's shave), it just got my attention!