Shaving is too expensive

- There are cheaper alternatives to both the razors the author is showing.

- You don't need to shave every day, especially with 2024 social norms, you choose to.

- Nobody forces you to use a disposable razor. You can use a straight razor. You can use an electric shaver. I use both. But it turns out disposable razors saves your from cuts and learning technics and people want that.

- So you really pay £40/year (which is not huge) for the convenience of a disposable razor, and not even the cheap ones. And the fact you want to shave every day.

That reads like an Ad, except I don't know what OP is selling.

I think that it's also important to consider that it's much easier to cut oneself when using a double edge razor. The multiple blades locked to a specific angle that makes a modern razor safer likely also contributes to its greater cost and plastic waste.

I suspect that it's more also difficult to travel with exposed blades than with modern cartridges; both due to the ease of packing and due to security hassles.

Personally I started shaving using an electric razor, switched to a double edged razor, and then eventually switched to a modern razor.

I switched from cartridges to DE razors a couple of years ago for many of the reasons listed in the article. The article unfairly doesn't list many of the advantages of cartridges, which drove adoption of them over the dominant DE razors of yesteryear.

Cartridge shaving is just easier, faster, and more convenient. Multiple blades and pivoting heads let you absentmindedly drag the razor over your face and get a very good shave.

It takes me probably 25 - 50% longer to shave with a DE blade because I need to make more passes and shave more carefully to avoid cuts. Even so, I cut myself more often than I do with a cartridge. I do it anyway, though, because it's just more mindful and engaging than a cartridge razor, and cheaper. The spent blades can even be recycled in the right container.

Plus, shaving with hot water causes the metal body of the razor head to heat up, so you can get a hot shave, too. Try that with your plastic handle!

Using the old style of double-edged razors would be great. But, I have never managed to use them successfully - there's always a degree of nicks and razor burn. Fans of this style of razor would claim that this will be poor technique and they may even be right, but not everyone can be good at it, apparently. If someone were to invent a razor which can use cheap double-edged blades and not be unpleasant to use I'd certainly buy it. BTW, the old Rolls Razor turns out to give a very good shave and a blade can last a lifetime. Its only disadvantage as far as I can tell is that it takes much longer to shave with (presumably not a problem for those who actually enjoy shaving).

> Nespresso machines, and other coffee pod brands, replace many styles of coffee brewing. Provide much worse coffee, at a higher price but are superficially convenient.

I dont think John quite realizes the quality of the coffee at the average office before such machines were a thing. It was much worse than capsule espresso, and I dislike Nestle as much as anyone else. The same for most people at home, really. And those who already made better coffee have kept doing so anyway. No, while capsule coffee is absurdly wasteful and there's plenty to criticize about it, the one positive thing is that it produces better coffee than what used to be the average.

What he points out is true, but I could never get comfortable shaving with a double blade razor (constant razor burn) whereas the cartridge razors were much easier to use and get a comfortable shave. I wish there was a middle ground where you could have a durable multi-blade razor body and still replace individual blades instead of the whole head.

Edit:

Some of the other examples given are less strong (tea is still pennies a serving when buying in bag form). However electronic bike shifting systems always seem absurd to me. You mean I have to charge my bicycle!?

After I decided to start shaving, I tried a few different razors. The benefit of the cartridge razor is that it requires less skill than the safety razor. The pivoting head puts it at the right angle every time. The downside, however, is the increased cost and packaging. There's also the problem that all the razor cartridges are proprietary and you need a new handle for each different blade set. I didn't like that,so I tried using the older safety razor that I had been using for trimming my neck when I had a beard. I ended up cutting myself a lot, especially around the chin. If that was what safety was, I'd shudder to see what I'd look like with a straight razor! I was still looking for something better, so after I had been brainwashed by YouTube sponsor segments for a few months, I finally caved and bought the Henson Razor in the hope its capabilities matched the advertisement. It's a finely machined safety razor, but the craftsmanship and tolerances aren't what separates it from the regular ones: it's the fact that they've designed it in a way that removes the skill requirements. The cutting angle is built in so you don't have to precisely control the pressure and angle of your cutting strokes. I was half expecting it to be a gimmick but I ended up falling in love with the design. I ended up buying a big sampler of razor blades and I've been enjoying trying all of them. Anyways, actually improving products are out there, you just have to look.

“The double edged razor has become a product that you can only buy on the internet, and which you will only buy if you know that it exists.”

The first seems like a non-problem - I already buy everything but groceries on the Internet.

The second is a publicity issue, if safety razor companies really wanted to, they could advertise the shit out of their products and “cheaper and generates less waste” is going to be a huge selling point tbh.

I only use a disposable razor when travelling (hard to get razor blades through airports security!) and at home I alternate between safety razor and electric razor depending on how much time I have. My first electric razor lasted 20 years, so that’s also a much better investment than tons of stupid expensive Gillette razors/cartridges.

I just reuse the same razor for months on end, sometimes six months. It gets dull, which is actually great. I get far more face cuts from a sharp razor. The dull ones I find are highly effective. I always use premium razors.

I dont use shaving cream either, just some bar soap when I am in the shower. The hot shower seems to make my skin easier to shave.

Shaving with dry skin (with shaving cream) in front of a mirror is a nightmare, and has resulted in far more cuts for me

Brush Plus from Gillette was an incredible product (it's shaving cream in a tube dispenser with a application brush, all-in-one): perfect combination of clings to your face, softens hair, and smooth slick glide. I once met the former product manager for it at a cocktail party and said I loved it, he said "you were the only one." https://www.youtube.com/embed/ByAAI0umHHo

also, on the subject, you all owe it to yourselves to get a few styptic pencils, they are dirt cheap, and stop bleeding from nicks (or pimples) really fast, at the cost of some sting, but even that is bracing. that which does not kill you makes you stronger

I went down the rabbit hole of trying alt razors:

1. Modern disposable multi-blade razors are actually really good. They are very efficient. 2. Safety razors take more time and attention, which could be a pro. 3. I settled on https://proofrazor.com/products/proof-single-blade which is decent and very easy to adapt to if you are used to a regular razor, but definitely less efficient than the Gillette I was using prior. Less plastic was my goal, and my hair grows slow enough that I am not too bothered.

> Subscription services like Hello Fresh, where you can pay well over the odds to have some vegetables delivered to you.

Isn’t this just paying extra to save the time of having to go to the shop? Whether that is worth it or not is going to vary by individual, but I don’t think people are stupid or being taken advantage of if they want to pay someone to save themselves time and effort… that is the foundation of a society.

I agree with most of the examples at the end of the post, except HelloFresh.

I'm a huge fan of HelloFresh, and I think it solves an important problem which is one of waste. Before this service, I would buy odd quantities of ingredients (especially vegetables) that would invariable go bad and get chucked in the bin. The amount of lettuce, mushrooms, avocados, etc I threw away were obscene.

With these kind of services I get a tailored amount of perishable ingredients to a specific recipe on a specific day and great deal of mental energy is saved by outsourcing meal planning to them. I don't think I've ever threw away a single food item since using them. IMO this well worth the extra money.

Not sure how we can talk about cost efficiency without including electric razors.

The shave isn't quite as close (so depending on your personal preference maybe they're not an option) but they beat everything else on convenience, safety, and waste.

Long-term cost is more like $15-20 per year versus $10 per year for old-skool safety razors. But that's close enough to be irrelevant for most people I'd think.

Astounding how many people here refute the premise of the article. For many of these products it seems uncontroversially true, you are indeed paying more and producing more waste (and sometimes receiving a crappier product) for a small convenience. The real point at hand is not the quality or necessity of the product, but the convenience.

Fascinating how people will claim to have logical takes on finance and sustainability and the like, but then the moment you take away convenience, they're like "uhh uhm actually no please I really really need this product because... XYZ". People need to admit that they just like the convenience. You aren't a genius for trying to find some technicality why tea bags are more sustainable than tea leaves. Heck, you don't even need to drink tea in the first place. You just like the convenience and personal enjoyment.

>Well understood mechanical bike shifting transitions to electronic shifting which requires you to pay more and charge your pedal bike (Not sure about this example, as in theory a bike derailleur needs not be a repeated purchased)

Electronic shifters just work tremendously better. I still don't use them.

Edit: No, you usually don't need to change the derailleur. Just chain and sprockets

If you’re supposed to replace modern cartridges every 3-5 shaves, I’ve been doing it wrong. The steel blades in a cartridge easily stay sharp through dozens of shaves. The reason people replace cartridges is because they get clogged with soap and hair. If you rinse them every time, they last significantly longer than single blades.

> Televisions moving from being screens which accept input, to self contained 'smart' devices that require software updates and thus have a shortened useful lifespan.

I just bought a 48" OLED smart TV and never connected it to the internet. It works fine as a monitor. I have another low budged smart TV in the bedroom that started life as a computer monitor and now is online as a TV. What's great about it is that it comes with IPTV - essentially cable TV that is free. Yeah there's commercials and a lot of the content is junk, but it augments YouTube and Emby nicely, (it's also Netflix capable).

All this to say, I have yet to see TVs cross the line into being actively user-hostile. Even my old kindle fire TV (whatever it's called) will grudgingly connect to jellyfin without Internet (does require several extra navigation clicks though)

I bought a Merkur safety razor off eBay and a bulk pack of Derby blades like 6 years ago for about $40 and haven’t spent a dollar since (I suppose I bought shaving cream too, on occasion; $3 for a tube at the supermarket btw).

This is the problem with the human brain. When there are not enough real problems, it invents fake ones!

“You didn’t shave!”

What a stupid problem society invented.

And the true cost isn’t the money, so much as collective man hours wasted.

Down with razors! I just get a buzzer and trim facial hair every now and again.

In the modern day women seem to have superiority socially. So I think men shave to subtly appear like women, and thus receive more social grace.

This behavior is shown in the cuttlefish. The lesser males act like females around the alpha. Then when he’s not looking jump in and mate with the females.

As someone who grew up around hippies, the grunge era, punks, etc ... I find the general public has become very demanding about someone's general appearance to the point the can become subtly hostile towards you.

Be clean shaven, have ironed clothes and clean shoes. If you carry a backpack it better look new and clean and you can't carry around a lot of stuff in it either.

It's almost an authoritarian style of behavior. Its very much a subtle thing too. Pass someone while walking in a downtown area and they will make it known if you look poor.

Keeping up appearances is expensive for sure.

PSA: Disposable razors are: bad for the environment, bad products, overpriced and very expensive over time. Additionally, pressurized foaming shaving cream, like Gillette, is garbage. I bought a $40 metal safety razor handle in 2014~ and then bought a box of 100 single blades for the handle for maybe $30 in 2019~. I am maybe around 1/3 of the way through those blades. At one point I did the math and those two options combined will save me thousands of dollars total. Bottles of real shaving cream work exponentially better than the pressurized foaming bottles and last much, much longer.

Been shaving my bald head for more than 10 years and went through disposable razors, cheap double edge razors, a shavette, an electric razor...

Disposable razors will clog with just one shave, and they're difficult to wash and clean and they left me with irritation. Not even getting started about reusing them. They're the most expensive solution.

A cheap double edge razor will give you cheap results. The ones I got here (for what would be about US$1.5) had slightly skewed corners, so you had to be really careful and moving your hands as straight as possible. And its grip is non existant when your hands are wet, so when you're shaving the back of your head it can be a bit dangerous as the shave handle can slip or spin and nick you. They corrode rather quickly and if yours falls to the ground, that's it.

With a shavette, or a straight razor, you have to be even more careful - the blade is more exposed. I used to grab it near to the blade so I could have more certainty about the angle of it. I find it gave me a bit more irritation that the DE Razor and it's really difficult to near impossible to use it around and behind my ears. Though nobody beats it when shaving long hair - it can't clog.

At last I could afford a Leaf razor - it's just absolutely great in almost every sense and though it's not cheap it was worth every penny - sans the clogging thing, but you can clean it almost as easily as a DE razor. Oh and maybe I wish the spring that moves its head to its original position was a bit more strong. Never have had a cut or nick with it and it gives the cleanest shave I've ever had. Got one for my father (he's going to be 88 - and he still has his head full of hair! I just didn't had luck with the genetic lottery) and he likes it too.

I don't use special soaps for shaving nor oils or anything, just regular soap or thick shampoo and water (mostly because third world issues). Blades here can cost around US$0.35 per box (that little box that has 5 blades) so they're relatively cheap. With the Leaf razor I use the three spots so it's a blade and a half and lasts me for ~8 shaves, head and beard. I prefer them to be really sharp as when they start to lose its sharpness you tend to do some pressure with the razor and that's when most of the nicks and cuts happen.

Shaving is not expensive if you simply clean the blade after using it. Cleaning the blades slows the oxidation process on the edge which is the primary contributor to poor blade performance.

I'd recommend: https://leafshave.com/pages/face-shaving-with-leaf

I'm personally sticking to old Mach 3 blades as I can find them relatively cheap and they work perfectly; shaving easily and safely many times.

Previously (960 comments): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31294153

"Shaving is too expensive and is a demonstrative example of how most consumer products are designed to extract more money from you rather than to improve your life, or the world, or to be in any way remotely good."

Even Larry Ellison cannot afford it.

Would it be possible to stack multiple double-edge blades into a shaver head, slightly offset to each other, to perform like a traditional multi-blade disposable razor?

Or is the thinness of a disposable blade what makes it work well, assuming the blades can flex more to follow the skin profile?

I could see a product where you install 3-4 double edge blades into a the shaver head, and then "flip" the head or blades once the first side runs dull.

I recently switched to a double edged safety razor. It took a week to learn how to use it properly, but I now don’t cut myself anymore than I would with a cartridge razor. The shave is better and the cost is lower. I had wondered if all of the hype and YouTube ads were trying to trick me. But no, it’s great! Just don’t buy one of those overpriced handles people are trying to sell to you.

I love my double edged razor. My two teenage sons, who are just beginning their shaving journey each have their own, and don't seem to have issues with razor burn and nicks. Maybe the "safety" features of disposable razors just let you be a lazy shaver, akin to the way "safety" features in cars can let you be a more distracted or lazy driver?

A while ago I watched the tv adaptation of "the underground railroad" and theres a scene where one of the main characters uses a kind of hair-removing or growth-inhibiting cream to "shave" without using a razor. Anyone know if that's a real thing?

One can make it even cheaper sharpening used double razors. There used to be devices just for that.

I haven’t shaved with razor for 20 years and haven’t been to the barbers in just as long. I bought a battery powered shaver for 15 bucks and use it once a month to shear off beard and hair in ten minutes. Saves time and money.

The plastic cartridges go out of alignment through blade nicks and that sort of thing before they get dull. Running them across old jeans in the opposite direction that they shave will fix it.

I've been happily using a double-edge razor since college (am now 35)

I bought a box of blades about six years ago for $20, I'm just now down to the last few blades and will have to reorder soon.

I don't shave everyday because I get better shaves if I do it like twice a week. I don't mind using a Gillette five blade razor and change out the blade like every other month

Straight Razor with Strope. Buy once and learn to use and to care for it properly and you will have a lifetime of the closest shaves you can get.

I have spent zero money on shaving since I baught an electric shaver years and years ago.

IMO I think that safety razors are superior to the modern cartridge razors in every single way. They are way cheaper and I found that once you learn how to use it properly, it will give you a closer shave than a cartridge razor.

Start hoarding razor blades in preparation for 1984. :)

The plastic part is a good point. Anyone have a recommendation for basically "the 52 pack of BIC single blade disposables with a quick pop in pop out handle"? Specifically I'd like one just as completely shitty in every way (i.e. plain, not contoured, single blade, no pivot, but a decent enough blade) minus I'm fine with the inconvenience of moving the handle to the next one (so as long as it's a quick pop).

I kind of blame consumers for some of this stuff? Good options are still out there. Now, admittedly, I do have a full beard, so I only shave my upper cheeks and lower neck, but I've been making do with a Merkur long-handle double-sided safety razor (the model 23C) for about a decade and a half now, and those blades feel like they last forever. Plus, I bought 100 of the blades for like $10 on Amazon a decade ago, and still have the vast majority of them left. I think this supply might outlive me!

So, yeah, good options are available out there for lots of things, it's just the consumers aren't picking them (or don't do research and thus aren't aware of their existence). And the manufacturers and retailers are understandably interested in pushing the products that make the highest profits for them, just like the consumer should have an interest in getting the best deal for themselves. But I don't know what the alternative would be.

Comeon, dude. People buy disposable cartridges because they are convenient and much easier to use than a straight razor or safety razor. It's not a fucking conspiracy. Same with tea bags (and I mostly drink loose leaf myself).

People are willing to pay money for convenience and safety. This isn't some grand conspiracy, but just how the world works.

Now do an electric razor?