Shave like a man!

Do you use a plastic razor? One of the ridiculous multi-bladed monstrosities, even with, G-d forbid, a battery? Then I invite you to learn to shave ‘like a man’ - well at least like a 20th century man. When my grandma died last November, I had to go through all her stuff. One thing I found was my grandpa’s 1959 Gillette Flare Tip Superspeed. We were using it as decor on the bathroom shelf, when I ran out of my 2 year Costco supply of Gillette Custom Deluxe twin disposables. A fairly high-grade pivoting head model, I had been pretty pleased with them. I duly went to Costco to restock. Problem was, all they had were ridiculous and much more expensive multi-bladed options. A visit to a “$ Store”, and I found cheap, but very questionable disposables, made in Mexico. I thought about all of the plastic. Finally, I had the flash - why not try Grandpa’s razor? How bad could it be? In the early 70s, I was often dropped off to spend the night with my grandparents, and I remember playing with this razor as a toddler - pretending it was a spaceship, fascinated by the Gillette ‘twist to open’ mechanism. By this time most people through the influence of advertising had switched to the Trac II and if you grew up in the 70s you remember the TV ads with the “twin blades” No, gramps never left a blade in the razor - at least not when I was coming over. When I started shaving, I bought a nice Atra handle and bought and/or lifted packs of cartridges. Through the years, I never even considered switching from twin blades, so complete was my childhood conditioning. Like a lot of people nowadays, I have had to find new and/or old ways to save money. So I bought a 10-pack of classic, double edged razor blades at the drugstore (made in SK) for a fraction of the cost of ANY other available option. The first shave with the Superspeed was revelatory. I was nervous about getting hacked up so was very cautious. Even so, the Superspeeds are considered mild by the cognoscenti. Through caution and dumb luck, I ended up with the best shave I had had up to that point, even using “Edge” canned goo. Ironically, the DE razor blade is one of the first examples of disposable consumerism - and yet represents the greatest shaving value today. WWI was the deathknell of the straight razor, and the “safety razors” with disposable blades became popular. The fact of matter is, if price is important to you, then you should at least try going DE; Excellent blades from Turkey, India and Egypt are available for less than 10 cents each delivered. At the very least, you should use a brush and proper soap. Of course, if you want to really lower your footprint, you can go with a 'ghetto' straight razor setup.