The Leaf Thorn Razor Made Me Notice I’ve Been Shaving Flawed My Entire Life

It’s harmful to have epiphanies whereas shaving. However on this case it was unavoidable: My epiphany was about shaving.

For the previous few weeks, my rest room routine has been just a little like George Clooney in O Brother, The place Artwork Thou?, minus the smelly Dapper Dan. I’ve been lathering shave cleaning soap with a brush and bowl, and shaving with an old style single-blade, single-edge, unmedicated security razor.

Particularly, I’m utilizing the Leaf Thorn—a trendy and well-marketed and self-avowedly “aggressive” single-edge razor whose home blades are so wafer-thin the corporate imprints them with the phrases “I am not plastic.” The much less aggressive Leaf Single Edge Razor known as the Twig, and it is meant to be extra mild than the Thorn. It’s all very cute.

However what I discovered, after weeks of baby-smooth shaves with the Thorn, is that I’ve been doing shaving incorrect.

Keep Sharp

The epiphany was one thing that appears apparent at first: One of the best and most secure blade is at all times the sharp one. The greatest kitchen knife is the one you retain sharp. The identical goes for scissors, and for the blades you place by yourself face. The Leaf’s low-tech, easy single-blade was chopping as intently and properly as any fancy cartridge blade setup I’ve tried in the marketplace. The explanation was principally that it was nonetheless sharp.

As a result of right here’s the factor: It doesn’t matter for those who’ve bought a 15-layer stacked blade cartridge with whistles, lights, and responsive AI. Uninteresting blades are terrible, and all blades get boring with use. And when blades get boring, they begin to yank on my hair as a substitute of chopping it, irritate my pores and skin into aggravation, and trigger little nicks when the pores and skin pinches up. Alas, the trendy cartridge-based shaving blades that dominate the grocery store are costly and infrequently inconvenient to always change: round $30 or $40 for a pack of 10.

The worth provides up. Time journal knew this sport already in 1927: “As everyone knows, safety razor manufacturers derive the bulk of their profit, not from razors, but from the replaceable blades.”‘ The previous enterprise faculty yarn that King Camp Gillette devised a get-rich scheme to lose cash on security razor handles to generate income on the blades is a little bit of a fantasy, however the enterprise logic of shaving stays inexorable: The cash’s within the blades.

So I resist swapping out for too lengthy. After which pay the worth. At the same time as Gillette and different razor makers promote that their blade cartridges are good for weeks’ price of shaves, my very own coarse, evil, steel-clad stubble tends to eat by way of a cartridge an entire lot earlier than I need to change it. So both I maintain paying blade installments, or pay my tax within the type of a no good, very unhealthy shave.

The Security Dance

The Leaf gives an opposing idea of shaving: The cash’s within the deal with. The blades are as a substitute low-cost, small, and ubiquitous. The Thorn is at coronary heart an old style security razor. It’s appropriate with just about any good old style security blade, whether or not the traditional Astra Platinum (you’ll must snap the double edge in half) or Leaf’s personal blades. Packs of 100 are lower than a $20 invoice.