Razor Reviews

After 23 years of wet shaving, restoring old safety razors, and testing more than 300 razor-and-blade combinations, I can answer this one quickly: everyone recommends different blades because blades do not perform the same on every face, in every razor, or under every hand. A Feather can feel surgical in one razor and punishing in…

After 23 years of wet shaving, restoring old Gillettes on the bench, and testing more blades than most men will ever finish in a lifetime, my short answer is this: yes, platinum-coated blades often shave better, but not because platinum is magical. They usually feel smoother because the coating reduces drag, helps protect the edge,…

Yes, a razor blade can rust. I have pulled enough old blades and safety razors apart to tell you that steel does not care whether it came from a shave den or a machine shop. Give bare steel moisture, a little neglect, and time, and rust will start. The good news is that not every…

I get this question a lot from men who switch to safety razors and suddenly realize they are going through a small pile of very sharp steel. The short answer is yes, you can sometimes recycle used razor blades, but not by tossing them loose into your curbside bin. In most places, that is the…

After 23 years of wet shaving, restoring old Gillettes on my bench, and testing more than 300 razor and blade pairings, I can answer this one quickly: if you have a coarse beard, the best razor blade is usually Feather Hi-Stainless. It is the sharpest widely available double edge blade I trust, and sharpness matters…

I learned this lesson the hard way with my grandfather’s old razor: the blade was the same, but the shave was not. After 23 years of wet shaving and testing more than 300 razors, I can tell you the short answer is yes, the same double edge blade can feel dramatically different from one razor…

I?ve been wet shaving for 23 years, and the short answer is yes: you can sometimes stretch the life of a double edge blade, but you usually can?t truly ?sharpen? it back to factory performance at home. My grandfather taught me to respect a razor edge, and after testing more than 300 razors and a…

I have shaved with both, honed old carbon blades for display, cleaned rust out of vintage blade banks, and restored enough old safety razors to tell you the short answer without dancing around it: carbon steel razor blades are not broadly better than stainless steel blades for most modern shavers. They can feel a touch…

I have been shaving with and restoring straight razors for more than two decades, and the short answer is this: good straight razor care is mostly about getting the blade clean, getting it dry all the way to the pivot, and storing it where moisture cannot sit on steel. Most razors are not ruined by…

I have been wet shaving long enough to know that the phrase ?this blade is sharper? is usually true, but not always in the way people mean it. Some blades feel sharper on the first pass because the edge is ground thinner, coated slicker, or paired with a razor that presents more of that edge…