How To Make A Razor Blade Last Forever

Wanna know how to never have to buy another razor blade? No, seriously.

First, watch this:

Ha ha, this one cracks me up coz you never REALLY know if the dude’s naked or not.

BUT ANYWAY.

(and in case the vid is broken, for whatever reason), the basic gist is this:

  1. When your razor starts to pull at your hair, or feel blunt?
  2. Run it AGAINST the grain, UP your arm 10 or so times (ie, NOT shaving your arm, the other direction). Do this on the hairless, inside part of your arm for maximum effectiveness

This will sharpen the blade, indefinitely.

How does this work? Well, know how ye olde timey barbers would use a leather strop to sharpen a cut throat razor?

Well, what’s leather? It’s processed animal skin, right? So, you’re basically just using your arm as a strop.

If you have a strop, feel free to use that instead, of course – but be warned, a strop is likely to be rougher than your arm (which while skin, isn’t processed), so it MAY wear the blades faster. Razor blades these days are super fine, unlike cut throat razors, which are made of much heavier and softer metal.

Why this works is, when we use a blade, we tear off little bits of metal, leaving slight jags and nicks. These eventually start to pull against our hair and voila, blunt blades.

However, by running the blade BACKWARDS, we smooth all those nicks and jags out, thus re-sharpening the blade.

Oh, some other useful tips. The key to all these is – you want to keep the blade DRY between uses, otherwise the blade will rust and you’ll have to throw it out.

  1. When you’re using it, whack the head of the razor (blade size down, but without hitting the actual blades) against the wall of a shower, or sink, to loosen any hair that’s gummed up in it
  2. Run brisk water through it to free any more hair. Repeat steps 1 and 2 until it’s completely clear and clean. Reason? Any hair that’s left in there will hold water, which will rust the blade
  3. Finally, whack the razor a few times against a towel to shake any water droplets out of it
  4. Store it somewhere dry (ie, NOT in the shower)

I’ve heard recommendations to keep your blade in oil, but that seems like an awful lot of work to me.

So, the guy above says he’s used the same blade for ten months (at the time the vid was taken). But does it REALLY work?

Put it this way.

I used to have to change my blade EVERY week. If I started on a Monday, by the following Tue/Wed, I’d be ripping my face open. I have a combination of soft skin and a tough beard. Yay me. ANYWAY. Point is, my beard would blunt blades super quickly, and my skin would notice when they were blunt.

So, that’s 52 blades a year, every year.

Since I started doing this every day?

I’ve had the same blade for four, maybe five years. I honestly don’t remember, just that I’ve had it since 4 countries ago.

Yes, this technique works. Amazingly well.

So, go forth! Shave to your heart’s content and never pay the razor companies another cent!

Ps. the poetry is also free.

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August 24th, 2014 | Bugs |
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