Several years back, I got really tired of buying way too expensive Gillette razor blades, $35 for 8 cartridges or $4.38 per blade. The actual razor that you can buy from Gillette is cheap, $11.50 or less. This is of course the razor, razor blade model of pricing.
I got really sick of it so I flipped the model and I went and bought a $30 razor (the one pictured above) and nice razor blades that cost $0.32 each or 30 blades for $9.00. Yup, $0.32 per old school razor blade versus $4.38 per Gillette blade. That's kind of a big difference.
There is slightly more work since I need to use shave soap, 3 for $14. You can get away with not using shaving cream/soap with a Gillette razor/cartridge. Shaving cream or gel are fine too but shave soap is cheaper and lasts a really long time. With shave soap, I can rock out with a $12 badger shave brush to lather up the soap which is kind of a pleasant experience making it and applying the lather to my face. There's some cost savings down the road here but it's negligible.
I finish up my shave with a splash of Osage Rub, it's inexpensive and makes our bathroom smell like a barbershop for a hot second. I do get nicked sometimes and I'll use a styptic pencil to fix it when that happens.
So finally tally:
- before
- $11.50 for razor, $4.38 per cartridge
- after
- $30 for razor, $0.32 per blade
All those commercials for Dollar Shave Club had been bugging me. I don't get why you need to join a club to buy expensive razor blades at a slight discount. Get a decent razor and buy the old school razor blades for $0.32 and you won't need to join a club to shave your face. I've already been priced gouged by Gillette for over 20 years, I don't need to be slightly less gouged by some startup.
End rant.