gillette safety razor

gillette safety razor as everyone knows

08/14/2006

I’ve been using Gillette safety razors ever since I started shaving. As the people who invented the safety razor and marketed it for the first time back in 1901, they do seem to know a little something about shaving razors and shaving products.

What you are about to read is the culmination of information from many different places and resources. I hope you enjoy it.

The Gillette safety razor I’m using these days is their Mach 3 razor. It’s a little dated I supposed, and there’s newer models out there like the Fusion and whatnot but I’m still very happy with my Mach 3. Three blades is enough in my opinion, and I think some of the newer Gillette safety razors are getting a little carried away. The fusion has five blades on one side, then and an additional single blade on the other. The single blade idea is a nice touch, as you can get into those tight spaces better as an illustration.

The only problem with Gillette safety razors is that their all pretty expensive. The Gillette safety razors themselves aren’t usually too much money, but the additional replacement blades cost a small fortune. If you are like me and have a thick beard, you can easily go through a lot of blades every month, so the costs add up put another way.

A few years ago I thought I could cut down overheard expense costs a little by looking into some alternatives to the Gillette safety razor lineup. First of all, there aren’t that many alternatives that aren’t actually owned by Gillette. Gillette is a monster of a company, owning a lot of other companies and pretty much ruling the safety razor market. I suppose this is only fair since they invented the safety razor, but they have a near monopoly on quality shaving products under certain circumstances.

Anyway, I wound up buying a bag of cheap throw away razors made by some generic and obscure company whose name I cannot even recall now but I’m pretty sure they weren’t owned by Gillette. While the blades were considerably cheaper, never in my life had shaving been more painful and difficult. A solid, well made safety razor is worth the extra money; after a week of using the cheap ones I was covered in nicks and cuts for now.

So even though they seem to be a little pricey, I’m pretty much a loyal fan of Gillette safety razors. I’ll probably make the plunge and try their new Fusion razor as soon as I run out of Mach 3 blades to illustrate this.