cross-posted from: https://lemmit.online/post/5774540
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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/ICanStopTheRain on 2025-05-07 03:51:37+00:00.
Original Title: TIL that in 1975, after Gillette introduced a two-blade cartridge razor, Saturday Night Live aired a fake commercial for a three-blade razor. Gillette introduced one in 1998. In 2004, a satirical article in The Onion introduced a fictional five-blade razor. A real five-blade razor came out in 2006.
Depends how you define cheap.
If you want the cheapest expense to shave today, it is going to the nearest drugstore or grocery store and buying a bag of 2 blade plastic razors.
If you want proper shave (which you said you don’t really care) then you buy a decent safety razor (or shavette)for a little bit of money (probably $50 - $200) and buy blades for like 25 cents each for the rest of your life whenever they get dull.
Probably the cheapest $/shave option is to go buy a $50 set of grooming clippers that are self sharpening and rechargeable, take care of them, and use them basically forever. But it is only cheaper if no replacement necessary over time.
The cheapest guaranteed long term option is option 2 above :).
IF YOU ARE VERY HANDY WITH BLADES and you already own some sharpening stones with grits running up to about 12k and don’t have sensitive skin and you already own or can get a strop, you could probably have cheaper overall cost with a traditional straight razor lol.
Edit:
If you are super cheap and time rich, join a church that has small group meetings at other people’s houses (or some other social group that meets at the members’ houses but doesn’t require you to buy anything), excuse yourself to shit, grab their razor from the shower and go to town. You will need to buy a scarf and make it your signature item. Wear it at all times so no one can tell thet you came with stubble and left clean shaven.
My safety razor handle cost me $15, and works great.
Bought a pack of 100 blades for under $20, and that will last me a long ass time (my facial hair growth is slow).
I think a straight razor would only be cheaper at scale, if you shave half the town in one go every few days. They’re fun but they’re obsolete for a reason: time isn’t free and the upkeep is so much work!
I could get you 10 years of shaving with a safety razor for the price of that bag of cheap 2 blades.
Currently use very cheap clippers, a lot less than $50, IIRC it was like £7. They take AA batteries. Not sure how long they will last for but probably cheapest as far as £/shave out of the options listed as its cheap enough that it shouldn’t have to last too long to be better than all the other options so far.
Problem with the more expensive rechargeable ones is that the lithium batteries will eventually die and lithium batteries + charging circuitry adds a fair bit of cost to every device they go in compared to AA batteries that I can buy 1 charger for and use between multiple devices. Downside with the AA trimmer, the rest of it is cheap shit quality and there are no other choices available that I have been able to find. I would probably be fairly happy to buy a slightly better one that used AA batteries.
Looked up the corded ones, apparently they just run 230v directly, which sounds spicy next to water but oh well. Was expecting them to be like 5-12v and then an amusing option could be sticking some AAs together - getting one of those special electrical sockets put into the bathroom isn’t a cost I want to bother with.
Yeah the economics of clippers and batteries vs chargers seems like a project. I have had some really bad luck with cheap clippers getting blades out of alignment and then biting me, so I’ve switched completely to disposable blades. They last a long time, but there is a learning curve to effective use, mostly angle and lather.