While you were waiting- I retro shave

I had to shave!

I gave my Aussieshave.com handle and remaining blades to my brother to have a try (and I will post his comments about them at some stage). But that left me without a "monthly blade" to try while I waited to select my next supplier. What to do? What to do?

Obviously, I turned to my old trusty Schick blade. It did me well for about a week but then I noticed it was scratching and pulling on my face. This was important change from my previous shaving behaviour- before I started this blog, I would have used this blade for another couple of weeks, thinking it was my technique or something. Not now. Nope. Stopped using that blade the day it started to "hurt" (and I use that term very loosely).

The problem was that I did not have any new cartridges for the Schick and with my ongoing monthly subscription plans, I certainly wasn't going to trot down to the shops and spend a bazillion dollars on new blades for it. So, I searched through my bathroom and found my old Gillette Sensor Excel. Wow. It seems so long since I used this.

According to the Gillette website, "Introduced in 1990, Gillette Sensor was the first razor with twin blades individually mounted on highly responsive springs". Try as I might, I cannot see any "springs". It was also a bit radical back then because it had a lubricating strip. Now, more than 20 years after it was introduced, it seems you cannot buy the Sensor Excel handle anymore, although you can still buy the twin blade replacement cartridges. According to their website, the Sensor is not available any more (even the triple blade! Sad days!) While the new Sensor is a triple blade- the lack of availability of this twin blade shows you just how old this set-up of mine is.

I seem to remember that it took about 4 shaves for the Sensor to actually start working effectively. This was because of the excessive lubrication that melted off the strip for the first couple of shaves- far more lubrication ooze than any other razor strip I had experienced. So, I look forward to reporting back to you about how the interim twin-blade experience goes….