In a previous post I wrote about my wife getting me several old fashioned razors to play around with due to my frustration with the state of modern disposable razors well now that I’ve had some time to work with them I thought I would give a little review on each. I’ll start with the parker 22R safety razor as it’s been the easiest to adapt to and has drawn the least amount of blood.
To start off with this razor just looks really nice. It has a very dark tone with good dimensions and a nice shine to it. The shine actually made it difficult to photograph well. One of the most interesting aspects of this razor is it’s weight. At a hefty 3 oz it is twice the weight of my Gillette fusion (at 1.4 oz). The handle is around 4″ long which gives you more to hold on to for maneuvering. It feels like your holding a solid well made tool as opposed to a cheap piece of plastic (not that the fusion razors are remotely cheap).
The razor is a twist butterfly type. This means that as you twist the handle the top opens up to give you access to the blade, then you just twist it again to close the compartment. The twisting mechanism on the 22R feels very well designed. It has a clean turn and a catch on either side of the opening and closing. The compartment is spacious so when installing and removing blades it doesn’t feel cramped. All in all easy to understand and easy to get started with.
As for additional investment in the form of blades this razor again is very affordable. My wife picked up the Shark super stainless blades in a 100 pack for an incredibly reasonable cost. You can find them on amazon here. I’ve shaved I believe 15 times on the first blade and it is just now starting to drag. These blades are wicked sharp and do not seem to dull with the ease of modern shave cartridges. If I changed the blade now with 15 shaves in I would get 1500 shaves for under $20. With my previous 4 blade cartridge I would start noticing the difference at about 5 shaves and switch before I hit 10. At around $30 for an 8 pack that was making my shave habit rather expensive.
The last and most important aspect is of course the shave. This is the part where individual preference really plays a strong role. For me the razor give a wonderful shave. This is mostly because I like an aggressive shave and am careful when using it. One pass with this razor produces a shave far superior than any three or four blade razors I’ve used. Although it’s not close enough for me to ignore a second pass if I want to be “baby butt” smooth. The thing is I haven’t quite got the second pass down to not drawing blood. If I’m in a big hurry I’ll run a cartridge razor for the second pass. This is likely due to a technique issue in me learning how to use the razor when going against the grain but I wanted to warn others that there is some learning curve with this razor.
All in all I’ve been super happy with this razor and would purchase it again without any hesitation. I do plan on becoming proficient with the other blades in my collection but so far this one gets two thumbs up.
