What this article isn't telling you is that DE razors can be almost as fast, but there's a learning curve. They don't flex, bend, or rotate to the right angle, so you must hold them at the right angle, even when you're going around curves. There's just one blade, so it's easy to apply too much pressure and give yourself razor burn, so you must learn to use minimal pressure. It takes time to learn these skills.
Is learning how to shave with a DE correctly and quickly worth saving money? If money is no concern for you, then no. However, there are other benefits. One pass of a five bladed razor is, you guessed it, five blades being dragged across your face, and likely with more pressure than is necessary given how much pressure is required just to make the flexing, rotating razor engage with your face. If skin irritation, ingrown hairs, etc. are a problem for you, then learning how to properly shave with a DE razor can dramatically reduce those problems. However, things may be worse at first while you're learning technique. This is all even more true if you're the sort who suffers from irritation and reuses cartridges too long to save a little money. Dull blades make skin irritation worse.
Another thing this article isn't mentioning is shaving soap. Most of us are used to chemical gel's or foams. To be blunt, they all smell awful and feel gross. Again, it takes slightly more time and a little technique must be learned, but traditional shave soap with a badger hair brush, lathered on the face, is something everyone should at least try. There are some awesome smelling soaps out there, and lathering on your face with a good badger brush feels amazing. If you hate shaving, this is a switch that might change your mind.
If you hate something, you can spend less time on it, or you can look for ways to make it more enjoyable.
I rarely use anything. And to be frank, when I do it is a small drop of hair conditioner.
I mean, no one is telling you to stop, but I wouldn’t chalk up your recommendations to anything more just preferences.
It’s just another hobby. Some people love scotch, others coffee and some people getting the best shave experience.
If I loved scotch and someone said “yuck, I don’t like it” I wouldn’t somehow assume they were living their life incorrectly or missing out, they just don’t like it.
Much better than these and shaving soap / brush, is Somerset's Shaving Oil[1]. King of Shaves do a shaving oil too, but it's nowhere near as good. Not affiliated, I just love the stuff.
You can use it with shaving soap too, but I just use it on its own.
At one point I was worried the company might go under so I bought a big box of it just in case. It's not a great business model as one little bottle lasts months. You only use 3 drops per shave.
[1] https://www.somersets.com/(X(1)S(hrhdq4w0o12w1qjoh0myxyml))/...
ALSO: That order page is a breath of fresh air. As soon as I added one item to my "cart", I was presented with their full list of SKUs, enough info to know which is which, and a quantity box next to each. So simple. I wish more ecommerce sites did stuff like this.
The blades seem to be immortal, and they commonly last 5-10 years until the batteries fail. There are no regular consumables; the blades are never replaced.
I had used Norelco foil razors previous to this, and the foils would break after wear and slash my face, easily drawing blood. Neither of my Panasonic razors has ever done this.
I normally shave right after waking up, no shaving cream, lotion or sundry lubricant. If someone with extremely sensitive skin cannot do this, the shaver is waterproof.
This one looks close to my current model.
https://www.amazon.com/Panasonic-Electric-ES8103S-Nanotech-F...
I shave thrice a week (head and face) and the Proraso brand has been a lifesaver.
Have never managed to learn to use the DE razors :/
If your body is falling apart without constant cosmetics, you probably have an issue that needs addressing. Maybe something in your diet or something in your soap or I don't know what, but spontaneous skin issues are not normal at all.
Your skin naturally flakes as it replenishes itself (I think it's called the skin cycle), it was getting caught in my beard, I'm lazy I can't be bothered with that. Plus when it gets long you have to cut it straight, right pain in the arse. A lot less hassle shaving.
I choose to focus my time and energy minimizing environmental impact more effectively. For example, instead of using a DE razor, I use that time to commute by bike instead of car, This results in overall much less waste and a lifestyle that I prefer.
Can you please explain to me how a landfill doesn't cause environmental harm?
It's no different than the sand that's already below ground. It essentially just sits there.
The production and transportation of the cartridge could harm the environment though, but that's a more complicated story.
Likewise they capture or flare the methane.
I would add accumulation of crap between the blades being the rest of the story.
A small blast of air gets that crap out and leaves the shavings path clear for next time.
* Overly frequent shaving. If I shave every day, I will get nicks and ingrown hairs, regardless of technique. After I shave, the skin slightly closes up around the follicle. Not enough to be fully ingrown, but enough that there's a bump of skin from about 12 hours post-shave to 72 hours post-shave. If I shave again during that time period, the razor will catch on those bumps and cause nicks. If I wait 3-4 days, the hair pushes out, and can be cut cleanly.
* Clogged razors. This is partly due to the coarse hair, and partly needing to remove 3-4 days of growth at a time. The blades of a cartridge razor are placed far too close to each other, and need to be rinsed out several times over the course of a shave. Sometimes multiple times over a single stroke. If this isn't noticed, I need to go over the same area again, increasing razor burn. While safety razors clog as well, it takes longer for them to do so, and it is easier to rinse out the accumulated hair.
* Over-use of cartridge razors. An 8-pack of cartridge razors is $25, where a 100-pack of safety razor blades is $10. I get about 2-3 smooth shaves from each razor, and it's an easy habit to replace a ten-cent blade every week or so. Even if I accept that cartridge's last longer, I can't believe that they would last the 35 shaves estimated by the marketing's 5-week estimation. Between the higher cost and the claimed lifetime, I would use cartridge razors well past the point of being dull.
So at this point, I have a reasonable routine: Replacing the blade of a safety razor every 7-10 days, shave every 3-4 days. But figuring out that routine requires going against the advertising, choosing an older style of razor, and avoiding the cultural expectation of daily shaving.
Some people do, and they’re welcome to spend their own time, energy, and money pursuing that feeling.
Uh, that's not how loose leaf tea is used...
Usually one would use a strainer or a gaiwan. Your point still stands, tea bags are less hassle, you just won't get to drink fine oolong or puerh. I don't mind cleaning the gaiwan - taking out the leaves takes a couple seconds.
After steeping, you need to dump the used leaves (assuming you aren't planning to re-steep) with more potential for spillage than when disposing a tea bag, then take the strainer to the sink, add a tiny drop of dish soap, rinse the strainer, and find a place to dry it (e.g. over an empty jar).
It's not difficult, and the extra steps are personally worth it as loose leaf tea generally tastes better. However, for people who aren't concerned about the taste difference, it's nice to have one less task (where spillage is a concern) to pay attention to.
> You need to take a spoon (extra tool), scoop out the loose leaf tea from the container
I tilt the container and use the Earth's gravity to get them leaves out. I'm not afraid to use my fingers when no one's watching! With puerh it's more of a fight, I'm not afraid to use whatever's at my disposal to pry the leaves out the cake.
> you need to dump the used leaves [...] with more potential for spillage than when disposing a tea bag
Yes but it's more ecological - the leaves can be composted while the tea bag can't.
> (assuming you aren't planning to re-steep)
I definitely am planning to re-steep. With puerh, I'm even going as far as disposing of the first two steeps. I'm too fancy to drink them!
> then take the strainer to the sink, add a tiny drop of dish soap, rinse the strainer, and find a place to dry it
The gaiwan goes inside the dishwasher like everything else.
That depends on the tea bag. Some can't, some can:
https://teahow.com/can-tea-bags-be-composted/
The store-brand tea bags I buy for iced tea recently got redesigned to remove their staple. I assume that was to make them compostable, although I should double check.
I prefer tea bags because it's still easier to clean up, even though taking a dripping wet bag out of the cup is a messier process and is trash. A gaiwan or even teapot is rarely compatible with my normal in-the-moment tea drinking style. I aspire for it to be some day.
Using a gaiwan is just so joyful: stuff it with leaves, keep an eye on the temperature and steeping time, and you can resteep good leaves many times and get so much more out of them. Each of the steeps is different, you can see how the leaves open, how the taste develops. I have some Chinese greens that go on forever, start with around 75°C and 10 seconds, and gradually increase both over perhaps twenty steeps, ending with boiling water and brewing for however long I forget about it. Thinking about it, I'm off to make some tea :)
Filling a paper tea filter is pretty easy though, just grab one, and shovel in a bit of leaves with a spoon. It's faster to fill a tea bag than it is to boil water for a cup.
That’s the obvious market story but not even the entire story in the post. The lack of available alternatives is a real thing.
Several of the examples in the article feel like real losses to me. Another example: last I looked, I can’t even buy a mouse with the form factor and features I want unless I give up and charge batteries. The thing I want to buy existed under many model names over the last 20 years, apparently now I need to start looking second hand. This is true for lots of wired devices, it’s almost impossible to find many of them or a spiritual successor now. I don’t want all of my secondary devices to be battery powered. I’m clearly a minority in the market, or at least untargeted as one.
I don’t begrudge anyone their preferences or conveniences, but I definitely miss some of the things I used to be able to find which are now just relics.
I do not always like wires, but wireless is kind of a mess. Pairing, charging, quality of info transfer problems...
So, I bought a bunch of wired, high quality earbuds, am going to to get some mice too. Those things just work and the quality/consistency of input / output is something I value way more than not having a wire.
Aluminum has much better thermal conductivity, but is a terrible surface to cook on (soft, oxidizes, imparts flavors to acidic foods). The best compromise is a clad pan with aluminum sandwitched between layers of stainless. I switched from cooking on cast iron to cooking on clad and it makes a huge difference.
This guy took a bunch of IR camera shots demonstrating the effect: https://www.centurylife.org/is-all-clad-worth-it-is-it-still...
> it's a nonstick pan without the carcinogens.
Strictly speaking, this is false. The seasoning on a cast iron pan is burnt oil. It is without question mildly carcinogenic. Not so much that I've thrown away my cast iron - I still use it occasionally - but I wouldn't tout it as having health benefits (except maybe a tiny increase in iron consumption).
FWIW the newer ceramic nonstick pans are incredible and nearly indestructible. Clad is still my go-to, but I use the henckles granitium pans from costco for anything with egg in it. Two years later they still work like new.
Woks are great, but you wouldn't pan-fry a steak in a wok.
If you're talking about pure stainless pans, I've never seen one. I've seen pure stainless steel stock pots (though even then, most have a clad base). The thing about stock pots is that they're full of liquid, which convects and makes thermal conductivity of the hardware pretty much irrelevant. Never buy expensive stock pots.
Isn’t it completely opposite? Teflon is incredibly inert and nobody knows what really happens in cast seasoning other than - it’s burned food!?
No lol that's the whole point
> without the carcinogens.
I'll take that trade, I'm not going to spend my 30s sitting around waiting for pans to heat up because there's some very small probability a pan will harm me.
De Buyers are more expensive than your regular cast iron, but they’ll last a lifetime.
"The raw material in Ultra Light Original is exactly the same as for our traditional cast iron. The difference is that with the new technique, the pans are less porous. This explains why the pans responds much quicker to changes in the stove’s power effect, and why they heat up and cool down faster than traditional cast iron cookware."
https://ronnebybruk.us/blogs/cookware/ultralight-original
It isn't near-feather-light like some pans I've picked up in the store for sure. It's just light enough to be a noticeable difference from other cast iron pans I've tried, like being much more comfortable to hold one-handed.
Cast iron pans are actually not great at heat transfer, which is why you see pans like all clad where there's aluminum or copper clad in steel. They are really good at holding heat though, so when you put something cool into them they don't immediately get cold.
Most people really don't care about this though. If you're a foodie, you're probably not going to be satisfied with the $5 wal mart nonstick pan, because it's a thing you care about. For everyone else who doesn't care, they either have a completely different definition of what 'good performance' is (and buy accordingly) or they don't cook anyway.
Mise en place helps immensely!
I just want to eat and I want to get that out of the way as quickly as possible. For a nice meal, I'll go to a restaurant. I'm not interested in learning how to prepare my own food better, and all of these comments and the OP seems to forget that.
In any high-dimensional space, most samples are far from the median on at least one axis. You have cooking, I have coffee, programming, and looking at birds.
My cast iron usage most days isn't anything fancy, it's just cooking breakfast for the family. The "other cooking related tasks" means:
* Crack the eggs into the bowl
* Season and beat them
* Start the oatmeal water boiling
* Set the table
By then the cast iron is ready for the eggs. You don't have to be making a fancy meal to have other things you can be doing while the pan heats up, and it doesn't take that long even on our slow glasstop stove.
> You have cooking, I have coffee, programming, and looking at birds.
I used to be like this, eat as quickly as I could and whatever was quick enough that filled the hole in my stomach. You will likely pay for this later, and will have discussions with your dr about food freshness, processed foods and how horrible the food at even “heath food” restaurants is for you. Unless you want to live your life with gastrointestinal issues, change your attitude about cooking.
This strikes me as particularly ironic in the current context. How much time have you spent so far today arguing about pans on HN? How many times could you have heated up a cast iron skillet during that time?
I use cast iron pan because everything I cook comes out 10 times better on a cast iron pan. You can properly sear meat on them. Things don't get cooked on the outside and stay raw on the inside.
I thought I was shit at cooking before getting a cast iron pan - I just had the wrong tools. I'm definitely not a chef and I don't cook for pleasure, I just throw chicken, steaks, eggs on the pan and eat when it's safe to do so.
Most chefs on youtube are using cast iron pans, you won't get the same results following instructions made for another pan.
In regards to heating up, I never noticed the pan taking too long to heat up.
Maintenance takes more time, but it's nothing more than rubbing oil on it and throwing it in the oven. You can also get away with not doing it for a long time (you can wait until food starts sticking to it)
Pots yes. Pans not so sure.
Not to be snarky, but considering you're leaving comments here then I doubt it
So you see loneliness makes us waste this part of our time probably in an futile attempt to deal with loneliness, forge a connection, having some kind of reassurance that we have a voice and maybe we matter even though we so don’t.
So this comment isn’t waste of OP’s time if OP likes to do this or wants to do this and gets gratification from it (even if doesn’t last beyond hitting the submit button). OP even mentioned that coffee thing in the similar vein.
So I think you were being snarky. Maybe inadvertently? Or just another knee-jerk comment like most of HN? :)
People would look strange on me if i started shaving while commuting on the train. Here i have ample of time to read.
One could also simply prefer watch junk on the telly to wind down after a long day of work, rather than seasoning my pan again. (Personally, i do have a seasoned skillet, it's a amazing)
Take this thinking too far and one should even give up washing machines and go back to hand laundry?
Razors like G. Mach3 or similar are neither really much faster nor better in any way (I compare them against my $25 "classical" metal razor "Timor Solingen 1322"). The fact that so many people think otherwise is a proof that marketing departments of G. or Edgewell (Wilkinson) did a very good job.
On the other extreme, (and due to my personal interest in practicing knife sharpening), I ended up using a pocket knife and a couple quality sharpening stones as my “razor”. Too lazy to calculate whether the long term cost is worth it, but the setup will probably last me a lifetime. If avoiding waste is really the highest priority (over convenience) then I would argue that sharpening your own razor blade is the only rational way to shave.
However, there were times I had to skip coffee making to start a commute on time. The tipping point was when I was slightly late for a couple of low-stakes meetings because shaving with a safety razor took so long (lather, three passes, rinse), so I had to take an alternative commuting route after missing a train. There were other times when I chose to skip shaving and buy coffee outside to make a meeting on time (taking extra time to walk to the coffee shop, line up, and buy coffee).
I remembered never having these issues of having to skip shaving when using an electric razor. I've now returned to using one for most days, and also usually use a brew machine. It's nicer to have less stress in the morning.
You could say that I could manage my time better in the morning by waking up an extra half hour earlier, but I've found it very nice to make my life a bit easier while other parts of my days are more stressful.
Saving time from shaving doesn’t necessarily mean the saved time will be used in something like saving the world. It just means less time was spent on shaving than it would have taken if OP did shaving your so called “hard” way.
Also your 20m shaved annually seems very weird. There are approximately 365 days in a year and one “easy” way shave, imho, definitely saves more than approx 0.055m compared to a hard way shave if one shaves daily without a miss :-P
Convenient consumer products tend to sell better than less convenient ones, even if the product is worse. That's the entire story. People have finite time, so when they receive more income they will tend to spend it to reduce the time they spend doing things that they don't care about.
I for one hate spending time doing all the things that the products in the article make more convenient, and happily pay more so I can spend my time on other things.
My time is precious to me, so instead of spending money on luxury items I spend money to save time. Evidently so do most other people.