In comments to yesterday’s SOTD post, I found myself explaining why modern razors are, on the whole, better than razors of yesteryear and why I sold almost my entire vintage collection to focus on newer razors—and today’s shave is with one of those newer razors, one from the bottom of the price spectrum: the Dorco PL602. I paid $3.50 for it, as I recall, and on eBay you could find fantastic deals a few years ago (like a board display holding 15 of the razors for $30: $2/razor).
Razor manufacturers seem to have cracked the code of how to make extremely comfortable razors that rarely ever nick that are also highly efficient, leaving your face BBS more often than not. (Of course, it’s not simply the razor: prep, skill, and blade choice also play a role, but holding those constant, my experience is that modern razors are more commonly highly comfortable and highly efficient than razors of yesteryear—which, of course, is what you expect as memes evolve: modern cars are better on the whole than vintage cars: more comfortable, more efficient, safer, and so on. Modern firearms are much better than vintage firearms in many ways.
Indeed, I have trouble keeping up with the continuing flow of new great razors. Here’s my list to date, but even that had to trimmed because there were so many. (For example, I did not include any razors that cost more than $100, though there are some really excellent razors in the above-$100 range.)
This morning I return to a KC-6 formulation, one with a particularly appealing fragrance: Phoenix Artisan’s Dapper Doc with its lilac and fig fragrance. A very nice lather, and the various oils and fats included in the formula left my skin feeling very nice indeed after the Dorco PL602 finished its comfortable and efficient job.
A splash of the lilac and fig aftershave, and we’re only a week from Valentine’s Day.