Razor Care

Gents,

Curious what you do in terms of razor care between shaves? Quick rinse only? Disassemble and rinse only? Soak? What do you do with the blade if you disassemble?

As I have been acquiring more razors, I've been thinking about ways to manage this better and have been debating adding an alcohol dip to my routine but I haven't come up with an easy way to manage it. Looking to try to mitigate some of the soap buildup and tea staining on my very frequently used razors.

What's your process and do you have any good tips for how to manage it?

Between shaves, I give the razor a quick rinse only .

And I leave the blade in there.

I loosen the razor and rinse with hot water after the shave, shake it off and put it away. When I change blades, I use an old toothbrush and soap and water if there is any buildup.

I haven't seen any team stains on mine, though I use new razors rather than vintage.

The way I remove tea stains from mugs or tea cups is by putting a teaspoon of baking soda in the mug, then poor water that is just off boil and let it sit for an hour. If trying this, don't try it on a prize vintage razor, try it on one more common. I also wouldn't let the water be as hot.

I learned a lesson on vintage razors. The gold standard for disinfecting as far as I know if to let it sit in a 50-50 bleach/water mix for ten minutes. The vintage razors can't take it - finish came off, exposing the Zamac, which is the beginning of the end for a plated razor.

I guess I should have described what I do... My approach is similar to Pete's. I rinse post shave and leave the blade installed. I also use an old Sonicare toothbrush head for cleaning, which seems to be pretty effective and not really that abrasive relative to really scrubbing at it with a brush manually. On a VERY seldom basis, I will use one of those magic eraser things to clean up some of the staining. I believe it is slightly abrasive even though it feels like foam. Pretty effective - razors are no worse for it, it doesn't scratch, etc. Not sure if it's the best idea to be doing this, which is part of why I asked. By the way, these are for modern stainless razors.

Between shaves, I give the razor a quick rinse only .

And I leave the blade in there.

+1. I'll scrub them with an old toothbrush and soapy water every couple weeks when I notice soap scum build-up. Never had any tea stains or anything like that to deal with.

Disassemble after every shave, warm water rinse and towel dry. The Paradigm 17-4 below is exactly 6 months old and looks like when it arrived.

Chris at Karve suggests the above for a uniform golden brown patina on the Christopher Bradley and he’s spot on. Developing nicely and the simple steps above becomes part of the routine and keeps razors pristine.

Excellent. What is your routine for handling the blade?

I was leaving the blade in between shaves with my hand me down vintage super speed, until one day I saw it what look like rust on the blade. Now I'll pump the blade out give it a good rents take my cheap Yaqi synthetic and give the inside of the razor and the backside of little light brush off while I'm flushing my brush out, toothpaste and toothbrush ever so often

I disassemble ,quick scrub with a toothbrush and dry everything,put dry blade back in and reassemble.Every single time.I use straights as well,and a Parker shavette,and I remove blade and scrub that too.It may be a couple of weeks before I come back to using any of my DE razors so I want to ensure they are clean and ready to go and that there is the absolute minimal chance of corrosion.

My routine.
After each shave:
• Loosen the handle just a bit.
• Rinse with water.
• Dip and swirl in alcohol, let air dry.

When disposing a blade (usually after 5–12 shaves):
• Disassemble razor and soak in water with dish detergent.
• Clean with soft toothbrush.
• Towel and air dry.
• Very lightly apply food-grade mineral oil on handle threads.

This has been my routine for a few years, and I’ve never noticed any issues with my razors. (I should add that if I were to ever use carbon steel razor blades, I’d probably disassemble the razor after each use.)