Safety Razor

For decades I unwittingly bought in to the fictional narrative of progress pushed by the marketing departments of Gillette and their competitors that two blades were better than one; that three were better than two - and so forth. “The first blade shaves you close, the second closer still” according to one of their slogans. The ridiculousness (and needless expense) of the multi-blade arms race slowly became more apparent to me over time, yet it wasn’t until about twelve years ago that I tried stepping back to using just the one double-edged blade in a safety razor.

My first such razor was a cheap, plastic-handled Wilkinson Sword model. After a little experimentation I found it gave me better and more enjoyable shaves than the cartridge razors I’d been using before. The only downside was that it took a little more time. In the years that followed I acquired a few other inexpensive razors, with the one shown above being the latest of them. It’s a Fatip Piccolo I bought four years ago. Also in the picture is a pack of ten Japanese-made Feather New Hi-Stainless blades.

I’ve more recently moved on to using straight razors, but even now there are occasions when I need to shave fairly early in the morning while sub-optimally caffeinated - which is when I reach for the Piccolo. As the name implies it’s a compact implement, but nickel-plated brass handle lends it a pleasing heft in the hand. I’ve used it hundreds of times and hope to use it hundreds of times more.