Shaving razors are dull when they are unable to cut hair effectively. When a razor is dull, it won’t be able to lift the hairs and cut them. This means you will need to reapply pressure with your razor, which can be uncomfortable and lead to cuts. Luckily, there are ways you can test your razor to see if it’s working optimally.
Safety razors and double-edge shaving blades are made with a high level of user-friendliness in mind. Even so, there may come a time when you feel that shaving performance is not what it should be: your razor doesn’t seem as sharp as usual or maybe you find that it doesn’t cut as well as before. How do you know if your safety razor or double edge blades have gone dull? Continue reading on to find out.
Check the Quality of Your Razor
When you look at a razor’s surface, you should find that it’s smooth and free of any nicks or blade irregularities. If the surface is uneven, your razor may have bent or warped in the manufacturing process, which can cause it to cut less efficiently. A razor that has been dropped on a hard surface (such as tile or concrete) may have bent permanently and will likely need to be replaced.
Check the sides of your razor’s head as well. The sides of your razor’s head should be completely straight and parallel, without any slight bends or curves. Bent sides can cause the blade to be out of whack, which results in uneven cutting. Bent sides will also cause blades to bow and distort when they are inserted. This can cause the edge of the blade to rub against your skin. If you find that one or both sides of your razor’s head are bent, you will probably need to buy a new one.
How to Test for a Dull Shaving Razor
If you have reason to believe that your razor may be dull, you should test it to be sure. You can do this by simply shaving with your razor as you normally would, but with one specific change to your routine: use less pressure.
If you normally apply a significant amount of pressure to your razor, try shaving with less. There will be no change to the actual cutting power of your razor with less pressure: you just need to see if it can cut with less applied force. If your razor seems to perform worse with less applied pressure, it may be dull. If your razor can still cut just as well with less applied pressure, it is not dull.
Run It Under Water
You can see if your razor is capable of cutting hair if you run some water over the razor’s edge. Take your razor and run it under a stream of water. If your razor is sharp, it should slice the water into two distinct halves.
A dull razor will make a choppy line in the water. This test is best used on open-comb razors, which are designed with a gap on their heads to help collect shaving debris. Close-comb razors have no gaps at the heads and may not produce a discernible line in the water when you run them under it.
Check the Edges
The best way to check your razor’s sharpness is to actually use it. If your razor is new, give it a few shaves before you decide it might be dull. New razors are typically quite sharp and may need a few uses before you can really tell how sharp they are. But if you’ve been using your razor for a few weeks or months and you feel like it’s not cutting as well as before, it’s likely dull.
You can check your razor’s sharpness by using it to shave your face, legs, or other body parts. If your razor is dull, you will feel significant dragging or tugging when making a pass. A dull razor will pull hairs instead of cutting them: you will feel resistance as you shave. A sharp razor will cut hairs without requiring additional pressure.
How Can I Sharpen a Dull Razor?
Sharpening a dull razor isn’t usually advised as they are usually inexpensive to change. Also, disposable cartridge razors like the ones used in a Gillette Fusion5 are meant to be disposed of and thrown out. However, there are still people prefer to squeeze every last shave out of their razors. So, how exactly would you sharpen a dull razor?
This question depends on the type of razor you have. A straight razor would generally be honed on a honing strop. Whereas a safety razor or cartridge razor could be sharpened on a razor sharpener like the Blade Buddy Blade Sharpener. While these tools can extend the life of your razors, they will all eventually need to be changed at some point.
Conclusion
All in all, when you feel that your shaver is not as efficient as it used to be, it might be time to change the blades. It is even more important to do so when you notice that your shaver is not performing the way it used to – a change in the performance of your shaver might be a sign of something more serious. So, make sure you keep an eye out for the signs that your shaver is starting to get dull and change the blades as soon as you can.
Keep in mind that this is not something that happens overnight. Instead, it happens gradually over time as the blades wear out and lose their edge. If you want to keep getting the best performance from your shaver for as long as possible, you need to make sure you’re changing the blades when they start to get dull.
