You Use a Cartridge Razor? Dump it!
An evening pause: Recently my cousin Ken Kueny, a former software manager at Orbital ATK and now the owner of Karn Custom Woodwork, a major carpentry company in Virginia, made me aware of a new example in the movement to buy dumb (rejecting modern hi-tech for older technology developed in the 20th century), this time related to shaving utensils. Apparently, men appear to be abandoning the modern expensive cartridge multi-blade razors for old-fashioned safety razors and double-edged blades.
I, who hate shaving and have a beard partly so that I only have to do a trimming about twice a week, was astonished. The video below gives a quick lesson on how to shave with a safety razor, for those too young to remember these tools. It also gives a sense of why it is better to do it this way. This video shows just a sampling of the many different types of available safety razors, and the engineering differences for each. Do a search on youtube and you will see numerous similar videos touting the advantages of going retro when shaving. All are quite convincing.
This new trend won’t make me shave my beard, as I also like it very much, but it does illustrate once again that while new designs can certainly improve things, newer is not always better.