Your thoughts on OneBlade

Also, before my first shave with the OB I have two question.

First, should I shave with one or two days growth? I'm not a daily shave and it seems most on here say that shaving daily with this thing yields the best results.

Second, do most who find the OB successful have success with regular cartridge razors? I'm guessing most who are dropping ~$300 on a razor are wet shaving bc carts weren't working as opposed to some who do it to save money.

BeardFace, congrats on picking up the OneBlade. I suggest using it in the manner that you would normally, whether that is every other day or not.

While both OneBlade & cartridges share a pivot that is where the similarities end. Carts were horrible for me. The single blade, especially the thicker SE variety, is much better than those little blades that they stack on top of each other.

BeardFace, glad to hear you're giving the OneBlade a try. Like SharpSpine said, just use it as as often as you would other razors, and see how that goes at first. Even though my first shave with it was nice, and quite easy, I still found that I got even better with it after several more shaves. So, like any other tool, it benefits from some practice and familiarity.

Depending on how the OneBlade works for you, its skin-friendliness may let you shave daily at last, if you end up wanting to.

I use the OneBlade pretty much the way I'd use any other (DE/SE) safety razor. It accommodates a bit more pressure, but I don't think that's a good idea for the whole shave. I use the normal light pressure I'd use with other razors, but maybe add a little bit of pressure for trickier touch-up areas. I could be wrong about doing that; not sure it's needed.

The only similarity I can think of between the OneBlade and a cartridge razor is how flat and obvious the shaving surface is; you'll notice the bottom "bar" isn't really a bar but an angled flat surface to match the one above the blade. One of the few things I think the pivot does (you'll hardly notice it) is keep this shave surface properly against the skin. You can't change or mess up the angle on the OneBlade, or it won't really shave. Happily they seem to have found just the right blade angle and exposure, so when the shave surface is against the skin, everything is aligned perfectly. And my blather about it here makes it sound much more complex than it is in practice. It's very easy to use.

The feeling of the OneBlade in use is nothing like a cartridge. The OneBlade feels like other DE or SE razors in that you can tell there's a single, sharp blade doing its good work. It's high-end metal on skin. It feels like the real deal. Cartridges to me feel like a limp palm whinily and half-heartedly sliding along my face. Ugh.

Also, before my first shave with the OB I have two question.

First, should I shave with one or two days growth? I'm not a daily shave and it seems most on here say that shaving daily with this thing yields the best results.

Second, do most who find the OB successful have success with regular cartridge razors? I'm guessing most who are dropping ~$300 on a razor are wet shaving bc carts weren't working as opposed to some who do it to save money.

I am going to agree with the other guys.

I don't see what possible difference it matters. The angle is a lot different than a cartridge that just flops around. The pivot on the one blade does pivot but you don't notice it because the spring is stiffer.

More important, if there are sensitive areas of your skin that got irritated with a cartridge, I find them not irritated with the one blade regardless of whether or not I go over the same spot several time. Its a big difference.

I can bladebuff to my hearts content and not get irritation with this razor. Never experienced another razor doing that

I can bladebuff to my hearts content and not get irritation with this razor. Never experienced another razor doing that

I concur. Yesterday I shaved with a DE for the first time since getting my OneBlade. It impressed this fact on me: the OneBlade is incredibly comfortable. There's no balancing closeness vs comfort. You get both.

I concur. Yesterday I shaved with a DE for the first time since getting my OneBlade. It impressed this fact on me: the OneBlade is incredibly comfortable. There's no balancing closeness vs comfort. You get both.

Great way of putting it.

Hello gentlemen (and possible ladies). I put down some thoughts on the OneBlade design elsewhere and realized it would be relevant here, as well. I'm thinking through the design of this razor and some of why it performs as well as it does.

Apart from the pivot, what stands out to me in the OneBlade design is the idiosyncratic shape of the head. Rather than a curved top and typically thin safety bar, the razor's cutting area is described by flat planes above and below the blade. Those angled planes create the "registration surface," as OneBlade calls it (for all I know, that's the term in razor design generally). The razor very naturally uses that surface as its contact plane on the skin. It's very intuitive, and because it's a fixed angle, the rest of the blade geometry (exposure, angle) can be kept exactly where the designers intended it. I think this is a big reason the OneBlade cuts as comfortably, effectively, and consistently as it does.

Thinking about it, other razors either allow for many more angles (these tend to be "aggressive" razors), most of which are sub-optimal and so invite cuts or irritation; or they do indeed only really cut at the "correct," most-effective angle (the Feather AS-D2, or the DE89), which makes them much less damaging (folks say "mild") but still require the user to maintain that angle. So for most DE razors it's a matter of: lose the angle and the shave is uncomfortable/damaging (aggressive razors), or lose the angle and the razor isn't cutting (mild designs). Either way, you need to learn and keep the angle.

The OneBlade does this for you by, yes, offering just the one optimized angle where the razor will cut whiskers, but making that angle very, very easy to achieve due to the "registration surface."

Another razor that comes to mind thinking about this is the Merkur Progress, which in its way makes the best angle pretty easy to find, due to the way the head is designed (there's quite a well-stated registration surface with it, in part because of its wide, flat safety bar).

David ( onethinline ), you have excellent gift for expression, and your description of how the OneBlade head keeps the perfect angle, in a way better than most other razors, was spot on! A lot of people tend to credit the pivot as the feature in the OneBlade that gives it's best features, but I think the pivot, while important, is overemphasized. The head geometry and angle is just as unique and important, if not more so, than the pivot, in what the OneBlade can accomplish.

Porter Stansberry, the founder of OneBlade, has discussed some of these aspects in the story behind the design of the razor. I posted a thread on a podcast he did on the OneBlade here: http://damnfineshave.com/thread-the-crea...stansberry

The link to the podcast is here: http://mikedillard.com/how-to-create-the...the-world/

This podcast is something anyone that has an interest in the OneBlade should hear.

The OneBlade does this for you by, yes, offering just the one optimized angle where the razor will cut whiskers, but making that angle very, very easy to achieve due to the "registration surface."

And that, which you just described, is technology making life easier for humans. It's what I described as the attributes detractors tout as:

This tool is too good. There is no challenge

OK, don't buy it. Thats cool. No one is stopping people from buying manual transmission cars either. Have fun.

I can think of few technological advances applied to the consumer space that do not exist to make life simpler for consumers. And for those that want the challenge of the old way of doing business, then they can drive manual transmission cars and cars without airbags. Thats cool. To each their own.