Most guys don’t think about cleaning their safety razor on a regular basis. In fact, I would bet most wet shavers think rinsing it off with water after a shave is all the “cleaning” it ever needs. Well I hate to break it to you, but safety razors need to be cleaned and sanitized a little better than that.
The good news though is that it's really only every 3 or 4 months you need it to give a deep cleaning. As long as you follow my daily and weekly cleaning routine, it really should be minimal effort to get your safety razor “clean” on the regular.
I’ve previously written a detailed guide for instructions on how to clean your safety razor, but let’s do a quick recap for those that haven’t read it.
How to Clean Your Safety Razor
Daily Cleaning
It’s not really necessary to “clean” your safety razor every day. In fact, the daily cleaning is less of a cleaning and more of a sterilizing rinse. So what should you do after every shave? It’s simple.
First slightly loosen the razor head and just try to rinse off all the soap scum and everything else with hot water. Then, just dip the razor head and blade in a jar of isopropyl alcohol.
This second step is really important because the alcohol will disinfect the razor head and blade. It also makes any remaining water evaporate so that the blade doesn’t continue to dull while it’s just sitting on your razor stand.
And that’s all there is to our daily cleaning. More on the many benefits of this daily cleaning later.
Weekly Cleaning
Now for the weekly cleaning, I do recommend disassembling the entire safety razor and rubbing each individual piece down with a wet towel or rag. Don’t spend a lot of time trying to get it as clean and shiny as it was when you bought it though because your main goal is just to get the majority of soap scum and other residue cleaned off.
If you’re routinely doing this weekly cleaning, it shouldn’t be that hard or time-consuming. Once you’re done wiping everything down, just reassemble the razor, put a new blade in and dip the razor head in your jar of isopropyl alcohol. After all, you don’t want any water dulling the blade or any bacteria getting on it before you ever even use it!
Quarterly Cleaning
Every 3 or 4 months, I recommend doing a deep clean on your safety razor. The goal of these cleanings is really just to get it nice and shiny again and ensure you’re not missing anything with the weekly cleanings.
All you need for the deep clean is a spare toothbrush and some dish detergent. First, mix a few drops of dish detergent with some hot water. Next, dip the toothbrush in the cleaning solution and then take it out and scrub down each piece of the disassembled safety razor.
Once you have scrubbed down every individual piece, rinse every piece off with hot water. Lastly, put a new blade in the razor head, dip it in your jar of isopropyl alcohol and then set it back on your razor stand. Your safety razor should look brand new again now!
Benefits of Keeping Your Safety Razor
Clean and Sanitized
Benefit #1: Daily Cleaning Helps Preserve The Blade
Researchers recently did a study to try and figure out what caused razors blades to dull and lose their sharpness so quickly. And guess what they determined was playing the biggest impact in causing razor blades to dull? Water.
More specifically, they said it is oxidation that dulls razor blades. Oxidation is the microscopic rusting of the blade due to the combination of water and oxygen on the metal blade.
So if it’s not your coarse hairs that are dulling the blade but instead water, is there anything you can do to help them keep their sharpness and power longer? Maybe.
The research team actually offered a pretty simple solution: dry your blades after you shave. Specifically, they saw improved results from either blow drying the blade dry or patting it down dry with a towel.
Neither of those sounds all that convenient to us though. Luckily, our proposed daily cleaning of dipping the razor in isopropyl alcohol does help get water off the blade though.
How? Well by dipping the razor head and blade in the alcohol, it should displace any remaining water. While you’re not necessarily “drying” the blade, the alcohol will evaporate any remaining water so at least the blade won’t continue to dull while it’s not being used before your next shave.
Will this make your blades last exponentially longer? No. Does every little bit help to keep the blades sharper and prevent them from oxidizing and rusting? Absolutely.
Benefit #2: Daily Cleaning Disinfects the Blade and Razor Head
Getting all the remaining water off a blade after shaving is important to help maintain the integrity of the blade. But there’s another even more important reason why you should be cleaning the razor head and blade in isopropyl alcohol after every shave: it disinfects the blade.
Why is that so important?
Because after you shave, there is going to be a whole lot of gunk on the razor head and blade and mixed in with the gunk is probably some skin cells and blood. And that combination is the perfect breeding ground for bacteria. And you definitely don’t want bacteria on the blade the next time you shave. Why? Because using a blade that has bacteria on it can lead to all kinds of problems like infections, ingrown hairs and razor burn.
But by simply dipping your razor head in rubbing alcohol after every shave, it will disinfect the blade and ensure you are using a clean blade the next time you pick it up to shave.
Benefit #3: Weekly Cleaning Improves Performance
You probably noticed that our daily safety razor cleanings don’t really involve much time or effort. All we are really doing is dipping the razor head in some isopropyl alcohol for a few seconds and that’s it. Why don’t we do more? Because there really shouldn’t be much else that needs to be cleaned on a day to day basis.
Yeah their might be some soap scum starting to build up on the razorhead after a few days, but it shouldn’t build up fast enough to really impact performance. However, if you do let soap scum or dried lather residue buildup long enough, it definitely can start to negatively impact the performance of your safety razor.
How so? Well all that soap scum buildup will start to impede the lather making contact with the razor blade and/or the razor blade making flush contact with the skin surface. This will lead to you pushing down with the razor to overcompensate which is a big wet shaving no-no.
So that’s why the weekly cleaning is so important. And the good news is that it really doesn’t take much more effort and you should be able to complete it within about 2 minutes. All you have to do is disassemble the safety razor and rub it down with a wet towel. This should eliminate the majority of soap scum buildup regularly enough so that it won’t negatively impact the performance of your razor.
Benefit #4: Take Care of Your Safety Razor and It Will Last Longer
This benefit should be pretty obvious. When you take care things whether it is your car or your clothes or in this case your safety razor, they tend to last longer and work better. Right?
Look, good safety razors are really solid, sturdy and built to last. And that’s one of the more influential reasons why lots of guys are convinced to switch to a safety razor.
Safety razors are a product that you can use for years, or in most case decades, if you take care of them because they don’t fall apart and have to be replaced like some cheap disposable or cartridge razor. And as a result, most wet shavers end up saving a whole lot of money.
But if you neglect your safety razor, it will deteriorate. So don’t let it get to that point because as long as you're doing the weekly cleaning, it will go a long way in protecting it and ensuring it will last a long, long time.
Benefit #5: A Clean Razor Will Motivate You to Shave More Frequently
Have you ever heard the saying “half the battle is just showing up”? Well that motto can definitely be applied to shaving as well. What do I mean? Well most guys have trouble just getting started shaving. They view shaving more as a chore they have to do when getting ready for work or a job interview instead of something they actually enjoy doing. But what if you could turn shaving into something you actually look forward to?
Well we think one of the simplest ways you can make shaving more enjoyable is by keeping your safety razor nice, clean and shiny. You may not realize it, but this can have a big psychological impact on whether or not you will want to shave.
Look, I’m not a psychologist, but answer this question for me. Under which of the following circumstances are you more likely to workout?
- Scenario A: when your workout clothes are clean, fresh and smell good.
- Scenario B: when your workout clothes are dirty, smelly and still wet with sweat from an earlier workout.
Scenario A, right? Well it’s the same with your safety razor. I bet you’re much more likely to want to shave when you’ve got a clean safety razor than when you’ve got a dirty razor that looks like it’s not going to feel so great on your face.
Encourage yourself to “show up” and shave by keeping that razor nice and clean.
