Razor Blades, Why do they go blunt?

First an update, Mystery of the Disappearing Kleenex, It turns out she was using bog roll.

When was the last time you sharpened your pencil sharpener? How many times in the last year have you had to replace your cutlery knife because it no longer cut your food? On average how many pairs of kitchen scissors have you thrown out because they are too blunt? If your like me the answer to all of the above is never.

Never. Why? Because they don’t go blunt after using them twice, unlike these Gillette Mach 3 that cut the bristles on your chin like a hot knife through warm butter the first time, then a knife through butter the second time, then like warm butter through a cold knife after that.

Why? It’s a titanium coated steel laminate blade that is cutting hair for fucks sake, its not like your cutting diamonds with it, its not even cutting paper, its cutting hair. You should be able to hand them down to your children’s children as an heirloom.

“Here Bobby Jay, this is the razor I used when I first met your Grandma, It’ll make your chin as smooth today as it did back when I had eye’s” But no, that’s crazy horse shit talk, it’ll last you 2 times before it will slice your cheek off before it cuts the bristle. But this is alright because they are so cheap that you can throw them away after 2 uses and buy some more, surly something this crappily made must cost pennies yes?

Shopkeeper – “That will be 5.80 for 4 blades please”
Me – “Oh I just want the razor blades, not your daughters virginity”
Shopkeeper – “Haha, yes they are quite expensive, I wonder why that is, that’ll be 5.80”
Me – “Shove them up your arse, I’m growing a beard”
Shopkeeper “Fat man with beard, you’ll be beating the ladies off with a stick, that’ll be 5.80”
Me – “Here’s money, how do you sleep at night?”
Shopkeeper – “Gillette send round a couple of tart’s to go down on me until I drift off, see you in a couple of days”

You know, if you bought a car, it drove like a sports car the first day, like a saloon car the next day, and ripped your chin off the third day you’d take it back to the showroom and they would be full of apologies, “We’ll fix, we’ll fix, here’s a courtesy car in the mean time, I love you.”

Take a 2 day old razor back to Tesco’s and they look at you like you’ve whipped your cock out and cum on the till.
But, I am a man of science, I needed proof that we were being ripped off, so an experiment was required –

The Experiment

I dismantled a brand new Mach 3 razor blade, and proceeded to use the blade to cut paper, after shredding 50 sheets of A4 there appeared to be no difference in the sharpness of the blade.

Weird.

I dismantled a second blade and started to cut empty beer cans, after the third beer can the blade was noticeably blunter.
OK, so far I had determined that bristles were significantly harder than paper, and about par to aluminium.

The next phase was to determine how strong aluminium was, so using a 4 foot long length of 2 by 4 wood I hit a can of beer off my table against a wall, it did not break. This was my baseline.

The next test was to see if bristles could withstand the same force, for this I needed a man with a beard.

The hair was undamaged.

I was beginning to see why razor blades did not last long, they may be titanium coated, but it appeared that chin hair was as strong as a metal alloy, if not stronger. To complete the experiment and truly vindicate razors I had to see how strong bristles were so for the next 8 weeks I collected my shavings into a sandwich bag and persuaded my friend who works for a company who makes wrought iron gates, to put the bag into a hydraulic forming press, the result was near amazing, after applying nearly 70 tons of pressure to the bristles not one was damaged.

Stunning.

So there you have it, why do razors go blunt? Because bristles are the hardest thing on the planet.

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