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Shaving is an example of how consumer products extract more money

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Re: Shaving is an example of how consumer products extract more money

#961

Post by stjohnswarts »

cormacrelf wrote: post #657
stjohnswarts wrote: post #631

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you shave with a sharp double edge safety you are at 95% of whatever the "4 blade megarazors" do. The only ones I might like a little better are the bendy heads that conform to the face a bit better. But it's not worth destroying the environment or paying 20X as much for the blades.

They make em bendy now? Hmm... back in DE land, the state of the art is holding the blade extremely rigidly with the clamp much closer to the edge. Think a woodworking planer rather than someone holding a floppy knife. Henson Shaving. Very good reviews on the site even in comparison to other DE razors, similar from people I know. https://hensonshaving.com/

Yeah like these, there are other brands too ... https://www.amazon.com/BIC-Disposable-Razors-Sensitive-Porta...

Re: Shaving is an example of how consumer products extract more money

#962

Post by Bud »

LorenPechtel wrote: post #759
Bud wrote: post #687

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I started using Braun electric razors about 34 years ago. This turns out to have been a good choice. They are lasting around 16 years each, on average. I recently had to get a new one; only the 3rd one I have had to buy in all that time. No packaging used up for all kinds of shaving soap or cream or other products, no packaging or plastic or metal used up to buy thousands of blades, etc.

But you still need to replace the bits that do the cutting.

You do, but I have consistently found that you actually hardly ever have to do that, if you keep them clean. Certainly way, way less than the manufacturer insists that you have to.

In any case, whether you agree with me or not about this detail, it's vastly less use of throwaway plastics, less use of metal, less energy use from manufacturing and delivering all that stuff, and of course, way cheaper.

Re: Shaving is an example of how consumer products extract more money

#963

Post by woleium »

shard wrote: post #905
zgiber wrote: post #723

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get the convenience part but the waste reduction itself is already worth the switch. Yeah your shaving cartridge or flaking teflon pan might be a drop in the ocean (perhaps literally) but when there are billions of humans around we should think about what inconvenience does it worth to keep our environment lovable.

People don't seem to be aware of this, but most of the dulling of disposable razors are due to it staying wet. If you dry your disposable razor after use, shaking out the water then drying it on a towel, it can last much much longer. Going down to shaving 2-3 times a week due to WFH, I think I made one disposable razor last about a year. If this pattern keeps up, this pack of razors I bought from Costco is going to l…

or just store it in a glass of oil. you loose the libricating strip, but the oil more than makes up for that.

Re: Shaving is an example of how consumer products extract more money

#964

Post by justinator »

gruez wrote: post #488
justinator wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>They have their uses. I wouldn't try frying eggs in a cast iron, for instance (technically you can, but it requires an absurd amount of oil). It requires proper seasoning. Once you got that, egg away! >Also, claiming that they "seem to be poisonous" without any qualifiers is a little misleading. To my knowledge they're only poisonous during manufacturing (ie. the precursor chemicals) and when they get too hot. Agree…

>The plastic waste they produce still have the inconvenient problem of what to do with them. Like many conveniences, the problem is just offloaded to someone else. > https://money.cnn.com/2015/03/04/news/k-cups-keurig-inventor ... >Some feel microplastics in our blood stream is a worthy compromise to easy-to-make coffee. If you're in a first world country with proper garbage disposal, those k-cups most certainly aren…

Well is plastic waste a local environmental problem, or a global environmental problem? Is reducing waste in total not a good thing to strive for?

When do we all stop saying, "not my problem" when it comes to single-use, disposable items like this?

"20 years ago was the best time, second best time is now", kind of scenarios.

Re: Shaving is an example of how consumer products extract more money

#965

Post by jhgb »

Reason077 wrote: post #504
wyre wrote: post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you live your day where 7 seconds is a a significant amount of time?

It's not a question of where you live, but of how much you value your time. It's been estimated that Elon Musk's time, for example, is worth around $22,000 per minute. So if he's wasting 7 seconds messing around with his dishwasher, that's a lost opportunity cost of $2566.

At that point, you save money by paying a servant. Not by messing around with a dishwasher yourself.

Re: Shaving is an example of how consumer products extract more money

#966

Post by kcplate »

dhimes wrote: post #590
kcplate wrote: post #534

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use a Merker safety razor with feather blades too. Definitely recommend not just for the shave, but for the value.

Same, but usually with cheapo blades. Shark/Lord mostly (from Egypt). You can get cheap Gillette, but they're from Russia so you may wish to wait.

I get around a dozen shaves or more from a single feather blade. Bought a box of a 100 for $35 after trying a variety pack of blades and fixing on the Feather brand, and at around 3 shaves a week and just trimming up around my goatee and neck, I think I am somewhere around 1-2 cents per shave and probably golden until the robot overlords take over.

Much better than $15/mo I was spending for cartridge razors. I’ll never go back.

Re: Shaving is an example of how consumer products extract more money

#967

Post by stickfigure »

asah wrote: post #889
stickfigure wrote: post #887

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cast iron is a poor cooking surface because iron (and steel, and stainless steel) has poor thermal conductivity. The consequence is uneven heating (especially on an electric cooktop) and hotspots. The edges are distinctly colder than the center of the pan, and you have to push your food around to ensure even cooking. Aluminum has much better thermal conductivity, but is a terrible surface to cook on (soft, oxidizes,…

I actually like uneven cooking surfaces and use this to create effects in my stovetop cooking. If I want evenness, it's easy just stir or swirl - but getting unevenness is more work. A wok is a perfect example of using unevenness and motion to control your cooking, and for frying I mostly use a cast iron pan and for serious heat, a wok with a ring adapter and high BTU stove.

Cooking technique on a wok is very, very different from cooking technique in a skillet. You're expected to move the food around! That's why they call it stir-fry. Nobody (at least, of normal human build) picks up a cast iron skillet and tumbles food.

Woks are great, but you wouldn't pan-fry a steak in a wok.

Re: Shaving is an example of how consumer products extract more money

#968

Post by stickfigure »

billfruit wrote: post #907
stickfigure wrote: post #887

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cast iron is a poor cooking surface because iron (and steel, and stainless steel) has poor thermal conductivity. The consequence is uneven heating (especially on an electric cooktop) and hotspots. The edges are distinctly colder than the center of the pan, and you have to push your food around to ensure even cooking. Aluminum has much better thermal conductivity, but is a terrible surface to cook on (soft, oxidizes,…

What about stainless steel on induction?

What do you mean by stainless steel? Stainless steel pans are usually clad (3 or more layers with aluminum in the middle for heat transfer), and IMO wonderful to cook on no matter what generates the heat.

If you're talking about pure stainless pans, I've never seen one. I've seen pure stainless steel stock pots (though even then, most have a clad base). The thing about stock pots is that they're full of liquid, which convects and makes thermal conductivity of the hardware pretty much irrelevant. Never buy expensive stock pots.

Re: Shaving is an example of how consumer products extract more money

#969

Post by bonoboTP »

jrootabega wrote: post #225
bonoboTP wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are allowed to have hobbies and interests.

But it's not necessary to turn shaving into a hobby with toys and status symbols (look at all the conspicious brand-name-dropping going on in these comments). However, the anti-Gillette marketing zeitgeist makes you think that that is THE alternative. Looking for information about safety/straight razor usage will undoubtedly suck someone into SEO-friendly shaving "enthusiast" traps unless they avoid it. People should…

Or just buy a safety razor (mine is a simple one made of plastic and some metal weight in the handle) and a bunch of double edge blades and call it a day.

If some people want to turn it into a hobby where they obsess over badger hair brushes and so on, that's also fine. Nobody is ever forced to buy that sort of stuff.

All marketing tries to mislead people to spend money on "unnecessary" stuff. That's what people mostly spend their disposable income on. And Americans have tons and tons of disposable income, so they are good targets for marketing. I don't see the same thing in Germany for example as people are generally more careful with their money and don't have ginormous amounts of it like Americans (look up the disposable incomes). For example, you're (assuming you're American) also getting screwed by the mattress industry.

Re: Shaving is an example of how consumer products extract more money

#970

Post by bonoboTP »

bscphil wrote: post #452
jrootabega wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it's not necessary to turn shaving into a hobby with toys and status symbols (look at all the conspicious brand-name-dropping going on in these comments). However, the anti-Gillette marketing zeitgeist makes you think that that is THE alternative. Looking for information about safety/straight razor usage will undoubtedly suck someone into SEO-friendly shaving "enthusiast" traps unless they avoid it. People should…

> the anti-Gillette marketing zeitgeist Which is why it might as well be the pro-Gillette marketing zeitgeist. Too easy to turn away from something under the assumption you'll just get sucked into it and waste a lot of money. Another good example of this is the fountain pen community. As a total outsider, I was actually under the impression that a fountain pen cost well over $100 and was difficult to maintain and wri…

Yeah, it's pretty much the same effect. Hobbies can cost as much as most hobbyists are willing to pay. Then you get elitism, you get sneers that some beginners are using "too good" equipment that they haven't earned yet (e.g. complaints that beginner photo hobbyists using "too good" cameras) etc. It's just human behavior. As a beginner or casual hobbyist, you need to find a beginner-friendly and mature (ie non-childish) community that understands different levels of involvement, understands there is life outside the hobby as well, understands budgets etc.
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