Shaving while travelling: Hotel disposable razor.

I've been using an old school safety razor for a few months and I absolutely love it for many reasons. Recently, I went on an overseas trip and had the opportunity to use the disposable that is provided by the hotel and thought it was a good chance to compare the safety razor to something I started shaving with many many years ago.

 The ubiquitous one-use razor provided by the hotel.

The razor provided by the hotel looked like this. It had 2 blades, the head and body was constructed completely with plastic and it doesn't pivot - a common trait with most disposable razors. I had the chance to use quite a few disposable razors from many hotels and they they vary widely in feel, ease and quality of shave. What is really important in a disposable razor is for the guest to obtain an acceptable shave. Forget about any other factors as they do not matter when that is the only razor you have access to.

The question is, is it okay to rely on the disposable razor provided by the hotel to get you out of a hairy situation?

The prep:

To keep the comparison fair, I took the same procedure as I would while using my safety razor. I first took a hot shower, followed by applying a the included Gatsby shaving cream sachet. I swirled the cream around my face with my hands for a while. No lather formed, but maybe it was supposed to be this way?


The shave:

First off, I started going with the grain. It felt like it wasn't shaving anything at all and the razor was skipping instead of gliding. The shaving cream was not providing enough lubrication and it gunked between the blades. It was not possible to remove all the gunk from there despite how much water I used. It did not remove much hair during this pass but I pushed on with across the grain.

Yep, the shaving cream gets deposited between the blades and there are no holes for the cream to run out. Suitable for 1 use only.

I was dreading going against the grain because I was afraid that the pressure would cut me especially when the razor was already skipping. Long strokes wasn't possible and I had to use very short strokes instead. Surprisingly, it went rather well. The shave as comparably close to my safety razor and I didn't have any nicks.

Thoughts:

I had a suspicion that the shaving cream included here just wasn't suitable for a multi-head razor. So, I tried it again using a much lighter Gilette limely shaving foam instead. This time, the experience was much better and the shave was as close as those I had with my safety razor. Surprisingly, I felt far less sting when putting on my aftershave splash. Truly, the cartridge razor design does require less skill and thought to shave than a traditional razor considering that I managed to achieve a similarly close shave to a traditional razor with less damage to my skin even though it was my 2nd time using the disposable razor after so long.

I so much wished that this could be an opportunity for me to praise the traditional safety razor but unfortunately, I could not. The modern razor design does bring about modern day benefits to an age old grooming necessity but it also takes away all the elegance that comes with it.

Conclusion:

So there you have it, it is acceptable to use the razor provided by the hotel (assuming that your hotel provides one in the first place). The razor is probably going to last you a few shaves depending on how concerned you are with hygiene.

The determining factor on how good your shave would be is likely to depend on the shaving cream provided. Perhaps you can try using the hotel shampoo as an alternative if the cream was terrible.