Great Morning Shave with Economy Implements & Supplies!

This morning I had a great shave using inexpensive tools and supplies. The focus of this article, however, is on the razor.

The razor was my Rimei RM2003 double-edge safety razor, which is both a fine instrument and a great value to purchase. Buying one is not without risk though.

This is the real thing. Pay close attention to the handle.

The risk is in misleading sales information from sellers who are accidentally or intentionally trying to sell an inferior product. The RM2003 model has a razor head that I really like, and a handle that is passable, but one that I would replace with a handle that offers sharper incising -- which translates to a better grip when wet and soapy.

I originally bought my RM2003 via DX.com, and it was shipped from China, taking two weeks or slightly less to arrive. I paid a total of about U.S $4. As of this morning, I can no longer find this item on DX.com. However, it's available on ebay.com and amazon.com. The razor alone (recommended purchase) can be had from ebay.com, with Rimei.China as the seller, for about U.S.$9.

Be wary of other sellers at lower price points. Some will sell you an inferior razor in a case similar to the blue-and-clear one provided with the actual RM2003. Some clues to the inferior razor include the description of "silver toned" and photos that have the wrong handle (see pic below).

This is NOT the RM2003! This is the tell-tale handle that comes
with inferior imitators -- sometimes manufactured by Rimei.
In my experience, Rimei makes both the high-quality RM2003
as well as similar, but inferior, razors such as the RM2001.

In addition to the description and handle-design clues, the actual RM2003 has corner tabs on the underside of the top cap. These tabs position the blade similarly to the way 1960s-era Gillette Techs (with the cast Zamak top cap) did.

Though Rimei finally caught on that the U.S.$4 price tag was too much of a give away, the razor is still an exceptional value at more than twice that price.

The blade that I used for today's shave was a seventh-use Dorco ST-301. The shave soap was Williams. The shave brush was my usual: the Omega Syntex. I used warm water for the shave, and held both my lathering water (for dipping the brush) and my razor-rinsing water (for removing excess lather from the razor during the shave) in re-purposed Greek yogurt cups. Also, rather than running the tap to get warm water for my shave -- which in my house takes a long time -- instead I filled one of the yogurt cups with cool water, heated it for minute in the microwave, and then poured off some of that into the other yogurt cup.

Williams shave soap is often maligned, but for less that $2 per puck at local drug stores (some sell it for $1.39, others for about $3), it does the job. Now when I compare it to Arko, another value soap that I can only get online, Arko leaves my skin more moisturized after the shave and probably lathers better, but I find Williams to be good enough. And that is no backhanded compliment. Williams is, in my opinion, completely adequate for the task even in my local hard water. Unlike Arko, Williams' bouquet is not strongly offensive right out of the box. (Many complain about Arko's fragrance, but if you leave it unwrapped in the open air, over time its bouquet attenuates pleasantly.)

When new, using a bit of water along with the freshly-opened Williams puck into yet another re-purposed Greek yogurt cup, I heated them briefly in the microwave to slightly melt the underside of the soap puck so that when cooled, it was firmly affixed into the cup. (By the way, these yogurt cups are made of #5 plastic, which is very heat tolerant, and therefore well suited to heating and melting things in a microwave oven.)

Once my soaps are stuck into their plastic cup, I load soap into my damp brush and then face lather, dipping the brush tip into my lathering water as needed. I do not make lather in a bowl any longer because it requires unnecessary time, gear, and effort. I have long discovered that face lathering saves time and trouble. I always have enough residual lather in the brush to complete my shaves. If for some reason I did not, it would be a simple matter to load a bit more soap from the puck as needed.

Even using value/economy products, I can these days get a really good shave. My process has evolved to where I even shave against grain on my upper lip with this Rimei and other razors of similar design (and degree of aggression) including my '65 Gillette Travel Tech razor head and the Parker Variant on its mildest setting.

The bottom line is that even if one is on a tight budget, with appropriate skill, an excellent shave can be had without investing a great deal of money.

Happy shaving!