Love the One You're With...

According to the '70s music group, Crosby, Stills and Nash, "If you can't be with the one you love, honey, love the one you're with."

This advice applies to double-edge razors (DEs) as well.

Many DE users spend much time, money and energy shopping, buying and trying DEs to find one that is just right for their face and beard. My recent successful experiments turning my Parker Variant into the one-size-fits-all razor that I've always desired, has got me thinking....

Many if not most two- or three-piece razors can be tuned, their aggressiveness adjusted, to be razors that almost anyone can love.

Now, of course, I maintain my stated preference for adjustable two-piece razors like the Variant for the following reasons:

• The infinite adjustability from mild to wild allows me to compensate for blade-sharpness degradation as it evolves through its life cycle.
• The adjustability allows me to increase the aggressiveness of the razor easily during the shave as I make final clean-up strokes to achieve my desired shave closeness.
• The two-piece design (as contrasted with the one-piece TTO adjustables) allows for razor aggressiveness tuning using tape or shims (as discussed in previous, recent articles in this blog).

But I started pondering potential improvements to the shave character of several non-adjustable razors that I've relegated to my bedroom-closet razor box. These razors include the Rimei RM2003 and my 1965 Gillette Travel Tech.

My '65 Travel Tech is just a touch too aggressive when paired with a sharp new blade.
It's a candidate for tape strips or a shim between the top cap and blade.

For me, these three-piece, non-adjustable razors are just a touch too aggressive to be all-purpose shavers -- and the Rimei is more aggressive than the Tech. So I'm going to experiment with a single shim between the top cap and the blade (a so-called reverse shim) to make their shave character a bit more tame.

This Rimei RM2003 is a touch more aggressive than the Gillette Tech.
At least a shim and perhaps a thin tape on the underside of the top cap,
between it and the blade, might do the trick to tame this cat to my satisfaction.

For those out there for whom these razors are too mild, they could try a shim (or two) between the blade and the baseplate, which would make the razors' shave character more aggressive.

As a reminder, a shim is made from an old DE blade that has had its edges trimmed off with scissors. 

An alternative to using a shim, which adds another piece of hardware to the razor assembly, is to add tape (one layer or more as needed) to the underside of the top cap or on top of the baseplate to either respectively decrease or increase the aggressiveness of the razor. Because the tape is in the middle of the top-cap-and-baseplate "sandwich", it tends to become a semi-permanent part of the razor -- almost never needing replacement.

By tuning or de-tuning the aggressiveness of your razor to meet your needs, you can avoid having to find one you (might) love right out of the box, and, instead, love the one you're with.

Happy shaving!