A New Twist On a Blade-Life Extending Dip

[Dovo1695]

I have a lot of razors (more than I care to admit lest my wife read this post!). I have so many, that these days, I find that I often use a different razor for each day of the week. The problem with this, is that I've found that the life of my razors blades suffers more than a little. I would comfortably get 10-14 shaves out of a Personna Lab Blue when I only had one razor and used the same razor and blade every day. Now that I might not use the same razor more than a few times per month, I find that I'm lucky to get 4 uses out of each blade. If I don't use a razor for a few months, I just toss the blade because I know it will be dull after sitting for an extended period.

If you have a lot of razors like I do, corrosion contributes more to razor blade dulling than use.

If I had 25 razors that I rotated through, (and I'm not admitting to that), I'd waste $5.00 worth of Feather blades each month. That's money better spent on buying more razors. (Yes I have RAD and I've come to terms with that).

I poked around the forums a bit and found that there are 4 primary strategies to extending blade life:

1. Dip in Alcohol: Displace the water and promote rapid drying
2. Dip in Mineral Oil: Oil will prevent air from contacting and oxidizing cutting edge
3. Disassemble and Dry Blade: If it's dry, it won't rust
4. Stop caring: Even Feathers are only 20 cents each

Most folks follow the 4th option, but to me, I'd rather not throw away a Feather blade after one use when I know I can comfortably go for 15 shaves with one. I decided the last two options seemed like a 5 second operation after a 15 minute shave. Let's face it; no one getting into DE razors cares about the time the whole ritual takes!

Mineral oil offers the best protection, but it's too messy for me. Alcohol dipping is fast and effective, but not as effective as mineral oil. Then I though, why not do both oil and alcohol, but use an alcohol soluble oil so that it's thinned and therefore not messy?

My solution was to use 4 primary ingredients:

1. 91% Isopropyl Alcohol
2. Castor Oil
3. Glycerin
3. Lemon essential oil


The castor oil is food grade and alcohol soluble. After you mix it in the isopropyl alcohol, it completely dissolves; you can't even tell it's there. The glycerin is alcohol soluble and leaves a protective coating. The lemon essential oil smells super fresh and clean, and is one of the worlds most powerful anti-bacterial substances.

After I shave, I run my razor in hot water, give it a pat with a towel, dip it in my alcohol, castor oil, lemon essential oil mixture, let the excess drip off just like water for 1 second and put it away. The alcohol dries in less than 10 seconds; you can actually watch it happen. When it flashes off, it leaves a very thin coat of castor oil completely over the surface of the razor. Since the cutting edge of the razor is at the edge of the blade, the alcohol solution beads on it due to surface tension and coats it very nicely. It protects the razor incredibly well; I'm guessing it'll protect it like new for at least 6 months.

Testing the Theory​

To test that theory, I decided to simulate 1 years worth of corrosion.

Step 1: Dip a blade a control blade in muriatic acid (31.5% HCL) so that all blades started with the exact same perfectly clean surface.
Step 2: Dip the test blades in my new "blade extending solution" for 2 seconds. Shake of excess
Step 3: Dip all 4 blades in a solution of 3% Hydrogen Peroxide/Vinegar/Table Salt for 5 seconds. This will make metal rust instantly.
Step 4: Compare results.











It works! The full version with all 4 ingredients would cost about $17.00 on Amazon. A quick and dirty version with just the 91% Isopropyl alcohol and castor oil would work nearly as well and would only cost $5.00 at any local drugstore. The lemon essential oil is worth every penny though; it makes your razors smell like sunshine...

At any rate, I thought I'd post my experiments since I've never heard on anyone using an alcohol soluble oil to protect their blades. If you are crazy like me, feel free to post a reply so I don't feel completely ridiculous for having done all of the above!

 

[NyquistRate]

I started wiping the blade on a towel but I've never tried a dip. How long have you been using this solution?

 

[Dovo1695]

I've been using the solution for 3-4 months now and I absolutely love it. I shave, give myself a splash of aftershave, and then I dip my razor in it's own aftershave . I'd do it just for the lemon smell alone.

I actually still give the razor a swipe or two on the towel in a stropping motion to take excess water off of the blade after I rinse it. I've always done that and it just became a habit. It doesn't get the water off the bottom of the blade however, it only does the top.

 

[Dovo1695]

I just realized that I labeled the Personna pic wrong. The "blade extender dip" was only used on the blade in the middle. The pic on the right is a test blade that I did without muriatic acid to see what would happen. It didn't get an "blade extender dip". Interestingly, it seems even more rusted than the one that did get muriatic acid.

 

[Dovo1695]

Here is the Personna photo correctly labelled:

 

[Lenaud01]

You could have bottled and sold this Dovo1695 Blade Exlir. Extend the life of your blades $29.99

Very interesting indeed will have to give it a test thanks for the great share.

 

[ackvil]

Interesting idea. I always use an alcohol dip.

Two questions:

1. Do you dip the entire razor with the blade or just the blade?
2. What is the proportion of each ingredient?

 

[dkeester]

This is an interesting experiment. Thank you for posting your results.

My solution to this problem is a bit simpler. I use a single DE blade at a time and move it between razors when I change to a new one, rather than have several blades in several razors. However, if I ever decide to have multiple blades going at a time, I will probably use this method.

Thanks.

 

[Dovo1695]

[MENTION=29847]ackvil[/MENTION]:

I dip just the head of the razor and leave it submerged for 2 seconds to get a nice paper thin coat of oil on the whole head. I don't dip the handle at all.

To be honest I'm not even totally sure I made it so long ago. It's probably 9 parts isopropyl alcohol, 1 part lemon essential oil, 1 part glycerin, and 0.5 parts castor oil. A little goes a long way when it comes to castor oil. The beads of residual oil get bigger and bigger as the % of castor oil is increased.

The glycerin is probably redundant but I had some so I tossed it in too

 

[Dovo1695]

My solution to this problem is a bit simpler. I use a single DE blade at a time and move it between razors when I change to a new one
Thanks.

@ dkeester:

I tried moving blades but I found it had 3 drawbacks.

Some Razors Work Better With Different Blades: The first drawback was that it always seemed like a bit of a performance compromise. I find some blades are fantastic in some razors, but lousy in others. For example I find a Feather to to be perfect in a slant, but uncomfortable in an open comb, and so on. Also, I tend to go from an aggressive razor one day to a milder one the next, and a milder blade is usually what I'm looking for.

Disassembly/Reassembly/Adjustment Time: The second drawback for me was how much time it took to disassemble and reassemble 2 razors just to switch a blade. It's like 60 seconds to swap and perfectly align a blade (I'm clumsy), and 3 seconds to dip it and forget it.

Thread Wear: The third drawback, although I can't prove it's real, is that I always worried about wearing down the threads on non-stainless steel razors (not a big deal on a $15.00 Razorock but more of an issue on a prewar Gillette Aristocrat!).

Give dipping a try. Once you do your first 3 second dip and smell that lemon, you'll never go back to swapping blades

 

[wxc1006]

I disassemble and dry all parts after use. Still, this is a good idea and sounds like you've done adequate testing. Bottle and sell it and be the next millionaire!

 

[Dovo1695]

A million bucks would be nice!

The trouble is that I've always heard that the best way to make a small fortune in the boutique razor business is start with a large one...

This stuff really only makes sense for folks that rotate through a half dozen razors, and who use the higher end blades (feathers, pol iridiums, etc). I can't imagine there are that many of us out there.

In any case, I've learned a ton here at B&B, and I went from dreading the irritation from shaving to having shaving be the best part of my day. I figured sharing this recipe is a small way of paying it forward

 

[Dovo1695]

Eureka!

I found an amazingly rust resistant concoction that's skin safe, alcohol soluble, leaves a relatively light coating, and beats even mineral oil for corrosion resistance! Ironically, the key ingredient is glycerin, which I realized I left out of my current dipping solution because I thought it would have minimal impact.

I took the day off on Wednesday after a severe Bronchitis diagnosis from my Doctor. He proscribed antibiotics, a steroid inhaler, and bed rest. I did 2 for 3. I figured I might as well play in my workshop at a leisurely pace concocting skin safe corrosion inhibitors like any normal person would do. I did a gazillion test batches and updated my testing methodology.

In the previous test I treated each razor in muriatic acid for a few seconds to remove any factory protective coatings, and so that each of the (used) blades I was using was in precisely the same condition. I realized after the fact that this was a mistake. I noticed that all razors in the test took on a grey palor after the muriatic acid treatment. This was due to oxidation. When steel oxidizes, the oxidization itself becomes a protective coating that skews results. The second mistake I made was that I just dipped the blades in my rapid ruster solution (H202/Vinegar/Salt). This also skews the results because on the oil treated blades, the solution just beaded right off, but on the untreated control blade with no treatment, more of the rapid ruster solution stayed on the blade. Not a fair comparison. So for my new tests, I skipped the muriatic acid altogether and instead used brand new Personna blades for each test (yes I'm aware of the irony and absurdity of destroying a case of brand new Personna blades in attempt to develop a formula for extending blade life ). The other key change was that instead of dipping the blades in the rapid ruster solution, I used a little spray bottle to mist all of the blades so that the rusting solution would stay on the blades (6 sprays). The rusting solution is not sprayed directly on the blades, but above them and drifts down onto them as a mist. These two changes made a huge difference. The first thing that I learned was that my existing solution, though markedly better than nothing, was nowhere near up to snuff.

Another new twist that I added was the inclusion of mineral oil on some of the blades in the testing. I didn't use the viscous mineral oil that most people are familiar with, I used a very light mineral oil with a very low viscosity. Normal mineral oil has a viscosity like corn syrup; this light mineral oil has a viscosity very close to water. These leaves a much lighter coating on the blade of approximately 1 mm. The reason that I wanted to test mineral oil was that I very curious to test a traditional japanese blade preserver called Choji oil. This oil has been used in Japan for several hundred years to rust-proof samurai swords, and is still used today. The original recipe was camelia oil and clove oil in a ratio of roughly 100/1. Choji oil is still used today in the preservation of samurai swords, but with substitution of mineral oil for camelia oil. Clove essential oil is of particular interest because it's ORAC score (Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity) is off the charts at over 1,078,700 with the next nearest know substance scores somewhere around 300,000. Clove essentially oil's anti-oxidant properties is now a hot topic of medical science with a wide body of research; it's remarkable that the Japanese were once again several hundred years ahead of the curve.


Interestingly, although Choji oil performed very well in the tests, it pales in comparison to the winner, sample A21. The choji oil is sample C5 in the sample below.


Results:



The clear winner of this shootout is A21. It's incredible to me that Castor Oil, Glycerin, and Vegetable Oil would outperform mineral oil, which has been in continuous use as a corrosion protectant for steel and iron for about a century. It's definitely hard to argue with the results though. The highly corrosive mixture was somehow able to get past a layer of mineral oil nearly 1mm thick and cause a few rust spots. What really doesn't make sense about this is that the corrosive spray is water based, and mineral oil is hydrophobic, it shouldn't have been able to get by. What's even stranger is that A21 is water based, and is miscible with the corrosion spray, so the corrosion spray should have easily penetrated it down to the steel. I would chalk it up to the castor oil, but it's evident that the next best performer is B3, which is just glycerin and alcohol. In some way, the glycerin has bonded with the steel in a way that the corrosive spray simply can't penetrate. What's more, all of these blades were done in the same sample run so the spray they were subjected to was identical.

I still have some more testing to do because A21 leaves a thicker coat than I would like after the alcohol flashes off. I'll be interested to see how little glycerin and castor oil I can add before the performance begins to diminish.

 

[Floyd Eye]

I use solution number 3.

 

[ItsTaz]

Give dipping a try. Once you do your first 3 second dip and smell that lemon, you'll never go back to swapping blades

I have seen suggestions that one shouldn't clean a razor with dish soap that has citric acid. So I'm wondering about the impact from lemon essential oil. Maybe the lemon in your mix does more harm than good? Just wondering.

 

[Dovo1695]

The pH of citric acid is 2.2, which is very close to household vinegar's ph of 2.4. The pH of lemon essential oil is 7 (neutral). Since pH is a log scale, the citric acid is nearly 100,000 times more acidic than the lemon essential oil that I'm using. Citric acid does pose a risk to the chrome plating on razors, which it will happily eat if left to soak for a few days, but the lemon essential oil poses no risk whatsoever.

 

[Buick48]

The pH of citric acid is 2.2, which is very close to household vinegar's ph of 2.4. The pH of lemon essential oil is 7 (neutral). Since pH is a log scale, the citric acid is nearly 100,000 times more acidic than the lemon essential oil that I'm using. Citric acid does pose a risk to the chrome plating on razors, which it will happily eat if left to soak for a few days, but the lemon essential oil poses no risk whatsoever.

I prefer the much easier, less complicated, old fashioned way to sharpen my blades.
See illustration.....,

 

[seattleshaver]

No one is going to have salt and vinegar on their blades so any improvement will be less than the experiment. One blast with a hair dryer (although I don't personally have one) would seem to be much simpler (or maybe not?).

I wonder just have much difference there would be over just brushing the razor head against a towel after each shave?

 

[Dovo1695]

No one is going to have salt and vinegar on their blades so any improvement will be less than the experiment. I wonder just have much difference there would be over just brushing the razor head against a towel after each shave?

This is definitely a bit of a silly test, and the H2O2/Vinegar/salt spray is total overkill. I just wanted to test whether or not my dip really worked, and if so, how rust resistant I could make the solution. The H2O2 spray just seemed like a cheap/easy way to create years worth of rust in just a few hours.

Your question about whether or not just brushing the razor against a towel is equally effective is a good one. I really have no idea, but when I look at vintage razors on ebay, 99 out of 100 razors show plating that's badly pitted. This suggests to me that some kind of protective coating isn't a bad idea. It's pretty cheap insurance and plating failure.

I'll put the question back to you this way: If you had a mint 1904 Gillette double ring razor in your rotation, would it be worth the 2 seconds it takes to dip it and put thin protective oil coating on it after each shave? What if you had 30 razors like that?

To me, it's worth it, but everybody looks at this hobby through different eyes.