How do you keep track of blade usage?

I came up with my own way as you can see in the picture. I got tired of standing there thinking about how many times I've used a blade and if I should change it or go for it.

edit: I just took another close up picture and attached it.

A single dice works - and would take up less space on the counter - assuming you don't take the blade beyond 7 shaves - seriously I worried about that in the old days, now I just change the blade when it starts to tug rather than cut smoothly.

Spreadsheet

I change on Wednesdays and Sundays. Easy enough to remember.

I do something similar, but I blot out one of the numbers on the blade. Of course, this works best if you don't use a blade more than four times.

I recently did 10 shaves with a Gilette Swede so I had to keep a record in a thread here so I could remember how many I was up to. A friend of mine uses a white board marker on this mirror to keep track. Normally I throw out a blade on Wednesday after use and Sunday after use but now I've started trying some of these vintage blades that last alot longer, I might try the whiteboard marker on the mirror.

I change when they go dull. Other than trying to see if I could stretch a Personna 74 to 30 shaves (20 is my max now) I have never really kept track.

I use each blade just twice. I've tried corking, both on fresh blades and new ones, but it seems to be more trouble than its worth.

If the razor is empty when I select it from the rotation, I put in a fresh one. If there is already a blade in the razor when I pick it up to shave, I know to toss it when I'm done.

Among the different ideas presented here, I like the 6-sided dice best.

But, I've never understood all the fuss about stretching blade life:

• Blades are cheap.
• Blades are readily available.
• Blades are designed to be DISPOSABLE.

having about 10 or more on deck razors my first pass tells me if i need to change my blade

I follow the same basic method.

The dice is a good idea. But won't really work if you're jumping around to different blades. Not that I always plan on doing that though.

I wrote "3" on the Astra to say that on the 4th shave it ripped my face up. So I can work on getting some averages over time as well. That's the idea anyway.

I just change my blade once a week. I shave every second day, so it's pretty foolproof.

Me like the dice idea. A nice and shiny silver dice

Every Sunday morning before the shave, no matter what and any other time the first strokes don't feel right.

When my final ATG starts to tug a little or the results are less smooth than should be the blade goes out. No need to keep track and besides I usually remember the # of shaves a blade has had.

As long as I don't have more than 3 loaded razors waiting...

I just tried the whiteboard marker on the mirror and it works great so I think I'll go with that when I use a new type of blade so I can see how it performs.

Alex02 said:

I came up with my own way as you can see in the picture. I got tired of standing there thinking about how many times I've used a blade and if I should change it or go for it.

edit: I just took another close up picture and attached it.

Click to expand...

I change every 5 or six days depending on the brand, and note the date on a small notepad in my top bureau drawer.

I usually change the blade after 4-5 uses. It generally starts to be dull and tug by then.

I use up DE and SE blades on consecutive shaves, and have no trouble just remembering.

Injector blades, I might rotate to something else before they're all used up, so I make tick marks on a small sticky pad in the bathroom.

Thanks for sharing the pic of a long handled Progress, they're rare.