Storing blades between use?

Novice DE shaver here! I'm trying to figure out why I had the best shave of my life on Saturday night and the worst on Monday morning, both times using the same Derby blade. On Monday morning, it felt like the blade became a tweezer with a needle attached, yanking the hairs one by one and then stabbing into my skin. I had to stop and go into work with a scraggly beard and a raw face. I haven't seen it explicitly mentioned the proper way to store a blade between uses, so I assumed that leaving it in the razor was fine. Could this have deteriorated the blade?

As an aside, I used a new Derby blade just a little bit ago and it was exquisite! Not as good as Saturday's shave, but much better than I'm used to from using Mach3/Fusions!

As a rule I blow the blade dry in the razor if I'm in a hurry, or I take it out of the razor and pat it dry. I also store the razor (when loaded with blade) on my nightstand to prevent the steam from the shower from encouraging it to rust faster.

I think I may be a little crazy and going way too far out of my way. In my defense I do get almost two weeks out of a blade.

It may be in my head but I think I do recognize a difference when I am too lazy to dry my blade before I take off. I wouldn't worry about it too much though. I've noticed that my blades are lasting longer now that my technique has gotten better and I don't have to make as many passes and do extra touch up to get a decient shave. When I started I was lucky to get a whole week out of a blade because of the abuse I was doing to the blade and my face. I hope this helps and welcome.

I have a little container of alcohol. I use the dip/shake method. I make it a point to leave the razor a little loosened(all mine are TTO) also.

On average, a second shave with a Derby blade is usually a little better than the first. Your results seem unusual.

What razor did you use?

I would never take a blade out of a razor and reuse it. At a few cents per Derby, if it doesn't perform? Replace it and move on. I'm convinced that too much handling of a blade is just .... too much.

Interested in your results from this point,
Paul

Ookla The Mok said:

I have a little container of alcohol. I use the dip/shake method. I make it a point to leave the razor a little loosened(all mine are TTO) also.

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As soon as you dip something into alcohol it "desterilizes" the entire container full of alcohol thereby rendering it's cleaning ability useless.

So I hope you mean that you replace said alcohol every time you use it, or you frankly don't care about the cleaning properties.

Quietville said:

As soon as you dip something into alcohol it "desterilizes" the entire container full of alcohol thereby rendering it's cleaning ability useless.

So I hope you mean that you replace said alcohol every time you use it, or you frankly don't care about the cleaning properties.

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I don't believe that the dip in alcohol is intended to clean the blade but to aid in the drying of the blade.

SmoovD said:

I don't believe that the dip in alcohol is intended to clean the blade but to aid in the drying of the blade.

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Yes sir. I do it so I have a dry blade, not a sterile blade.

Quietville said:

As soon as you dip something into alcohol it "desterilizes" the entire container full of alcohol thereby rendering it's cleaning ability useless.

So I hope you mean that you replace said alcohol every time you use it, or you frankly don't care about the cleaning properties.

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Alcohol isn't necessarily a sterile environment to begin with. Alcohol sterilizes by means of its evaporation, which in turn causes the water in microbes to evaporate as well, thus killing them. This is a similar effect to alcohol-based aftershaves drying out your skin cells.

In other words, storing something in alcohol won't help keep it sterile and it doesn't matter if the alcohol is sterile. It's the taking of something out of alcohol that matters.

daveesq said:

Alcohol isn't necessarily a sterile environment to begin with. Alcohol sterilizes by means of its evaporation, which in turn causes the water in microbes to evaporate as well, thus killing them. This is a similar effect to alcohol-based aftershaves drying out your skin cells.

In other words, storing something in alcohol won't help keep it sterile and it doesn't matter if the alcohol is sterile. It's the taking of something out of alcohol that matters.

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That was my point. He said that he dips it in there and shakes it, I understood that. I just didn't understand why. Now I understand that he does it because it helps the razor dry faster.

I thought that I read here on another post that the deposits left behind by the dried water droplets on the edge of the blade contribute to the poor performance of the blade. I thought the idea was that alcohol displaces the water thereby displacing any deposits. Once the alcohol dries you have a "cleaner" blade edge.

Do I understand that correctly?

ltjad said:

I thought that I read here on another post that the deposits left behind by the dried water droplets on the edge of the blade contribute to the poor performance of the blade. I thought the idea was that alcohol displaces the water thereby displacing any deposits. Once the alcohol dries you have a "cleaner" blade edge.

Do I understand that correctly?

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ltjad said:

I thought that I read here on another post that the deposits left behind by the dried water droplets on the edge of the blade contribute to the poor performance of the blade. I thought the idea was that alcohol displaces the water thereby displacing any deposits. Once the alcohol dries you have a "cleaner" blade edge.

Do I understand that correctly?

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Yikes, I just learned that now.

Oro, It's possible that there's a bit of hair and cream (or soap) on the edge of the blade.

Ok, maybe I am just stupid, but quite frankly, once I have shaved, I shake my razor, and just put it in my little cabinet. I don't take the blade out, or anything else. Certainly I have never really had a problem with this. I once got around 4 shaves out of a feather blade that way. No alcohol dip or patting dry or anything else. Same goes for Derby blades, Gillette blades, etc. Might be a dodgy blade (there was report here a little while ago about someone's derby rusting) or it may be due to your water quality.

Doesn't say how you store your razor between shaves, but if you store with the blade in and laying down on the cutting edge of the blade, even if it's on a towel, that will dull the blade in a hurry. Also, blade sharpness can be affected by how heavy your beard was when you shaved on Saturday and how tough your beard is. If your beard is tough and there was a lot of it on Saturday, you may have dulled the blade enough that Monday's shave was done with a blade on the ragged edge of good.

Or, you may just have gotten a klunker blade that only had one really good shave in it.

Then there's the quality of your lather, technique, prep, etc. as well.

All that said, I don't know that I would jump right to leaving the blade in the razor, drying it out or not, or whatever as the cause of the problem.

Just my 2 cents.