WetShaving
This is a community of enthusiasts, hobbyists and artisans who enjoy a traditional wet shave: brush, soap, and safety or straight razor. We are a part of the WetShaving community found on Reddit, Discord, and IRC.
New subscribers welcome!
Please visit our wiki, which is always and forever a work in progress.
๐ช Check out these alternative front-ends for this server:
https://gem.wetshaving.social/ - a nice modern interface
https://old.wetshaving.social/ - designed to look like old.reddit.com
Our sister Mastodon instance is https://wetshaving.social/.
๐ช Track the uptime of our various services here:
https://uptime.splettnet.com/status/wetshaving
๐ช Community Rules
Rule 1 - Behaviour and Etiquette
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Be Respectful. Do not bully, flame, or harass others.
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Malicious comments are not allowed but heated discussion and salty banter is okay.
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Low effort replies and complaints about content will be removed.
Rule 2 - Content Guidelines
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Mail Calls, Simple Questions, and SOTD posts belong in the recurring weekly threads.
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Posts must have sufficient content to generate a meaningful discussion.
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Images, links, or videos must include additional text that summarizes the topic.
Rule 3 - Reviews and Disclosure
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Use [First Impressions] in the title if your experience with the product is limited.
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Use the [Review] in the title if you can provide comprehensive details with enough familiarity to answer follow-up questions.
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Disclose how the product being reviewed was acquired (e.g., PIF, loan, or purchase). If the product was provided to you directly by the maker or vendor free of charge or at a discount, you must disclose this fact even if the item will later be returned to the maker or vendor.
Rule 4 - Advertising
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Vendors are to keep marketing within the biweekly Deals/New Products threads.
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Non-vendors may post topics about products if it will foster a compelling discussion.
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Do not solicit donations or share fundraisers without mod approval.
Rule 5 - Inappropriate Content
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All NSFW/L content must request mod approval and be flaired appropriately.
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Non-shaving related NSFW/L content is not allowed.
Rule 10 - Moderator Discretion
- The rules may not apply perfectly to every situation. The mods have final discretion.
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I continue to enjoy this series. The DE razor (and blades) were marketed in parallel with SEs. Was the popularity of DEs all about low-cost replaceable blades?
Thank you! I enjoy writing it!
I don't know, and I wonder about it a lot. The GEM system seems technically better, and IMHO makes for better mass-produced razors than the Gillette format. Might it just be network effects?
My suspicion is that it was marketing. I think the band steel used for DE blades was a boon for blade production. The band steel seems to be a perfect fit for high volume, multi-stage manufacture. Gillette heavily promoted replaceable blades, and as I recall, the company's business model was to make its profits through high-volume/low margin sales of blades.
Marketing sounds plausible. The Doubledge Micromatic blades would have had the exact same arguments in their favour, yet they didn't stick around.
Maybe it's one of those mac vs windows stories. Two roughly equivalent systems and one of them gets big first.