Schick band razor, an underrated shaver?

[ekeko]

Pre shave: Taylor Sandlewood oil
I have always liked Sandlewood as a base ingredient for toiletries but find the oil aspect here too oily for my liking. Not sure what it actually does for the shave once the brush/soap lather is massaged in.
Razor: Schick band razor (see below)
Brush: Taylor badger bristle. Not expensive but does the job for me with very minimal loss of badger so far.
Soap: Tabac, just ok, lathers well, we have quite hard water here near to the South Downs. Seems to dry on the skin very quickly, mind you it’s pretty warm here at the moment
Post: Man Cave spf 20 protective moisturiser. This for me is a cracking product, reasonably priced for a moisturiser with an spf factor compared with some others.
Razor
I posted a thread about my trial fettling of a modded DE blade to fit my Schick instamatic band razor a few weeks back. Tony’schin then very generously sent me a Schick non adjustable band cartridge which is now fitted, he’s a . The non adjustable cart fits mine but doesn’t fit the Gillette techmatic, it also delivers a better shave than the techmatic apparently. Others have reported that a cart can last about 100 shaves. Techmatics were also used by NASA during the moon landings.
The band blade is a bit of a quirky concept and I can only wonder what the discussions were like within the organisations at the time that decisions were being made to market it. It seems to have been a five minute wonder but maybe sales at the time justified the risk, who knows. It’s a shame they are not around now because it gave a very smooth close shave with just a couple of passes. It’s very well made and handles well, as you might expect from Schick. In current circumstances the disposal aspect of used carts would probably be an issue so perhaps another reason why they have fallen out of favour?
Enjoy the summer guys!

 

[pjgh]

I managed to find a good cartridge for my Gillette Techmatic and used it a good number of times. It gave a sound enough shave, certainly not the face slasher that some folks make it out to be. I used it on its patent anniversary for a few years and haven't since ...

I wonder if one of the issues might have been that the reels became corrupted as so many folks would have kept the razor in their bathrooms. Moisture and damp might have compromised the reels? Hence the idea falling out of favour.

... or just both Gillette and Schick realised the profit potential of putting two tiny blades into a cartridge of plastic and marking up several hundred percent.

Great fun trying out some of these vintage contraptions.

 

[ekeko]

Yes, good to compare these quirky razors with other more “normal” razors, vintage and new. I thought the shave from mine was very good so I guess the fact that they are not around any more is down to changes in marketing strategy rather than poor performance.
Also, much like the golf club industry, changes are always being made to model lines and new names coined. Luckily for the manufacturer, golfers usually like to have the newest model on the basis it will improve their game. I’ve got quite a few old clubs stashed in my garage
Same thing happens with razors. The plus for us is that we can still find excellent low cost vintage razors.