Triple Blade Refills

The only razor heads I believe I will ever need, nothing I've used strikes the balance between utility and sustainability like Preserve does.

When my pack of Gillette Sensor Excel blades ran out I decided to try out Preserve. Not because the Gillette blades are bad, more because I’m not crazy about that company. They come up with more and more elaborate products that often involve using more materials for ridiculously over-engineered razor heads. Besides that, their parent company P&G still tests on animals. So, I switched to Preserve, and figured that if they were about the same as Gillette blades in quality I’d be happy. So far so good – after two weeks, my first blade hasn’t shown any reduction in quality (I only shave every 2-3 days). The cartridges fit perfectly in my old Gillette Sensor Excel handle (with the two pincers that grip the cartridge) so I didn’t have to buy a new one.Each blade should last for several months before you need to change it (i.e., it starts nicking you). These Preserve blades are coated with titanium specifically to extend their life. Look up “extending life of razor blades” to get the story – it’s pretty simple; the key is to avoid the oxidation (rusting) that occurs through contact with water. What I do: after shaving, rinse the blade briefly with warm water to remove all remaining soap and hair, tapping it on the sink a few times, then shake off the water and the briefly blot on a towel. The warm water will evaporate off the warm blade pretty quickly.So, overall I think the Preserve Triple razor cartridges deserve 5/5 gold stars for quality of the product (I’ll update this if my blade doesn’t last three months) and 5/5 “green” stars based on the social and environmental aspects of producing them. Preserve deserve a lot of credit for setting up the Gimme5 collection program (the white bins you find outside Whole Foods) which takes your #5 plastic (e.g., most yogurt cartons) and recycles the plastic into Preserve products. The box that the blades come in is made from recycled cardboard. Recycling plastic saves a lot of water, energy, and petroleum compared to producing new plastic (and of course it keeps the plastic out of landfills). Preserve conduct life cycle assessments on their products and appear to be motived to keep plastic out of our landfills and oceans. I would like to know more about the company operations, but based on the available information Preserve is the best option I can currently find for disposable razor cartridges, so they deserve 5/5 green stars.Finally, Slate magazine has an article on comparing the carbon footprint of disposable razors versus an electric shaver. Their conclusion is that the energy used to heat the water is the largest carbon cost when shaving with disposable razors and that therefore electric razors win (but that either way the carbon cost is not that high). Their assessment doesn’t factor in the material waste of broken electric razors, and landfill waste is arguably a bigger issue when comparing the options. Disposables have a high landfill impact also (2 billion disposable razors are dumped each year in the US) so make your blades last as long as possible. I figure that if I use only 15 disposable blades over 5 years, then this may have a lower material cost than a single electric razor. Reducing the amount of hot water you use while shaving will have the biggest impact.

When my pack of Gillette Sensor Excel blades ran out I decided to try out Preserve. Not because the Gillette blades are bad, more because I’m not crazy about that company. They come up with more and more elaborate products that often involve using more materials for ridiculously over-engineered razor heads. Besides that, their parent company P&G still tests on animals. So, I switched to Preserve, and figured that if they were about the same as Gillette blades in quality I’d be happy. So far so good – after two weeks, my first blade hasn’t shown any reduction in quality (I only shave every 2-3 days). The cartridges fit perfectly in my old Gillette Sensor Excel handle (with the two pincers that grip the cartridge) so I didn’t have to buy a new one.Each blade should last for several months before you need to change it (i.e., it starts nicking you). These Preserve blades are coated with titanium specifically to extend their life. Look up “extending life of razor blades” to get the story – it’s pretty simple; the key is to avoid the oxidation (rusting) that occurs through contact with water. What I do: after shaving, rinse the blade briefly with warm water to remove all remaining soap and hair, tapping it on the sink a few times, then shake off the water and the briefly blot on a towel. The warm water will evaporate off the warm blade pretty quickly.So, overall I think the Preserve Triple razor cartridges deserve 5/5 gold stars for quality of the product (I’ll update this if my blade doesn’t last three months) and 5/5 “green” stars based on the social and environmental aspects of producing them. Preserve deserve a lot of credit for setting up the Gimme5 collection program (the white bins you find outside Whole Foods) which takes your #5 plastic (e.g., most yogurt cartons) and recycles the plastic into Preserve products. The box that the blades come in is made from recycled cardboard. Recycling plastic saves a lot of water, energy, and petroleum compared to producing new plastic (and of course it keeps the plastic out of landfills). Preserve conduct life cycle assessments on their products and appear to be motived to keep plastic out of our landfills and oceans. I would like to know more about the company operations, but based on the available information Preserve is the best option I can currently find for disposable razor cartridges, so they deserve 5/5 green stars.Finally, Slate magazine has an article on comparing the carbon footprint of disposable razors versus an electric shaver. Their conclusion is that the energy used to heat the water is the largest carbon cost when shaving with disposable razors and that therefore electric razors win (but that either way the carbon cost is not that high). Their assessment doesn’t factor in the material waste of broken electric razors, and landfill waste is arguably a bigger issue when comparing the options. Disposables have a high landfill impact also (2 billion disposable razors are dumped each year in the US) so make your blades last as long as possible. I figure that if I use only 15 disposable blades over 5 years, then this may have a lower material cost than a single electric razor. Reducing the amount of hot water you use while shaving will have the biggest impact.