To shave, or not to shave? That is the question. Now with this blog post, it is not an argument on whether one should or should not shave, that is a personal choice. This blog post hopes to discuss alternatives to our shaving habits. Now, if you don’t personally shave then you can totally disregard this because honestly that is probably the most sustainable choice. However, if you are like me, you might personally prefer to shave. To make my shaving practice more sustainable I’ve moved to two separate razors, both have pros and cons.
The first choice is a safety razor (as pictured in this post), with this choice it’s made of stainless steel and only requires razor blades. Pros for this option are that I’m completely avoiding plastic because even with the brand of razor blades I’ve found (Albatross, also pictured in photo), is plastic free and they will even take old used razors so they can recycle the material. Score!! Now this option doesn’t come without its cons, while other safety razor brands such as leaf have the option of multiple blade levels, my current razor is only one blade level so I find myself taking a bit longer. The other con is, while the razor is totally safe when used properly, it can leave small knicks on the skin if in a rush, so it can be a bit less quick and convenient.
Now my second choice of razor is the flamingo razor, or any razors with razor heads you can replace. Now this choice, unlike the safety razor option, does produce waste due to the plastic razor heads you have to throw away. So the con of this razor choice is that it does produce plastic waste however because you don’t have to throw the whole razor away you are reducing the amount of plastic you discard. While the con is that it is not as environmentally friendly, I would say the pros are that it feels more like a traditional razor, so it feels less intimidating and is less time consuming when compared to the safety razor.
Both options are ways that you can either partially or completely reduce your plastic consumption while shaving. My best advice when picking between the two, is to choose the option that you will happily stick with and not go back to completely disposable razors.
