I too use a Merkur safety razor (for the past ~18 years) and Feather blades. I only shave once a week nowadays (with very few exceptions). It’s my weekly routine: it takes me some time, but I get the shave I want.
> Why is a thread on electric razors not the top comment on a post about the expense/waste of straight razors?
The post doesn’t even mention straight razors [1].
Also, I’m not sure electric razors are the less wasteful solution. Any electric appliance is likely to be much more environmentally costly to manufacture than a simple gadget. It certainly can’t compare with safety razors (or double-edged razors, as called in the article).
I won’t comment on the convenience of electric razors. My very limited experience with them (and not only mine) is that they don’t work on all beards, or if you don’t shave every day.
I've been using a safety razor for years and figured I was getting a pretty good deal out of it. Then a few months ago I reached into my travel bag without looking and sliced my finger open badly; the resulting stitches and tetanus shot came out to about $200, probably wiping out whatever money I'd saved by using them.
I still think it's a good deal.. if you're careful.
I've looked around a lot, but find traveling with safety razors to be surprisingly annoying. I cant really find anything that will clip or wrap around the top like I can for cartridge razors. The other problem is flying with them. Since they're large and metal they often get flagged. If I remember correctly, the advice was to put the blades in your checked bag, but I still get flagged because they see a big handle and I often travel without checking a bag.
I also switched away from a DE when I shave in the shower. I'm too afraid of dropping a heavier handle with a sharp blade attached.
I suppose I've been getting lucky, but I've flown probably two dozen times (domestic in the US) with safety razor + blades in my carry-on luggage and it's never been noticed. The first time was a mistake, but after their scanners didn't notice I stopped caring. This has reinforced my belief that the TSA is mostly worthless.
I'm not sure how I'll pack my razor next time (the time I cut myself was the last time I traveled) but I'll have to change how I do things going forward. Maybe I'll put the whole thing into one of those plastic clamshell soap containers, although that would be a bit bulky.
One subtle problem I've noticed with shaving in the shower is whisker splinters. Twice (both times during the pandemic, after not shaving for two or three weeks) I've gotten a whisker embedded into the bottom of my foot and didn't figure out what the strange pain was until a few hours later when it worked itself in deep enough that I couldn't ignore it anymore. I think this only happens if I've let my hair grow too long, so now I avoid this.
> I strongly dislike MacOS because they force the "apple way" of doing things.
Complaining about this is like complaining that cats don’t behave like dogs.
macOS has its own idiosyncrasies. It may not be for everyone, but maybe this is the reason why things “just work” for the general public (and more).
I’m not aware of Windows working on Apple Silicon, but there is Asahi Linux which, I hear, has done a good job with their M1 support, although it likely comes with compromises (again, this is second hand information).
It doesn't boot directly on it, but you can at least run Windows 10 ARM64 VMs on Apple Silicon. With Parallels you also get some decent GPU virtualization.
