I’ve never had any problems with different brands. I use BIC blades at the moment because you can do subscribe and save with them on Amazon, at least here in the UK. But you can sometimes get a better deal when buying in bulk.

I shaved my head with a safety razor when I first started as well as my face. I rarely cut myself on my face but it took a while to get used to holding the skin taut on my head to straighten it out before I stopped cutting myself there. But the cuts you do get tend to be very light rather than the deep gouges I got on the rare occasions my cartridge slipped off the handle. A piece of toilet paper should stop the bleeding and they should heal within a day at most.

Also, I’d recommend switching to using a shaving butter or soap rather than a foam. Makes it easier to see what you’re doing.

I’ve been using a Merkur Progress for ten years now. The adjustability of the action makes it more versatile, which makes it easier to adjust to different types of blades. I use Astra Superior blades, but also have a stack of Shark blades that I at some point liked, and some Feather blades that are insanely sharp and unforgiving.

Make sure you learn how to lather properly. A good lather makes all the difference, and it also a major factor in making it a lot more enjoyable than the canned Gillette-stuff. I use Proraso for my run-of-the-mill shaves, and have over the years bought a variety of hard soaps as well. My favorite is Marlborough from D.R. Harris.

EDIT: I had one of those starter razors from Mühle in the beginning (Rytmo?). It snapped in two at the neck after I dropped it by accident, after 6 months use. I still have the synthetic hair brush that came with it. Some people go really into brushes, but I’ve been happy with mine.

Following

I used a brandless, cheapest one that i found and honestly the shaving experience is comparable with those Gillette 3 blade fancy mancy shaver, but with a fraction of the cost. Definite recommend the swap.

I bought a pretty basic safety razor from maggard about 10 years ago and still love it. The biggest thing to learn and invest in is what blades and lather you like. I started off buying a blade sampler pack from them and settled on astra blades. i’ll change up my lather/soap sometimes. Also a nice brush is good to have.

I can talk again! Merkur 34C is my recommendation, small but heavy, nice shave. My preference for blades is Shark, they’re made in Egypt, you can buy the blades cheap & in bulk on eBay.

I use a Merkur safety razor, but most often I use a commercial shaving cream like Gillette as I don’t have the time it takes to break out my brush etc.

I look at it as I get the benefit of cheap, close shaves, without the longer process of using my brush to lather up. Maybe if I had a nice badger brush I’d feel differently.

As for the blades - Astra are a good general purpose blade I like. Feathers, as someone else mentioned, are wicked sharp, and require extra care.

Moving from cartridge expect to take some time to get the technique down. You can’t go as fast.

Enjoy!

I use a leaf. Similar to regular razer but uses the same blades as safety razer. So the method and form factor didn’t change for me. It’s metal and will last me a long time.

I’ve been using a stainless steel one from “mühle” for about 25 years now. I don’t know what should ever break on it tbh, just three pieces of stainless steel.

Mine is “travel size”, don’t remember why i bought this, but in hindsight i totally like that i did, saves weight and volume travelling. And i am completely used to it this way, was my first safety razor, so i had to get used to something new anyway and i’m glad that’s what i went for.

FYI there’s a whole Lemmy instance for wetshaving. If you don’t get enough answers here, swing by !wetshaving@sub.wetshaving.social

I got a handle on amazon and it came with blades. You don’t need anything special, I literally just bought the cheapest ones, but I have found it helpful to change disposable blades just about every time I shave. Maybe there expensive ones that I could use for longer, but at this point I already have enough blades to last me about 5 years.

I actually now use a cheap straight razor that takes disposable blades, and the shave is noticeably the best I’ve ever had. It is time consumung, though.

Probably the biggest thing is to try out a few different brands of blades to find what works for you, that’s probably going to be the biggest variable. There at least used to be some variety packs you could order on Amazon and such

Personally I like feather blades, they do have a reputation for being ridiculously sharp even by razor standards, which can make them a little unforgiving, there’s a good chance you’re doing to slice yourself up a little when you’re first using them, but find what works for you. About the only thing I purposely avoid is store brand blades, they’re pretty much all garbage, try to track down pretty much any name brand.

Other than that, pick a handle that seems sturdy, and comfortable in your hand. Honestly I think most options out there, even a lot of the cheapest ones are just fine, there’s really not that much to them. Be prepared for a bit of a learning curve as you figure out the technique.

Some people get way into it, and will give you a whole lot of recommendations about soaps, creams, lotions, etc. and by all means experiment with them, but don’t feel like you absolutely need to get too into it. Personally I lather up with whatever soap I have on hand and splash on some old spice afterwards and like my results just fine (disclaimer - my skin isn’t picky, I could probably just about wash my face with acetone and dry shave with a piece of broken glass, some people have more sensitive skin, so find what works with you)

if you’re in an old apartment or old building, look for a little slot in the back of the medicine cabinet – that’s where everyone before you has been dumping used razor blades

There is a dramatic difference between razors of different cutting efficiencies (basically, how much of the blade is exposed). Someone with light facial hair and sensitive skin would likely benefit from a milder razor to prevent needless skin irritation. There’s also designs that mimic the experience of a cartridge razor, such as the Hansen razor (makes it very hard to irritate or cut yourself even without learning safety razor techniques).

Walden’s recommendation of a vintage Gillette Tech is a good one, but if you have your grandfather’s razor, that indeed would be the best place to start, as it’s likely just as good as anything you could buy now.

The first shaver I got was an electric, rotary one. Was okay, pulled a bit.

Later in life, I swtched to electric ones with a foil. Better about pulling, more-durable. I believe those are older. No idea why they moved away from those to rotaries.

Later in life, I switched to those cartridge razors, decided I preferred those. Smoother shave. No idea why they moved away from those.

Later in life, I just switched to a standard safety razor, uses standard old double-sided safety razor blades. No reason to pay for the cartridges, pulls less, seems that the blades last longer.

Every time I’ve moved to an older system, I’ve been happier with it than with the later system.

I don’t plan to ever move to a straight razor, but I gotta say that it’s one of the very few areas that I feel like newer has pretty consistently been worse. I kind of wish that I’d just started out with a double-sided safety razor from the get-go.

EDIT: I will add that I don’t really care that much about blades or specific razor or soap or aftershave. I’ve tried a number, been happy with everything I’ve used. However, I was not happy with a plastic-bristle shaving brush I got – the soap just slides off it easily, makes a mess. A boar brush I got doesn’t do that. Might be that they’ve figured out how to make plastic-bristle shaving brushes with a more-textured bristle surface or something, but I’d default to getting one made out of some type of actual hair.