Shaving
In my internet-meanderings I have discovered the following useful shaving-related facts, in increasing order of how well-verified by experiential reports they are:
- Blades actually dull faster from corrosion than use. Just drying them immediately after use can prolong their life, and cleaning them with a few drops of isopropanol for good measure to get rid of lingering minerals should stretch them even longer. (This is what I do now.) And if you really wanted to go hardcore, storing them in baby oil between uses would be even better.
- Shaving cream is a scam. Plain soap does just as well, and once you've done it this way a few times the razor burn is, if anything, less severe because you're not gooing up your epidermis and sloughing off as many cells with every scrape. I've done it three times now and I can verify this -- plus I can actually see what I'm doing better. In fact, you don't even need soap -- apparently just shaving with plain old hot water in the shower is just as good, though this I haven't tried yet.
- It's actually much more economical in the long run to buy an old-fashioned safety razor, the blades for which cost a pittance compared to the popular modern multi-bladed ones, and the shave is just as close. You just have to be a smidgen more careful -- my first time using the one I just recently bought, I only gave myself a single minuscule nick, and only that because I rushed the job. Plus, a nice safety razor wins on aesthetics.