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All metal · Blades from €0.05 · Free NL delivery
The Carlton is all metal, machined to hold a single blade at a fixed 30 degrees with minimal exposure. It takes standard double-edge blades, sold everywhere from €0.05. No cartridges, no subscription.
The problem
A double-edge blade is an open standard. Nobody owns it, anyone can make it, and that is exactly why it costs €0.05. A cartridge is different: it can be patented, and a patent can be defended. So the handle is almost given away, and the margin lives in the refill.
From there, adding a blade is the cleanest way to justify a higher price and keep the refill locked to one brand. Nobody in that business had any reason to point out that going from one blade to five is what created the irritation the aftershave balm is then sold to soothe.
The solution
One blade, clamped rigidly at a fixed thirty degrees, with only a sliver of edge exposed. The head keeps the angle so your hand never has to find it, and the blade cannot flex away from the cut.
Less flex means less force. Less force means the hair is cut where it stands, instead of being pulled up and severed under tension.
The mechanism
You have spent twenty years treating skin you were told was sensitive. It never was. The problem was the number of blades.
A multi-blade head does not cut the hair. It pulls it first. The leading blade lifts the hair out of the follicle, and the blades behind it cut while it is stretched, like an elastic band cut under tension.
1The leading blade hooks the hair and lifts it out of the follicle.
2The blades behind it sever the hair while it is still stretched.
3Released, the cut end retracts below the surface of the skin.
4Buried, the hair grows sideways into the follicle. That is the bump.
Before work
Slow Sundays
On the road
No burn, no bumps
Passed down
Out the doorStraight answers
The same nine questions come up every time. Here they are, answered plainly.
The angle is fixed at thirty degrees and blade exposure is minimal, so the razor holds the angle, not your hand. Almost every nick comes from pressing, which is a habit built by cartridges. The weight of the razor is enough.
Two or three light passes instead of one hard pass repeated. Once your hand knows the angle, the total time is the same.
It is about two months of cartridges, paid once. After that a blade costs five cents and you buy nothing else.
Anywhere. Double-edge blades are an open standard from 1904, so any brand fits. That is precisely why nobody can sell you a subscription for them.
It is the razor your father and grandfather used. It came back because the arithmetic is hard to argue with, not because it is fashionable.
Then the question is not the shave. It is what the cartridge costs you, and what the fifth blade does to your neck.
A blade that cuts the hair level with the skin shaves closer than one that cuts it below the surface and lets it retract.
Under EU cabin baggage rules, fixed cartridges can travel in the cabin but loose blades go in the hold. The razor itself travels fine, the blades go in your checked bag.
Almost always pressure. A cartridge needs it, a safety razor is ruined by it. Put the razor on your face, let it sit at its own angle, and pull.