Until reading this thread I had been shaving with ... Oh great, I've forgotten. Anyway, it's one of the modern ones that takes cartridges and has a AAA battery in it to make it vibrate (I'm not the one who buys the blades so I've not looked at the name on it for a while. All I do is say "I'm going to need blades soon" and they appear). Anyway, the point is that, after reading this post and thinking that it was interesting, I was in a higher-end men's wear store and there, against one of the walls, was a display of safety razors and brushes (but no straight razors).

The end result is: I am in trouble yet again for having been on this site and I have to thank you for it. I am now shaving with a Muhle DE with Muhle blades and shaving soap from Body Shop (that a friend gave me for Christmas).

I avoid shaving daily whenever possible because it irritates my skin in the extreme. When I was in the military I was given permission to grow a beard to prevent bleeding to death (the permission form was less paperwork). As an experiment after buying the safety razor I tried shaving daily and, after adjusting my technique a little which had grown sloppy after years of shaving with the cartridges, I have no irritation and a better shave than I can remember. This is great!

So, thank you for the thread; thank you for the contributions; thank you for all the information; thank you for one more thing to spend money on! (but I have stayed out of the doghouse by pointing out the difference in cost: $5/5 blades vs. $20/5 cartridges).