June 28th, 2024
- Prep: Shower
- Brush: USSR Army Brush
- Razor: Profimed Saiver
- Blade: Treet Carbon
- Lather: Arko - Shave Stick
- Post Shave: Floid - The Genuine
- Fragrance: None
Frugal Friday is one of my favorite theme days. It's fun going through the inventory in the ole den and doing some quick maths. That said, here is my cheapest loadout;
Brush; The brush, although I received it for free, was/is being sold as NOS on eBay for $7.46. The markup percentage wise is actually quite high, considering this brush was made for the Soviet army in the mid-late 80's and probably cost literal kopeks to make and was issued for free. Not only is it the cheapest brush I own, it is also the worst. It's crazy scratchy and if you have some spare time, you could probably sit down and count the individual boar hairs as there are so few.
Razor; I thought I'd end up using some vintage Gillette adjusted for inflation today, but somehow, this "modern" Russian army razor is still cheaper. These were being sold brand new just a few years ago for $10. It uses 2 DE blades, one of which is snapped in half, and is crazy mild. It also is a hybrid guard, with a safety bar on one side, and open comb on the other. It's such a pain to get the blades to seat properly, but the novelty of this razor makes it a keeper.
Blade; This one is the most difficult to quantify as there is no MSRP and finding consistent pricing is tricky. I checked multiple sites and settles on Razor Blades Club's pricing since they have the most variety and thus the most consistent pricing. It narrowed me down to 3 different blades that are 29 cents a piece. After doing some more Googling, I found a 100 pack of Treet Carbons for $7.98, making these 8 cents a piece!
Soap; This will be the most popular option today, not because LG competitors are unoriginal, rather we are satisfying today's theme as expertly as possible. An Arko stick is $2.99, or 4 cents a gram; you simply can't beat that.
Aftershave; This was the most surprising. After finding the prices for all of my splashes, the Floid Genuine was the cheapest by cost per oz. A 400ml bottle sells for $38, making it 9.5 cents per oz.
To acquire every item in today's shave, the total cost excluding taxes and shipping is $66.43, but of course on a price per gram/oz/blade, the shave is even cheaper. I will try to quantify this below;
The brush and razor can last a long time if cared for properly, if you get over 1000 shaves with the razor, and 746 with the brush, they will each be 1 cent per use.
The blade we'll say an average of 3 total uses, so 2.67 cents per use, but this razor takes two, so it's 5.33 cents
The soap and splash are the trickiest to quantify, so here it goes. From a cursory Google search, an Arko stick lasts about 3.5 months of shaving daily; roughly 105 shaves, making it 3 cents a shave. Assuming 2ml of aftershave is used, this bottle of Floid will last 200 shaves, making it 19 cents per shave.
That makes the cost of today's individual shave 29 cents.