How many shaves per blade is normal? Mine starts tugging by shave four

Eight weeks into a safety razor and mostly loving it, but I can't work out my blade schedule. Shave every other day, two passes (with the grain then across), coarse dark stubble. Shaves one to three off a fresh blade are lovely. By shave four it starts to tug on my chin, and by six my neck stings for the rest of the day.

Here's the thing though: I'd read somewhere that razor burn means the blade is too SHARP for your skin. So I deliberately bought the mildest blade I could find and I've been stretching each one past ten shaves to save money, figuring a worn-in edge would be gentler. It's got worse, not better.

So what's actually normal? How many shaves per blade are you all getting before you change? And is the tugging the blade, or is it me?

You've got it exactly backwards, and don't feel bad because half the internet has it backwards too. A dull blade doesn't get gentler, it gets grabbier. It stops slicing the hair and starts dragging it, you unconsciously press harder to compensate, and THAT is your razor burn. A fresh keen edge cutting with no pressure is about the kindest thing you can put on your face.

For numbers: I get five, sometimes six shaves per blade with a medium beard, shaving daily. A mate with proper wire-brush stubble is done at three and that's just his face, not a failure. Ten shaves is deep into scraping territory for almost anyone.

My rule is simple: the first shave where I notice the tug is that blade's last shave. They cost next to nothing, the maths never favours a tired edge.

Worth knowing the count isn't even fixed for one person. The same brand of blade gives me five shaves in my mild razor and feels done after three in my slant, and a tired edge shows itself much sooner in anything with more blade exposure. I keep a note on my phone of blade, razor and shave count, sounds obsessive, takes five seconds, ended all the guessing.

petek77 said:

I've been stretching each one past ten shaves to save money

I went down this exact rabbit hole last year. Tried the tricks people swear extend blade life, running the edge backwards along my palm, pushing it through a wine cork, all of it. Measurable difference: none I could feel. What actually helped was boring: rinse the razor, shake it dry, and don't leave it sitting in the shower steam between shaves. A wet edge corrodes in a couple of days and corrosion dulls a blade faster than shaving does.

In the end I gave up optimising and just load a fresh blade every Monday regardless. Costs me practically nothing over a year and I never have to wonder whether today's rough shave was the blade or my technique. Removing that variable is worth more than the pennies-level saving of shave nine.

Straight answer first: five to seven shaves per blade is the honest range for most faces, and a coarse, dense beard like yours pulls that down to three or four. Every other day at two passes, I'd have you changing roughly once a week. Ten shaves on wiry stubble is well past done, so your symptoms fit perfectly.

What moves the number: how coarse and dense the beard is (beard hair is genuinely tough stuff, it dulls steel faster than people expect), how many passes you do, how the maker grinds and coats the edge, and whether the blade dries between shaves, so Graham's rinse-and-shake habit is doing real work. The signs a blade is finished are exactly what you described: tugging, skipping, going back over the same patch, pressure creeping in, and a sting after a shave that used to be comfortable.

On the "too sharp" theory: Rob is right, and it's the most common myth I hear in the chair. Sharpness and smoothness are separate qualities of an edge. A keen blade cuts with less pressure, which is what irritated skin needs; if a FRESH blade burns you, that's an angle or pressure problem, not a sharpness problem. Where mildness genuinely matters is smoothness, and the way to find your edge is a sample pack of different brands rather than one "mild" blade stretched forever. I've put the longer version of all this, sharpness versus smoothness and the change-it signs, in DE blades explained.

Two exceptions worth flagging: sensitive skin, and anyone with curly hair who's prone to ingrowns, should change earlier rather than later, because a dragging edge is exactly what sets bumps off. And the usual boundary: bumps that persist for weeks or look angry and infected are a pharmacist or doctor conversation, not a blade schedule one.

Three weeks in on the new regime: fresh blade every fourth shave, plus a sample pack, and I've landed on a noticeably sharper blade that somehow feels SMOOTHER than my old mild one. Tugging completely gone. Neck sting about 90 percent gone, and the last bit turned out to be me pressing on the chin, which I only noticed once the blade stopped fighting me.

Also did the sums and my grand blade-stretching economy was saving me roughly the price of a coffee per year. Lesson learned. Cheers all.