Not just hotels but houses too. There would be a slot inside the medicine cabinet for disposing razors into the wall. Dude who came up with the idea was probably like, “we’ll all be dead from nuclear bombs before any of these fill up or needs to be renovated”.
They predate nukes, bro.
Replace “nuclear bombs” with whatever relevant worldwide threat you’d like and the joke should still land for you 👍🏼
Dude who came up with the blades in the wall thing was also clairvoyant. He was just mostly wrong in his clairvoyance, a few details would prove to be true.
The future was repealed in the 1920’s I think.
Someone is more likely to get cut from handling those open blades in the trash than a trained construction worker demolishing the wall.
Came to say that. Was very common for a long time.
A small blade safe can hold hundreds of blades and it’s like 4"x3"x3". Makes sense they thought the inside of drywall 5’x3’x1’ would be fine. It can probably hold tens of thousands. Even with a new blade daily that’s decades. And when you tear down the wall you’re dealing with Sheetrock, nails and screws already. All that time would have dulled the incredibly thin blades.
This is all to say: it seems wild but was a decent idea.
https://sh.itjust.works/comment/7775973
Hundreds of thousands
yeah I have one that’s a few inches cubed for 6 years now and it’s nowhere near full.
Safety razors with disposable blades were introduced about 120 years ago, at one blade a day that’s a bit less than 45000 blades
Double edged blades dimensions are: 0.1mm x 42.7mm x 22mm for 98.21mm³
45 000 blades would take a volume of 4 419 450mm³ or about 270in³
A regular indoor wall is made of 2x4 and each stud is 14.5 inches apart (16 inches on center). A 2x4 is in truth 1.5" x 3.5" so each inch of height inside the wall is 3.5 x 14.5 x 1 which is 50.75in³
45 000 blades stacked perfectly would therefore use 270 / 50.75 = 5.32 inches of the wall’s height… So even if they didn’t stack perfectly, it’s pretty safe to assume that there’s enough space inside the wall for hundreds of years at one blade a day (especially since old houses usually used true 2x4 and had their studs at 24" on center)
One blade a day?!! Are you a billionaire or something? The acceptable signal to replace the razor is when the pain from the dull blade pulling your hairs makes your eye watery, and then you try to man up for a couple more shaves before accepting defeat and put in a fresh blade.
It’s an exaggeration to show how long it would take to fill a wall
The acceptable signal to replace the razor is when the pain from the dull blade pulling your hairs makes your eye watery
Sounds like a blade a day to me.
Ook
Orangutans aren’t supposed to shave.
Those old school blades are cheap as chips though.
Also, most people use blades for more than one day’s shave. I think more like 3 - 7, depending on the blade and how picky the shaver (I get more than seven shaves per blade).
Same. I’ve gone 6 weeks on one blade if I was working from home a lot and didn’t have to shave often.
Yep, just trying to show how there’s no way someone fills that wall in their lifetime
0.1mm seems awfully thin for a double edged blade.
It’s also unreasonable to assume they will stack anywhere close to perfectly.
My guess is you’re off by at least a factor of 20.
While true, 1 blade a day for 120 years is also off by a factor of 20 in the other direction.
Number came from Feather
I already covered the “don’t stack perfectly” thing, but the vast majority would still fall flat.
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Assuming they would use the volume perfectly is a pretty big assumption, it’s likely you wouldn’t even get a tenth of that.
They would fall flat for the most part and I already addressed that in my message but thanks for telling me, you’re just the third one I think.
This was behind the medicine cabinet in my house.
Idk why but this bothers me
Because they owned the house for who knows how many decades and only used 9 razor blades?
If it was a vinyl, it would still count as a mint condition.
The year is 1950. A veteran of World War II has come home, married his best girl, gone on a whirlwind honeymoon to exotic, far off Daytona Beach, then like many people in this time, picked a location and built a house. Then he’s recalled to service to go fight in a place called Korea, and never returns. His widow never remarries. Most of a century later, the next owners of the house wonder why there’s so few razor blades in the wall.
“Ah, it’s only been a couple months. This blade is still good. Ouch! Ooohhh… That’s a bad cut. Oh well. Just need a wad of toilet paper to power through it.”
A hole in a steamy bathrooms wall where you dispose wet things full of human skin cells sounds like a mold-hotel.
And if there are kids around, they put everything small enough inside.Bathroom medicine cabinets are generally out of reach of children
Wall full of tetanus.
Wall of Tetanus is a pretty sick 5th level spell.
It’s also a pretty good name for a metal band
So is it like a silence spell? They all get lockjaw?
“I am warlock Rustus and I serve Master Tetanus! Meet my blade, Godxidizer!”
I think this is the first real TIL for me in ages.
Congrats ☺️
Remodeling contractors hate this one trick…
How bad could it be? They’d all be piled up at the bottom of one stud cavity and you know they’re there. If you’re demoing the wall you’re gonna have gloves and a shop vac and a bigass broom and shovel anyway.
Still I got a little blade bank (about the size of those mini soda cans) on Amazon for $7 for my double-edge blades. Last year. And it still has plenty of room in it. Supposedly it holds 300 blades. That’s two blades a week for nearly 3 years. An absurd frequency…I replace my blade every week and I shave my head and they could totally go longer, they’re just so damn cheap.
I think these plastic boxes the blades come in often have a slot for used blades on the bottom. They take up so little space without the paper around them that an entire pack fits into a 1mm slot maybe.
Multiple homes I’ve lived in have had these slots in the medicine cabinets lol.
Did they anticipate people not living long enough to care? Or that some biome would form to use the blades as food?
Interesting decisions all around.
They are very slim. You would really need to shave a lot to see it being full.
But when that happens, who’s going to want to remove a wall full of used razor blades?
It likely doesn’t go in the whole wall, more like in a small container friction fit between tiles. That way you can empty it once it’s full (not too soon, admittedly)
Edit: there was a comment here about two feet of blades, so I was wrong, it does go into the wall and it is a ‘fuck the future me’ kind of thing 😅
I use these blades to shave almost daily. I use approximately 40 each year. I would never be able to fill up a wall with these, not even during 10 lifetimes
It’s not so much about filling it up, but when someone goes to eventually renovate the place lol. Open the drywall and just have a bunch of blades to clean up… Or if you get a leak and have to now deal with a puddle of rusty blades.
I want to say that possibly one of the medicine cabinets had a smaller container that collected them at some point, but again, it was still fixed behind the wall lol.
Prevents them from being mixes in with general garbage and people cutting themselves when handling such.
Makes sense!
We used to have a Victorian era house with one of these. We had to replace that wall in the bathroom and there was this huge pile of rusty razor blades in the wall. Had to use tongs to pick them up for disposal.
No magnets?
Yeah we had a 1920s house with a metal medicine cabinet above the sink. It had the razor blade slot and yeah they literally fell into the wall between the studs.
I use those blades in present day.
When I put in a new blade, I keep the wax paper wrapper, then rewrap the discarded blade in said wax paper before discarding it.
Give or take twelve years into this endeavor, I’ve had zero issues with this system.
Safety razors are great! They’re way cheaper than “conventional” (3, 4, 5 blade) razor blades. They shave a lot closer, and you can get a variety of different grades of blades to fit your comfort level.
The only reason the expensive multi-blade disposable razor cartridge became popular was because Gillette enshitified their razors to maximize profit.
As someone whose grandfather was a carpenter for Gillette in Massachusetts from after WWII until a few years before his death, I’ve got to say that while i use safety razors because of the price, I do get a far superior shave in less time with the “fuck everything it, we’re doing five blades” (basically the 3+ blades modern razors). I just don’t like having to take out a second mortgage for refills.
Could it be that the blade + razor aggressiveness combo you were using is not equivalent to a cartridge razor? Personally with a nice blade and 1960s Gillette Slim Adjustable on the higher settings it gets insanely close even going with the grain, much closer than I’ve gotten with plastic cartridge options.
I have this (I am sure irrational) fear that if I use a safety razor, I will cut the shit out of myself. Which, I realize, goes against the word ‘safety’ in the name.
You do have to be a little more delicate because it is easier to cut yourself but it doesn’t take long to get a feel for it. I doubt I cut myself any more than I did with a 4 blade cartridge.
I’ll have to try to get over my fear and try it. How does it do when you haven’t shaved in a few days? Because I’m very lazy about that.
That’s one area where safety razors are the clear winner. Multi-blade cartridges tend to get “clogged” by long hair. Safety razors don’t.
I probably shave once a week unless I have someplace to be. I can make a full pass, flip it over and make another with no problem. The hair just rinses right out.
Nice. Thanks!
If you use an electric beard trimmer to cut the long stubble down first it works better. Any razor does, but especially safety razors, since there’s only one cutting blade per side and when it’s clogged with longer hairs must be fully cleaned out for a perfect shave.
That generally is what I do, but there are still a lot of long hairs that the trimmer doesn’t catch.
It takes a few weeks for your face to get used to being shaved by a safety razor but once it is, my god.
It’s like the MSPaint Erase Tool in real life. I used to do electric razor only going over and over and over
Now it’s like almost pornographic how easy it is to shave – one swipe down, two, three, four… half the face is hairless.
Four swipes left, left side is hairless.
Four swipes under the moustache and bam.
Highly recommended getting over the beginner’s curve, watch some YouTube videos but here’s a Linux primer on how to do it:
- Fill shaving cream bowl or basin with warm (not hot water).
- Allow horsehair brush to soak in basin for 1-5 minutes.
- Shake excess water off the brush
- Add about half a toothpaste brush amount of shaving cream to the basin, stir into a rich lather, consistency of yogurt. If it’s foaming up/running there’s too much water. I recommend PRORASO, Menthol (Refresh). One $10 tube lasts 3-6 months. Extremely cost effective.
- Run some warm/hot water on a very low pour from sink. This is used to wash hair off your razor between passes.
- Sterilize your safety razor with a 55-75% isopropyl alcohol spray. This is optional but prevents any kind of infections, because these razors basically slice open everything including pimples.
- Lather up your face. Sides, bottom, moustache, whatever.
- Don’t apply excess/heavy pressure, these razors are extremely sharp. Go down in a stripe, flip razor over, do another stripe. Down cuts hair, holding at a mild angle, across (left right) cuts your skin, so never try to slide the razor across your face.
- Go slow, practice, once your face is used to it, it becomes second nature and shaving is 10× more pleasurable and convenient than those disposable razors or whatever.
- It’s good enough that I recommend it to other people. I’m a man, few things make me actually feel like a man more than a good/proper shave.
Much better than a multi-blade cartridge in that regard. It doesn’t get clogged with hair.
You’ll cut yourself in the beginning, but once you get the angle and pressure right it’s quick and easy.
You have to shave lighter. Once you get used to it, they work incredibly well.
With a 3-5 mini razor Mach something, you can push pretty hard before you cut yourself.
Safety razors it’s much lighter touch but it still shaves very close. I bought one of these 10 years ago and it’s still going strong. Safety razors are cheap to buy and once you get used to it, works just as well if not better.
I have really enjoyed the experience and cannot imagine going back to disposables that get guarded more securely than fort Knox and require a credit application to purchase.
I do not, however, generally go about the general population proselytizing about it. Those people annoy me.
It’s simply a solid shave for an affordable price.
The little plastic magazine my DE blades come in have a little slot in the back for used blades, just slide them in and then when the magazine is empty chuck the whole thing. Wrankles me a little bit that the steel is ending up in a landfill, but most things you put in the recycle bin does too because society doesn’t work, so.
On the other hand, it’s not 6 blades at a time, the handle, and the little slimy strip thing.
Get yourself a blade bank and put your used blades in it. They are a cheap and safe way to dispose of your razor blades.
Does the bank give me interest? Otherwise I am not interested.
Yeah, but they do sometimes take a cut off the top.
Been ‘wet shaving’ since I started shaving a very long time ago and never stopped. When the blade slots went away in the back of the medicine cabinets in every bathroom, I made a blade bank from a steel can with a lid that I cut a slot in. I takes me years to fill it.
***For those too young to have seen it. The medicine cabinet in every bathroom used to have a slot in the back of it to drop used razor blades into when they got dull. The would simply fall in between the studs in the wall and pretty much just rust away since the blade back then were made of plain high carbon steel. I remember helping to do several bathroom remodels and when pulling the cabinet and the plaster and lath wall, we would find a small pile of rusted to nearly dust razor blades.
I also use a can.
I try to remember to use the old paper, but usually I despose of them in a cardboard toilet paper roll with one end pinched shut.
That’s a good idea also!
why not return it to a slot on pakaging? isn’t it there for that purpose?
front:
and back
I replied to another comment with the same question that I have never encountered this packaging. I get a cardboard box. Sometimes the blades inside are subdivided into little plastic capsules of five, sometimes they’re just stacked in the box. But that slot is entirely new to me.
Sorry missed that one,.
My contry is just on the beggining of environmental awakening so most stuff is plastic packaging.
i just got these exact razors in the UK, but some blades such as Astras come in cardboard packaging
Ooh,
yea we’re few decades behind on environmental stuff here south.
That sort of packaging is only on the blades that are more expensive than the blades the price conscious commenters have been quoting the cost of
I have Dorco Prime blades that come in that kind of packaging. It was $11 for a pack of 100.
Those are my favorite blades
Because the blades I get aren’t packaged this way. Is that a reusable outer package? I’ve never seen anything like that.
Hi,
Actually these are standard, run of the mill, cheapest ones.
Wilkinson is like budget alternative to glide in safety razor category, You can usually get this packaging with this cheap plastic handle:
Why not just use the new wrapper for the old blade? That way you don’t need to keep the wrapper until you throw the blade away
What are you going to wrap the last blade in if you forget to buy new ones?
Painter’s tape.
Why wrap it until you’ve bought new blades? Unless you’re planning to stop shaving for years, in which case the blade might rust.
Just keep it in the razor, you can’t change it anyway.
This is where that saying “one is none” comes in. Have enough blades. Buy more well before you run out
That’s what I do. I suppose I didn’t articulate that well.
I do it a little bit differently in keeping the very first wrapper so that when I get to the very last blade, there’s a wrapper to put it in.
Minute variations, same end results.
If you don’t replace a blade until you have a replacement blade, why not just presume you’ll shave forever and use the wrapper from the next?
I did stop shaving for years and when I went back to shaving and replaced the old blade, and wrapped it in the replacement blade’s wrapper
I thought thats what’s you’re supposed to do. Wrap the blade in the wax wrap it came in, then break it up by bending it in the wax before throwing it away in the trash (still in the wax).
The little boxes they come in usually come with a little slot to dispose of the old razors. I just put the used and unwrapped razors into that.
I have not encountered such packaging. What brand do you use?
I usually buy Feather but I’ve seen it on plenty of other brands!
I just put mine in an empty tin. It’ll take forever to fill it up, and once you do, just tape it up and put it in metal recycling.
I put all my used ones in a clear pill bottle. Plan is to burn them in the next campfire I have so that they never enter the waste stream.
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You’re joking, right?
Why would I be joking? Razor blades will oxidize into nothing in a fire
That’s brilliant! We should burn all of our garbage so nothing enters the environment!
I’m not suggesting burning all trash, I’m suggesting burning a miniscule amount of steel to avoid the risk it poses to human and animal life. It turns into iron oxide (RUST). The fire pit ring itself will have about 100x as much of it.
Sharps disposal literally exists for this reason
Steel would also office without fire
Where do you think the rust goes in either case?
I literally don’t have sharps disposal available to me. The rust will mix with the ash and become dispersed harmlessly into the soil. Look at an iron ore mine and you will see millions of tons of iron oxide, because that’s how iron is usually found in nature.
I had an old house with one of those. I renovated the bathroom so I can confirm they all go into the wall. God what a mess. 2ft of rusty used razor blades wedged in there.
Older medicine cabinets have a slot in them for this very purpose. A lot of people living in old homes probably have a razor blade slot or two and don’t even realize it.
I was one, I’ve also found and antique ice pick and ball peen hammer in there. One of those ‘those are a problem for future gens’ type solutions.
Where do they go? To the Oubliette.
What’s an Oubliette?
French, oublier: “to forget” or “to loose”. Also a medieval torture device. Look it up at your own risk.
Its like a solitary confinement torture dungeon, but worse. Its a narrow pit below the dungeon where they toss people who are condemned to death. Too narrow to sit or lie down, even if your legs got broken when or before you were thrown in. All sorts of shit piss gore and blood get tossed in too. Probably other harmful junk like live rats and broken glass. There is no return, and they dont clear out the previous tenant or remnants thereof before the next one is moved in.
That explains a number of things. I thought it was fancy landlord talk for French Style Studio Apartment.
No wonder my rent was so below market rate.
Ask Hoggle. Labyrinth’s full of ‘em.
I’ve come across one or two walls full of blades doing basement renos.
Why were the walls doing renos?
What else will they do with all those blades?
