This is the place to ask beginner and simple questions. Some examples include:
• Soap, scent, or gear recommendations • Favorite scents, bases, etc • Where to buy certain items • Identification of a razor you just bought • Troubleshooting shaving issues such as cuts, poor lather, and technique
Please note these are examples and any questions for the sub should be posted here.
Physician here. Sterilise in the strict sense you can’t without an autoclave, but that won’t be necessary. The professional method for disinfecting razors would be a bath in Barbicide, but a good scrubbing with a non abrasive bathroom cleaner and a toothbrush should already take away most bacteria and their hideouts. A few consecutive dips in 75% alcohol after that take away moisture and kill the rest. The razor still won’t be sterile, but it should be good enough.
Thanks for the tips! I will clean the blade and dip it into alcohol. The point that you cannot sterilize a razor is well taken - my only worry was that I don’t know anything about the previous owner, and I prefer to err on the side of safety.
I perfectly understand the concern. I actually did put a vintage razor through an autoclave once - the Lady Gillette I gave to my wife, so she could rest assured it was safe to use. But that was massive overkill and the psychological point was mostly in the sterilisation pouch as gift wrapping.
Generally rubbing alcohol is fine. If you want to go beyond that, get barbicide and soak the blade for a while in that. Just be certain in both cases you’re not subjecting the scales to such as the scale material may respond poorly to the aggressive nature of those solutions.
