The routine: your whole setup, decided
Nine stages, seven purchases, and two of them you can skip. This is the page the rest of the site exists to support: not which razor is best, but what your whole setup should be.
By Sawyer V. · Published
We have not tested any of this. Everything below is compiled from published manufacturer specifications, and the arithmetic is printed so you can check it. This page carries affiliate links: if you buy through one we earn a commission at no extra cost to you, and it does not change the order of the picks. Full disclosure.
The whole thing, in one paragraph
A mild closed-comb razor, a blade sampler, a soap that lathers easily, a synthetic brush, and either an alcohol-free balm or a fragrance-free moisturizer - not both. Add a fragrance-free cleanser and a large bottle of sunscreen. Add a trimmer if you keep a beard. That is the entire routine and it is seven or eight purchases, most of which you will not buy again for years.
Why this is a system and not a shopping list
Every competitor in this category answers the question “which product should I buy?”. That is a fine question and it is not the one most people arriving here are actually asking. The man leaving a cartridge razor is not choosing between two razors. He is trying to work out what the whole setup is supposed to be, in what order, and which parts of it he is allowed to ignore.
The parts interact. A good razor with canned gel is a worse shave than a cheap razor with proper lather. The right blade for you depends on the razor holding it. A post-shave balm is redundant if your moisturizer is fragrance-free. None of that is visible when each product is reviewed on its own page, which is why this page exists.
The nine stages
Each one names a single pick, says what it is for, and shows how long it lasts on our published consumption model. The buy button is on each stage rather than three clicks away, and every one links to the full roundup if you want the alternatives and the scoring.
1. The razor
A mild closed comb, bought once
Merkur 34C HD
Sixty-eight grams of chrome-plated brass with nothing to adjust. The weight is the point: a cartridge razor teaches you to press and a heavy safety razor means you do not have to. Bought once, on our assumption still in service in twenty years.
- How long it lasts
- 5,200 shaves*
- Refill
- Universal standard
2. The blades
A sampler first, then a hundred of the winner
Double-edge blade sampler
The only question in wet shaving that reading cannot answer. Blades cost pennies and change the feel of the shave more than the razor does, and which edge suits your face depends on your beard, your skin and your water. Six weeks with a sampler settles it permanently.
- How long it lasts
- Not published
- Refill
- Universal standard
3. The lather
A soap that lathers before you know how to lather
Proraso Green shaving soap
A hundred and fifty grams in a bowl you can load straight from. Lather does three things canned gel does not: holds water against the hair so it softens, lifts the hair off the face, and stays wet through three passes. This is the cheapest change with the largest effect.
- How long it lasts
- ~100 lathers
- Refill
- Nothing to refill
4. The brush
Synthetic, twenty-four millimeters
Yaqi Tuxedo synthetic, 24 mm
No break-in, no smell, dries in an afternoon, costs a fraction of badger. A brush lifts the hair so the blade meets it end-on, which fingers cannot do. Twenty-four millimeters of knot is the right size for building lather on your face rather than in a bowl.
- How long it lasts
- 1,300 shaves*
- Refill
- Nothing to refill
5. The post-shave
A balm, and not a splash
Nivea Men Sensitive Post Shave Balm
Alcohol-free, with chamomile, witch hazel and vitamin E on a published list. A blade removes the outermost layer of skin along with the hair, and the traditional alcohol splash goes straight onto that. The sting people read as evidence it is working is the problem.
- How long it lasts
- ~50 uses
- Refill
- Nothing to refill
6. The cleanser
Fragrance-free, and a big bottle
CeraVe Foaming Facial Cleanser
Three hundred and fifty-five milliliters, fragrance-free, non-comedogenic, with three ceramides and niacinamide on a published list. Washing before you shave lifts the oil so lather can reach the hair, and warm water has already started softening the beard.
- How long it lasts
- ~180 uses
- Refill
- Nothing to refill
7. The moisturizer
One bottle that replaces the balm
CeraVe PM Facial Moisturizing Lotion
Fragrance-free, oil-free, with niacinamide fourth on the published list. If you buy this, you do not strictly need the balm at stage five - a fragrance-free moisturizer does the same job. That is one fewer product, which is a better outcome than one more.
Skip one of these two. This and the balm at stage five overlap almost completely. Buy one of the two, not both, unless you specifically want witch hazel or menthol.
- How long it lasts
- ~45 uses
- Refill
- Nothing to refill
8. The sunscreen
The one with the largest effect and the lowest compliance
La Roche-Posay Anthelios Melt-In Milk SPF 60
A hundred and forty-eight milliliters at SPF 60 with all four actives published as percentages. Volume is the specification that matters: sunscreen only works in the quantity you actually apply, and a small expensive bottle gets rationed until it does not work.
- How long it lasts
- ~120 uses
- Refill
- Nothing to refill
9. If you keep a beard
A trimmer with published numbers
Wahl Aqua Blade
A hundred and eighty minutes of runtime from a sixty-minute charge, a published 0.2 to 25 mm range, fully waterproof, with a five-year warranty behind it. Trimmer marketing competes on attachment count; the four figures that decide whether you like one are runtime, charge, range and whether you can rinse it.
- How long it lasts
- 1,300 shaves*
- Refill
- Proprietary to the maker
No live price is currently verified, so every button here reads Check price instead of a number we cannot stand behind. Why we do it that way.
The order to buy them in
- Razor, blades, soap and brush together. These four are the shave and none of them is useful without the others. Buying the razor and waiting a week for blades is the most common way a first fortnight dies.
- The post-shave, in the same order. Your face in month one is more irritated than it has been in years, and this is the thing that gets you to tomorrow.
- Cleanser and moisturizer next. Both are cheap, both last months, and between them they change how your face feels more than any razor upgrade will.
- Sunscreen, whenever. The largest effect over a lifetime and no urgency in any given week, which is exactly why it never gets bought.
- The trimmer on its own timetable, if you keep a beard at all.
The economics, and why there is no total on this page
Because we have no price today that we can stand behind. Prices move weekly, the live price feed on this build is empty, and a cost figure built on a remembered price would be a number you act on. So every buy button here reads “Check price” rather than showing something stale.
What we publish instead is the half of the arithmetic that does not need a price: how many shaves, lathers or applications each item actually contains, computed from the published pack size and a stated consumption assumption. Nobody else in this category publishes it.
- A hundred double-edge blades at an assumed five shaves each is 500 shaves - close to two years at five shaves a week.
- A 150 g soap puck at an assumed 1.5 g per lather is about a hundred shaves.
- The razor and the brush are one-off purchases on assumed service lives of twenty and five years.
Put your own prices against those numbers and the calculator will give you a cost per shave, a cost per year, and the comparison against whatever you are currently spending on cartridges. Every assumption in it is editable, because they are ours and yours may differ.
What this page is not
It is not a test. We have not shaved with any of this, we own none of it, and there is no test bathroom. Every pick here comes from published manufacturer specifications, scored on four axes with the working printed under each score, and every specification cites the page it came from. The method is set out in full, including what it cannot tell you.
It is also not the only possible answer. If you would rather not wet shave, an electric shaver replaces the first four stages and the rest of the routine is unchanged. If your face reacts badly to shaving at all, the razor bumps guide may be a more useful page than this one.
Questions people actually ask
Do I need all nine of these?
Seven, and only if you keep a beard is the ninth relevant. Stages five and seven - the post-shave balm and the moisturizer - overlap almost entirely, so buy one of the two. That makes the real list seven items for a clean-shaven face and eight with a beard.
What order should I buy them in?
Razor, blades, soap and brush first, because those four are the shave itself and they are useless individually. Then the post-shave or moisturizer. Then sunscreen. The beard trimmer is a separate purchase on its own timetable.
How much does the whole routine cost?
We do not publish a total, because we have no price today that we can stand behind and a remembered one is a number you would act on. What we publish instead is how long each item lasts, so that the calculator can turn your prices into a cost per shave and a cost per year.
What if I do not want to wet shave at all?
Then stages one to four are replaced by one electric shaver and the rest of the routine is unchanged. The comparison lays out the trade, and the shaver roundup has the picks.
How long before this makes a difference?
Two to three weeks for the shave, because what changes in that time is your hand rather than your equipment. Two to four weeks for the skin, because that is roughly how long skin takes to turn over. Nothing here works in three days, and anything claiming to is describing hydration.