This post may contain more information than you wanted to know about me.  Consider yourself warned.

As you may remember, I've talked about the Preserve razor, Beth's (Fake Plastic Fish) suggestion to try a safety razor, and my time-consuming first attempt at buying a safety razor off of e-Bay.  The safety razor seemed like a lot of work, and a little eco-weirdo, but I liked the old-timey-ness of it and frankly I thought it might be kind of sexy to use a safety razor for legs.  So I kept at it, and found one on e-Bay that some guy had used a couple of times and decided it was too much work.  He threw in some blades, soap, and a badger brush, so the whole shebang was pretty much a steal.  (Plus,  it was a "buy it now" option, which soothed my impatience.)  Anyway.  Girls, LISTEN UP (and dudes too): this is the best thing ever.  Ever. 

Have I ever considered drag on my skin?  Not really.  But this shave tells me that I should have.  The safety razor shave is so clean and comfortable, I never want to go back to crappy plastic blades.  Have I cut myself?  Nope, not once.  (It's called a safety razor.)  Razor burn?  No way.  The delicate underarm and bikini regions?  No prob if you take it slow.  I've gotten rid of some perma-burn that I didn't even know I had...it's probably been plaguing my pits for the last 15 years! 

Do it now!  This guide gives a lot of great info about what razors to buy, how to clean them, what blades/soaps/brushes to use, etc.  (It actually gives waaaaaaaay too much information, and the boys-club tone is really aggravating, but it's a great place to start.  Hopefully some funnier and more industrious eco-blogger chick will start up a ladies' shaving forum - I'll gladly comment.)  I bought an HD Merkur Classic b/c it has a longer handle and it's what people seemed to recommend.  I've been alternating between regular bar soap and some fancy shaving cream in a tube (using the badger brush) when I can luxuriate a little - they both work fine.  The first time you try you'll need to take a little time, just to get the feel of it.  The dude on the shaving site recommends shaving with the growth of the hair on the first pass; I don't really think this is necessary for legs unless you're really hairy or nervous about it.

So here we have this amazing gourmet shaving experience, which will actually turn out to be cheaper in the long run and better for the environment.  Hooray!  As for the straight razor, the option that produces no waste at all (I guess you just sharpen the blade?), I'm thinking it's a little too nuts for the legs.  Maybe I'll try it when my DE (double-edged) razor amortizes to nearly zero?  That'll take a while.

Finally, I promised months ago that I'd follow up on my Keeper experience.  (The Keeper is an enviro-alternative for tampons.)  I wish I was as excited about it as the safety razor, but...I can't give it a two thumbs up (yet?).  For one, the Keeper comes in two sizes, B for "before childbirth" and A for "after childbirth" - can we circulate a petition for T for "tiny"?  The size thing makes installation and de-installation a little harrowing, but once everything's all set, no worries for the rest of the day.   I recently found an online forum for all things eco-menstrual, so I'm thinking I'll try to work up the courage to spend some time reading the brave girls' advice and give the Keeper a few more tries.