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The Schick Injector seems to be in the shavegeek air again. Gordon, the eminence grise of Wetshavers, has been praising this unique safety razor (the first-ever safety razor, some say) on the shavegeek forums for quite some time, and now a few of us have finally gotten around to picking one up on eBay or from the lost and found box at a bus station and trying it, to great success.

I've been getting some really serious shaves from my WWII-era Eversharp Injector, so I was intrigued by a recent post on Wetshavers by a fellow wetshaver in the UK named Andy. Seems Andy noticed that the disposable Feather straight razor blades used in Feather's highly-regarded Artist Club cut throat happen to be the exact same size as an Injector blade, only a few millimeters longer.

So he snipped it down to size with a nail clipper, loaded the Feather blade into his latter-day Injector, and proceeded to get “the mother of all shaves”. Which is even more impressive when you take into account that Andy used the entry-level Pro Guard blade, which wraps the sharp edge in plastic guards to keep the actual edge itself from ever contacting the face as a “naked” blade does.

Now, I've made fun of some of the crackpot tweaks that burble up on the shavegeek boards from time to time, but this one sounded -- dare I say it? -- kosher like Leo Derocher.

So I took a fresh Feather Professional disposable straight razor blade and cut it down to size to match a Schick blade, and slid it into my Injector. It fit perfectly! Nice detective work, Andy.

Everything check out okay. It looked just like a standard blade from every angle, though I do admit some trepidation about using such a scary-sharp blade -- the sharpest I've encountered by far -- in a razor that was already a bit on the aggressive side compared with my usual Merkur DE. But I was so intrigued by Andy's experiment that I had to try it.

I went to the Y and sweated like a pig, then hit the showers and emerged excitedly to try this hybrid monstrosity. And hey, lo and behold, there was another guy, maybe in his 50s, catching a shave at a nearby sink with a disposable twin-blade and a can of foam! And nobody was giving him the stinkeye. I'm not saying I'm Rosa Parks, but, well, maybe I am saying that. Anyway, it was good to see the ice broken and the taboo of shaving at the Y lifted.

So I lathered up with Taylor avocado cream and a Vulfix #377 brush (hey, if I'm going to shave at the Y most days now, I'm going to use a He-Man brush, and to hell with babying it -- I threw it into my dop kit afterward without any case to store it -- enough with this fetishistic hothouse flower crap when it comes to brushes), and I went to town with my Feathered Injector.

Except it didn't shave any whiskers. At all.

What the? I relathered and shaved another with-grain pass like before, taking care to apply a modicum of pressure and tilt the razor in the same manner I usually do when it's loaded with a “real” Injector blade.

Still nothing. My face felt as stubbly as it was before I started.

It made no sense. Look, I've had laser eye surgery and have 20-15 vision, so when I say I eyeballed that razor and it and the Feather blade looked ready to rock, I'm saying it was thusly. The blade was positioned exactly where a normal Injector blade would be, the blade exposure was exactly the same as usual, but for some reason, nothing was happening.

So I yanked the Feather and jacked in a new Schick blade, and then relathered and shaved a third time. Mow city. A super close first pass, and then after a relather and second, against-grain shave, I had another one of those Bob Beamon glass-smooth shaves which I've come to expect from the amazing Injector.

I have no idea why such a great idea didn't work with my razor. I've emailed Andy to get his input -- maybe he can offer some input as to why I wasn't able to duplicate his success. Either way I'm stymied. I was certain that this setup would be a world-beater, but to not get any cutting at all? As Wally Shawn would say, it's inconceivable!

I'll get to the bottom of this. I'm sure I did something wrong. I had to. No other explanation for such a bizarre result. How could a blade which could inspire so much fear in a Feather straight razor fall so flat compared to a standard-issue Schick Injector blade? I hope to find out what bonehead mistake I made, because I really have high hopes for this idea.