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To the OP, thanks for the trip down memory lane. I always wondered about those slots when I was little. I knew what they were for but it just seemed so goofy and I always imagined there were hundreds just piling up.
Every now and then opening our medicine cabinets I will look at the back and something will trigger me to remember the slot and I will smile to myself thinking how they were lost in time and something I would never see again.
It is another one of those things that faded away like the glass fuses in the fuse box my mom used to blow all the time overloading the circuit running the toaster and blender in the kitchen.
Yep. They recognized such sharps as dangerous and not to be put in garbage. Garbage was commonly burned at the house in many areas, and the blades could survive the fire. Over time, the ashes might be used in the soil as an amendment (remember that garbage was far less toxic before plastics and household chemicals). Livestock, children, and gardeners needed to have the blades just disappear, and inside a wall was a safe storage.
Yes, we lived in the suburbs and many of my friends dads had a burn barrel in the back yard where they burned the trash in.............we used to burn leaves back then.
While not the same thing but most city's banned any type of burning, now fires pits in backyards has become the latest must have.
I’ve been using DE Safety blades for years now, I know a few others that have changed over as well. I use a razor handle that is older than me from the 70s and I can buy 100 blades from my barber for about $15.
I can’t see myself ever going back to the packs of 4 blades that cost $30. I know some people say they can use those blades for a long time, but after a few uses they are trashed for me (My facial hair is very thick).
Disposing of the blades is definately the trickiest part.
Wow lol I usually use a razor blade for 4-6 weeks maybe longer I don’t even know. Seems pretty much the same to me and I shave with just water, nothing else. I never got the point of shaving cream, my skin is just not that sensitive and I have no issues with just using hot water in the shower or whatever.
Yep. They recognized such sharps as dangerous and not to be put in garbage. Garbage was commonly burned at the house in many areas, and the blades could survive the fire. Over time, the ashes might be used in the soil as an amendment (remember that garbage was far less toxic before plastics and household chemicals). Livestock, children, and gardeners needed to have the blades just disappear, and inside a wall was a safe storage.
Hotels frequently had slots for blades where a medicine cabinet would have been. They were always marked with the instructions: "For Used Blades." I have seldom seen these in private homes. Now one may ask what those without slots did. The answer is they have used blade banks, Amazon carries these, but they are generally uninteresting. There are many fancy examples on eBay. People collect them along with other shaving items. There is a book on the subject. Although they were meant to be disposable, I doubt that many threw them out when full.
I imagine the slot went away in the 70s or 80s as cartridge razors replaced safety razors. As I mentioned in an earlier post, the house my father built in 1958 had a medicine cabinet with the razor disposal slot. The only house I've ever owned that has a medicine cabinet was built in 2005. It has a medicine cabinet for each vanity and I checked both of them this morning...no slot in either one.
I guess I'm older than I realized, because the only surprising thing to me about this is how many people weren't aware of this.
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