Kai's Origami Razor: I Tried Shaving With Paper

Howdy, welcome back. This one’s a “will it shave,” maybe a product spotlight, maybe a little of both. I’m honestly not sure what to call it yet. You saw the thumbnail. I’m shaving with a paper razor, and I still haven’t decided if I’m titling this one origami razor or paper razor, question mark. Let’s just find out.

A Two-Year-Old Envelope From Japan

This one’s from Kai, the company that makes blades most of us trust without thinking twice. It’s a foldable, disposable, one-use razor, made in Japan. My buddy Colonel Mally from Mally Shaves picked up a pack for me a year or two back when we were both hunting for a specific disposable razor online. We stumbled onto these instead, and he sent me a pack. I am just now getting around to opening it.

Each pack holds two razors, and mine came as a five-pack. Ten razors total. I hadn’t even unfolded one before I hit record.

Folding a Razor Like a Piece of Origami

The instructions are nine numbered steps printed right on the paper. Fold two flaps in. Pinch a crease in the center to get the angle right. Fold two little tabs and pop them into slots to lock the handle together. Peel the blade guard off. Step eight is a strip of tape you wrap around the whole thing at step nine to hold it all together. Took me a second to realize that last part was tape, not decoration.

Once it’s assembled, it looks a lot like a cartridge razor. Because functionally, it is one. It’s just built from cardstock and a thin metal blade frame instead of plastic. No plastic anywhere on it. Biodegradable, recyclable, the whole deal.

The Lather: An Obsession Dupe I’ve Been Chasing for Years

For the brush, I used my Lone Star brush from Frank Shaving, a 22mm knot that’s the right size for a small tub like this one.

The soap is what made this shave interesting. Obsession for Men was my signature scent for something like 30 years, going back to the late ’80s. When I got into wet shaving, I went looking for a soap that captured it. I found a version from Mama Bear’s and one from Talon Soap Factory. Both good. Neither quite it.

Then I found out Frank Meza from Strike Gold Shave had made an Obsession dupe as a collaboration soap years back. I reached out and asked if it would ever come back. Frank said he’d check whether he still had any of the original oil left and see what he could put together. A couple weeks later I had tracking, and this showed up: a small, nondescript tub with that Obsession oil in it. I hadn’t used it yet going into this shave. Right after Frank’s tub landed, Monica released her own version too. I’m hoping more people take a crack at this one.

Testing It on Five Days of Stubble

I hadn’t shaved since the previous Saturday. Five days of growth, handed straight to a paper razor. If this thing was going to fail, this was the test that would show it.

First pass, it felt tuggy. I chalked that up to beard length, not the razor, and by the second pass I was pretty sure I was right, because it went smooth from there. Treat a cartridge razor like a DE, light passes, no pressure, and it does its job. That’s true whether the cartridge is plastic or paper.

I went for all three passes. Had to. For science. Somewhere in the middle of pass two, I realized I was actually impressed. The lather kept coming even though I never spotted anything that looked like a lather channel on this thing. No idea where it was hiding. It just worked.

The Verdict

Three full passes, and the razor was still in one piece when I finished. Not soggy, not falling apart. Whatever they coat that cardstock with, it held.

The shave landed around 85 to 90 percent BBS. A little stubble left around my goatee line where I couldn’t quite get the head positioned right, plus my usual rough patch on the neck. Nothing that a little more practice wouldn’t clean up. I could’ve gone harder and probably closed the gap, but I wasn’t going to push a razor I’d never used before.

Call it 50 percent better than I expected walking in. I figured on a mediocre cartridge shave and a novelty video. Instead I got most of the way to BBS off a piece of folded paper and a metal blade Kai’s been selling for a few years now.

If it holds up on a second and third try, I’m keeping a pack of these in my dopp kit for emergencies. Ten razors, no plastic, folds flat. Hard to beat that for travel.

Let me know if any of you have tried this one before. I’d love to hear how it went for you.