[veidr]

I too find it mind-boggling that men choose to shave their faces with mass-market manual razors.

However, the conventional wisdom -- and my own experience -- is that even a typical drug store manual razor, if it is fairly new, will give you a closer shave than any electric razor. It's just a function of having a thin metal foil between the blade and your skin, or not having one. And a poorly-made electric razor will give a much worse shave than a blade.

I still shave with an electric razor, though. The hassle of dealing with a manual razor massively outweighs the tiny fraction of a millimeter closer shave a manual razor gives me, especially since by lunchtime the difference is already unnoticeable.