Does anyone else test new razors on a cheap mannequin head first?

My last straight razor purchase ended up being a dud. The edge felt fine on my thumb but caught and pulled on the second pass, and I already had a client in the chair expecting a clean shave. I stopped mid-service, grabbed my backup adjustable, and finished the job, but it cost me 15 minutes of panic. Since then I buy a cheap practice head for 30 bucks and run a full beard and head shave on it before I ever touch a real client. But I wonder, is that overkill? How many of you just test on your own arm or a volunteer, and how do you decide when a new tool is actually ready for paying customers?

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richardh442mo ago

My last barber spent 40 years doing shaves with the same 3 blades he bought in the 80s, never tested anything, and never had a complaint. You are overthinking this, the real skill is adapting mid-shave, not pre-testing a piece of plastic that doesn't have real skin texture.

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