Pros: The one blade “trimmer” on the back is nice to have for perfect sideburns, although I did cut myself with it once.

Cons: Very irritating, tons of drag, expensive, doesn’t fit in usual razor shower caddy.

Bottom line: For all the talk of “thinner blades” and “less irritation” and “less drag”, I was expecting much more. Honestly, I didn’t notice much of a difference between this razor and Gillette or Bic’s previous 5 blade razors. They are all extraordinarily irritating. The 2 blade Sensor Excel or the two blade Trac II Plus are far less irritating and give a much more pleasant shave. I still would highly caution against these multi-blade razors and recommend strongly that people go with the Sensor Excel or Trac II Plus.

Recommended: Absolutely not.

I got an email from an acne.org member encouraging me to try this electric razor. It has a head which rotates extremely fast and the makers advertise that it cuts hair up to 270 times a second. It is a wet shaver that you use in the shower with shaving cream, or in my case, lather from Acne.org cleanser. I tried it for three days, hoping to give it a little time to get used to it and nail the technique. Unfortunately, it never worked well for me. No matter how hard I pressed it didn’t provide anything near a close shave. I prefer a close shave. Otherwise I end up feeling kinda gross toward the end of the day. Also, it took a while to complete the shave–quite a bit longer than with a 2-blade razor. It felt more irritating than a 2-blade as well. While it was not the most irritating electric I’ve tried, it did still have the feel of an electric. In other words, horrendous. I am pretty much giving up on trialing electrics at this point. I’ve tried probably a dozen of them and none have come even close to producing the low irritation and close shave of a 2-blade razor. Lastly, I got some obvious irritation on my neck, as electrics are wont to do. You can’t see it well in the picture, but it was pretty gross lookin’ for a day or two.

I got an email from a member who wanted to let everybody know Dollar General is selling Gillette Trac II Plus cartridges for $1.25 for 6 blades. That’s cheap! He says they’re the real thing too.

The Trac II Plus is my favorite razor. The blades don’t come with the handle though. You need to get that separately. You can find out where to get those at the bottom of the recommended products page. I am totally unaffiliated with any of the companies that make the handles by the way.

For more info on all things shaving, check out the guide to shaving.

In my neverending quest to find the least irritating shave, I recently tried a safety razor. Safety razors are seriously old school. They are heavy metal contraptions into which you put an actual double edged razor blade. Since I read on a couple of shaving web sites that safety razors provide the least irritating shave, I decided to try one.

It was a horrible shave, and terribly irritating–one of the most irritating shaves I’ve ever experienced. I couldn’t even finish one shave with it. It felt like raking something sharp across my skin. Yuck.

People online say it takes some practice to achieve the skill needed to get the best shave possible with these things, but I felt quite clearly after my first shave that no amount of practice would change this frog into a prince.

I tried the Merkur brand because it was most highly recommended from people who use safety razors. It was quite expensive, but I figured if it worked out I’d save money on blades, since the regular double edged blades are so inexpensive. But alas, I’m just out the money I spent on this thing. I’d highly recommend saving your money and just sticking with the Gillette Trac II Plus or the Gillette Sensor Excel.