Shavin' mavens

[beak]

JtS' post on Battylad's thread about competitions got me thinking about razor technology (mostly because I misread his post, but I digress..)

What's the point in all this techno flim-flam coming out nowadays? Lubricating strips, vibrating whatchamacallits, three, four, five blades..? Does it help at all?

For the record, I shave with a double-edged safety razor and water, which causes me no skin problems at all and manages to get all the hair off my top lip and chin as I like it.

(edit: first person to link to the Onion article about the 29-blade razor or whatever gets dinged into bloody oblivion.)

[Gerontophile]

Shavin' mavens

I use a Gillette Mach 3 triple blade with lubricating strip, and it's shite. When I run out of replacement blades, I will choose something else.*

I generally hate shaving.

*I should add that I use gel rather than foam, as I tend to overuse foam.

[JtS]

Shavin' mavens

I'm currently using a mack 3 turbo. I don't know if the vibration thing does anything, but it feels nice. I only ever use shaving foam, I find it easiest to apply and get coverage. I'm currently using Gillette foam with aloe which smells very nice.

The Mach 3 has 3 or 4 blades, don't know why, I like the rubber fins that make the bristle sit up. The moisteruising strip feels nice too but wears out quickly.

The KoS Azor looks well thought out.

[Eggchaser]

Shavin' mavens

I've often toyed with getting a proper shave from a Largo Al Factotum type, but the spectre of Sweeney Todd looms in my mind when it comes to other people wielding cut throat razors around my so far uncut throat. I've always fancied having a go with the straight edge myself.

[evilC]

Shavin' mavens

I still stick to my twin-blade-with-'lubrastrip' Gillette Sensor Excel. It's perfectly adequate and I get a really close shave with it.

I don't like the way alot of these 'multi-blade- razors seem to have the 'pivot point' at the leading edge, so that you can't exert as much pressure on the blades or trim edges very accurately.

I use gel - usually Gillette stuff again. However, I had no choice but to use the Nivea stuff a few months back and although I wasn't that impressed initially, the stuff went on forever - the can must have lasted three months! The little 'worm-y' squiggle that you get out of such cans towards the end of their lifespan just went on and on and on. Thus, in the end I was impressed with it. The one drawback, though, was that it was white (as opposed to the Gillette's blue) so it was harder to see if there was any left un-smeared on your face.

I wet-shaved my head at the weekend - the first time I've done that in about 10 years. It feels great when you've first done it - unbeliveably cool and clean. However, it is of course an utter drag to have to shave it, so I'm immediately letting it grow back, I think. Plus, if you're unlucky there's the issue of ingrown-hair spots and/or shaving cuts on your head - not so nice. I also got an insect bite on the very top of my head on the first evening I'd shaved it and it seemed to be the type I'm slightly allergic to. The first time I had one of these bites, a few weeks back, my forearm inflated until it looked like a rugby ball. This time I got a bulge right on top of my cranium, so I looked like a fucking Lego man! Humph! :-(

[My Name Is Ian]

Shavin' mavens

I use an electric shaver, in no small part because normal wet shaving cuts my skin to pieces.

This explains why I alternate, on a roughly two-week-on-two-week-off basis why I go from clean shaven to bearded.

[Stumpy Pepys]

Shavin' mavens

Shavin' Mavens sounds like one of Nishlord's grot mags from his former career.

[evilC]

Shavin' mavens

I went through a large phase of electric shaving too, for that same reason, 200%. The only thing is, it didn't seem to stop my ingrown-hair spots.

What was good, though, was the 'wet & dry' electric shaver I had. You could use it on your wet face and rinse it in the sink. You had to apply some chemicals to your face first, of course, so as to soften the beard and smooth the shaver's passage, but if you prefer electric, I highly recommend one of those.

...Errrr, if they still make them, that is!

[hobbes]

Shavin' mavens

I use the 5 blade Gillette super battery death killer turbo ninja razor. Or "Fusion Turbo" as I believe it's called in shops.
It's fucking brilliant. Lovely clsoe shave, never a cut, never a stray hair.
When I used cheaper razors I used to get terrible shaving rash. Not any more. The blades are ridiculously expensive though. (Although they last a long time.)

I was skint last week and really needed new blades so I decided to give the King Of Shaves AZOR (as mentioned by Jason above) a bit of a go...

It's fucking rubbish. You have to push too hard to get it to flex, it's lethal around moles, it's not easy enough to handle and the distance from the leading edge to the first blade is about twice as long as it needs to be, so you can't get into difficult positions. And it doesn't pivot sideways at all. Utter utter crap.
I shall be complaining.

[EIM]

Shavin' mavens

I haven't shaved in months. I got bought a beard trimmer, so I just give myself a nice, neat-looking grade 1 once a week. Life is so easy.

[Femme Folle]

Shavin' mavens

Stumpy Pepys wrote:

Shavin' Mavens sounds like one of Nishlord's grot mags from his former career.

That's what I was thinking.

This is what I use. It has its own bar of soap surrounding the blades.

[San Bernardhinault]

Shavin' mavens

I use a Fusion, and it's pretty good. Each time there's a new Gilette thingy it genuinely seems like an incremental improvement on the previous one.

Every time I've tried something else, particularly a Wilkinson Sword jobby, I end up looking like someone has been massaging a broken wine glass into my neck.

I will, though, try the King of Shaves Azor thing because I find the KoS shaving products are actually pretty good. Their cool gel stuff is great, and the tiny bottles of the shaving oil work OK, and are really good for carrying on to flights if you don't want to chack a bag in.

What I've never got to provide any benefit at all is the wibbling vibrator stuff in the Turbo models.

[hobbes]

Shavin' mavens

I will, though, try the King of Shaves Azor

Seriously, don't. They're rubbish.

[Reed John]

Shavin' mavens

I use the Mach 5 Fusion Turbo, etc.

It does make a difference and I need every technological advantage I can get. Shaving is hard for me. I have a bit of stubble about five minutes after I've shaved and I always have a few really stiff hairs that won't go away quietly (even if I shave them, you can still see them under the surface) and I sometimes get the ingrown hairs.

The blades are expensive, so I only shave twice a week and go with the scruffy look the rest of the time. That's the best I can do. When I shaved every day, I had a lot more ingrown problems and a lot of razor burn.

So I let it grow out a bit, and then before I shave it again I patrol my face in a mirror for any bits that look like trouble and pull them out one by one with tweezers.

Electrics, in my experience, work once and then get dull.

[DCI Harry Batt]

Shavin' mavens

I use Sainsbo's own triple-blade razor thingy. It's fine. And it's 71p for a pack of four new heads.

[David Agnew]

Shavin' mavens

gerontophile wrote:

I use a Gillette Mach 3 triple blade with lubricating strip, and it's shite. When I run out of replacement blades, I will choose something else.*

I generally hate shaving.

*I should add that I use gel rather than foam, as I tend to overuse foam.

I found Mach 3 was excellent until the Fusion came out, them the replacenent Mach 3 blades seemed to really drop in quality.

[Gerontophile]

Shavin' mavens

I got a freebie Fusion through the post when they first came out, and found it good, and will probably buy a version of that next time.