This one is mostly for the guys, because it’s mostly about razors.\u00a0 Once in a while I do a little product review here (unpaid, unsolicited), and today looks like a good day to talk about the cheaper variants of the high-end 5+ blade cartridge razors.<\/p>\n
So let\u2019s go to shaving world.\u00a0 There are still a lot of options out there for guys who don’t use electric razors, guys like me who get out their hand-held razors and apply shave foam or gel or “shave butter” and then start scraping away.\u00a0\u00a0 (There seems to be something almost spiritual and craftsman-like about shaving by hand, something that you lose in the constant buzz of an electric razor.)\u00a0 There don’t seem to be any “official statistics” on this, but a popular estimate is that about 25% of shaving men in the US use electrics<\/a>, meaning that about 3 quarters of us non-bearded guys still use hand-held hedge clippers.\u00a0<\/p>\n There are various options<\/a> for us manual shavers. You can still buy the old fashioned 2-edge “safety razor”; the blades are cheap and you get a close shave, but it\u2019s also very easy to nick your face.\u00a0 If you’re even more old-fashioned and are not squeamish about blood, you can still buy a “straight razor”, like the ones that some barbers still use (recall the strap on the side of the barber’s chair where the razor is stroked, so as to put a sharp edge on it). But unless you have the skills of a barber, it’s probably best not to mess with a straight. And then there are also disposable hand-held razors, but the handles are cheaply made and not all that comfortable and easy to control.\u00a0From my perspective, the multi-blade replaceable cartridge system is pretty much the gold standard.<\/p>\n But before I start talking about what razors I use, here’s some info on my own shaving perspective.\u00a0 I’m not a beard or mustache guy, so I shave my full face just about every morning.\u00a0 But in addition, I also shave my head.\u00a0 Yea, I’m one of those “false-baldies” who go around trying to look as much like Yul Brenner as possible, above the neck and eyeline anyway.\u00a0 For better or worse, I still have active hair follicles over my entire head; I am not naturally bald nor balding.\u00a0 But around 10 years ago, I started to experience “alopecia areata<\/a>“, when suddenly my hair would just drop out from a 1 to 2 inch round segment on my head; there it would be at my feet while taking a shower in the morning.\u00a0 A-A causes rather weird-looking temporary (read 4 to 8 month) bald spots, which eventually go away but then eventually come back somewhere else on the head.<\/p>\n Some guys with alopecia (and women too — it’s not a male-only condition) try to comb their remaining hair over the spots, while others decide to go with shorter haircuts.\u00a0 I decided to wack it all off.\u00a0 I work in a law enforcement office, where male baldness is quite well accepted and fairly common amidst the male population (and even one of the female staff).\u00a0 Baldness is somewhat “chic” within the law enforcement community.\u00a0 Given my small and thin stature, some people seemed at first a bit dubious as to whether I could pull off the “tough bald guy” look, but after a while it was clear that I was now a member in good standing of the baldies club.\u00a0 My alopecia spots continued to appear and disappear for another 8 or 9 years, but they were not all that noticeable given that the rest of my head was also hairless (although, if you looked close, you still see could see where the spots were, given that they are completely smooth whereas the rest of my head gets a “4 o’clock shadow” from the stubble, well before 4 o’clock).<\/p>\n And then one day . . . I hope I’m not jinxing it by mentioning this . . . but a few years ago, the alopecia spots seemed to go away, I wasn’t getting them anymore.\u00a0 I’m not sure that this will continue, but for the past few years, I\u2019ve felt the fuzz over my entire scalp each evening before I wack it with a cartridge razor. \u00a0(I usually do my head shaving in the evening before bedtime, given that it takes too long to get it all done in the morning while getting ready for work — although I might still do a few light strokes with the blades at that time, as to get any night growth back down to skin level).\u00a0 \u00a0So, even though I don’t really need to be a voluntary baldy anymore (knock on wood), I learned to like the look.\u00a0 As such, I have no intention of re-growing my hair.\u00a0 Especially since it will be mostly gray anyway and just make me look older.<\/p>\n Getting back to razors then — what kind of blade cartridges do I use to get a clean face and clean head every night and morning?\u00a0 First off, I’ve found that you need more than a 3 blade cartridge to get a good head shave.\u00a0 I’ve tried 2 and 3 blade systems on my head that worked just fine on my face, but it seems really hard to control cuts and nicks when using such razors on one’s head.\u00a0 Shaving the entire head by hand involves a bit more art than a regular face shave, and if you are not an artist at it, you can draw quite a bit of blood and fill your pate with unsightly looking scabs and red spots.\u00a0 Maybe it’s easier when you are naturally bald on top and only have to trim the sidewalls and the back-side to get to the full chrome-dome look.\u00a0 But when you have to shave your entire head, you really have your work cut out for you!<\/p>\n After all these years I am still perfecting my own head shaving art, and so I still inflict a wound or two every week; there are still days when I go to work with a band-aid on my scalp.\u00a0 When head shaving, you need to manipulate the razor handle in a lot of different ways and use angles that would not apply in a regular facial shave.\u00a0\u00a0 The back of your head is like the dark side of the moon; unless you are lucky enough to have a sink with mirrors both in front and in back of it, you are grouping in the dark when you start dragging your shaver around back there.\u00a0 Same, really, for the top of your skull.\u00a0 What you need to do is to “feel your way around” in these areas; I use a two-handed shaving technique, where one hand controls the razor via the handle, and the other hand feels the scalp and guides the blades over the terrain.\u00a0 During most of my strokes across the head, I keep a finger or two on the razor-head itself.\u00a0 And actually, this is a factor in selecting the appropriate cartridge to use, as will be explained next.<\/p>\n So again, you need a cartridge with more than 3 blades to do your dome.\u00a0 Although there are a fair number of different brands of cartridges, I myself have narrowed my choice down to three widely available contenders:\u00a0 the Gillette Fusion 5 (5 blades), which comes in a variety of levels (regular, ProGlide, ProShield, and ProSheild Chill); Dorco, which offers a variety of blade configuration, including 4, 6 and 7 blade variants; and Harry’s, which has one basic cartridge offering 5 blades.\u00a0 Gillette is the old main-line razor-maker going way back, whereas Dorco and Harry’s are more recent entities that were born in the internet era (and are mostly sold on-line).<\/p>\n