The hair on my chinny chin chin

Harry's - good design. But do they make good razors?

Have I fallen into some sort of retro grouch marketing trap in which I automatically fall for companies who sell sensible-seeming products in simple but attractive packaging featuring high recycled material content allegedly made by skilled craftsmen? Did Google figure out from my online behavior that I secretly want a non-stop supply of subtle, elegantly designed boxes arriving on my stoop, and then feed me ads for just such products? Well, barring an unlikely full disclosure from that oh so dark, mysterious algorithm monster, we may never know. Nevertheless, the products just keep coming, and on the whole, I couldn't be happier.

Following the recent delivery of the latest innovation in bicycle saddlery, I recently received a package from Harry's, a company devoted to making and selling razors that work as well as and cost less than the increasingly ludicrous products being propagated by "Big Shave". Harry's promises "a great shave at a fair price." Co-founded by one of the co-founders of Warby Parker (this Jeff Raider guy does a lot of co-founding), Harry's positions itself as a purveyor of sensible, affordable products shipped direct from the manufacturer to the customer by a company with a social conscience. As cliched as it sounds, they cut out the middlemen and pass the savings on to you; with 1% going to charitable organizations.

Harry's isn't the first to try this direct-to-customer model. But they're the ones who actually got me to pull the trigger. The frugality of the approach appeals to my inner penny-pincher. The 1% to charity appeals to my liberal guilt. And the whole we're just a couple of guys from Brooklyn thing appeals to my hypocritical desire to consume tons of cheap products, but not from gigantic corporations like Proctor & Gamble.

So the natural question is, do the products live up to the promise? Well, let's start with price. How does Harry's stack up against the shaving accouterments I was using previously, i.e., Gillette Fusion products? For comparison I searched for the Gillette Fusion "manual" razor. I have a constitutional aversion to using any type of battery powered shaving device, so I don't use Gillette's latest innovation, the Gillette Fusion Proglide Flexball Power Razor™ series, their hi-tech robo-razor. I am so regularly bombarded by ads for this silly contraption, that I thought to use it for comparison, but in the interest of fairness, I settled on what I consider to be equivalent products. Both Harry's and the "manual" Gillette Fusion feature a 5-bladed razor, some sort of swivel tip and a lubricating strip along the top. They seem comparable. So what's the difference in cost?  

What $40 buys you at Harry's - Handle, 19 blades, shaving cream, great typography, recyclable packaging.

What $40 buys you from Gillette - Handle, 9 blades, shaving gel, metallic orange blister packs to wrestle with.

Okay, so Harry's is cheaper. So what? Bic disposables are probably cheaper too. It's no use being cheaper if the quality isn't as good or better. Of course I'm not Consumer Reports. I don't have a high-tech lab with the ability to measure the relative sharpness of blades or the relative closeness of shaves. All I can do is provide my subjective impressions, which are these. On the whole I would say the two products are pretty close to equivalent. Harry's handles don't swivel as much, so I find I have to actually move my hand and wrist a bit more to keep the blades in alignment with my face, but if that's the toughest part of my day, I'm in good shape. The blades seem to be of equivalent sharpness and I can't say that either one is superior. I get a good, smooth shave either way.

I do like Gillette's little single blade precision trimmer on the back side of the razor for getting good and close to my nostrils. Harry's has no such feature, so it takes a little more facial contorting to not have a little rough patch just under my nose. But again, big whoop. And after years of conditioning, I am so accustomed to shaving with gel, Harry's cream seems a bit less luxurious. So for the moment I've stuck with the gel. I'm planning to get a shaving brush and trying a few alternatives, which I'll report on in a future post.  

So what's the conclusion? I have to give Gillette's Fusion the edge for superior pivotry and for their little single blade precision trimmer. I'm also more comfortable using their shaving gel than Harry's cream. But the Fusion is only marginally more convenient at over twice the price. So I'm going to stick with Harry's for a while. And as I've been exploring alternatives to the way I've been consistently shaving since I was a teenager (starting with Gillette's Atra back in the 1970s), I've learned that there is a whole cult of non-grocery store shaving people out there, and a lot of artisinal products available, so I'm likely to try out a few other shaving alternatives in the future.