Grooming Garage: The New Blade in Town

I've spent time here talking about shaving products and equipment, offered suggestions and recommendations, and made clear my general disdain for hipster/woodsman beards and Gillette products. So when I learned that Schick had recently introduced a new razor, the Hydro, I figured I needed to give it a try.

Unfortunately, nobody sends me stuff like this to try (though I would certainly be amenable to such an arrangement, if anybody who's reading wants to send me something), so I bought one. I needed to pad my order to get free shipping when I ordered the Mad Men DVD set from Amazon anyway.

The Hydro comes in three- and five-blade versions, but you already know that I think using anything with more than three blades is pointless, so I got the three-blade version. Besides, it costs less, and looks better (chrome and blue plastic, while the five-blade is a really ugly combination of blue metal and white plastic).

The Hydro's big gimmick feature is a reservoir of water-activated lubricating gel above the blades. Instead of just a strip of stuff on the blade head that wears away after a couple of shaves, the Hydro has a larger quantity of stuff inside the blade head, with a strip of holes across the front to dispense it. Also, the blades have these guard things mounted just behind the edges that are supposed to help smooth your skin for the blades. Okay, sure.

But you want to know how it shaves, right? Okay. I used it for the first time yesterday, and I was mostly very impressed. It was a very smooth shave, and I felt like I was shaving faster even though I'm pretty sure it took the same amount of time it always does. I didn't experience any nicks or irritation, and the head rinsed out very easily.

My one real quibble is that the head is hinged at the bottom, like the Gillette Mach 3 and Fusion, and as I've mentioned before, I feel like I have less control with this sort of arrangement, but that could just be me. Also, the head is large compared to my other Schick razor (blame the gel reservoir), which makes the detail work trickier.

I still need to see how long the blades last, which will take a couple of weeks, but I do feel the Hydro is an advance in comfort (for me, at least). But I'll probably use up my stash of Xtreme 3 blades before I switch permanently.