Grooming Garage: The Empire Strikes Back?

It's deadline week again, hence my absence yesterday. However, I didn't want to leave you hanging for too long.

A little over a month ago, I did a writeup on the new Hydro 3 razor from Schick. At the time, I made a comment about receiving products to try and review. A PR person from Gillette found my post (presumably through a Google alert triggered by the keywords "razor" and "Gillette") and contacted me to ask if I would be interested in trying the company's forthcoming Fusion ProGlide, which purportedly offered some of the same improvements as the Hydro. So of course I thanked him and accepted his offer.

A few days later I received a package with a Fusion ProGlide Power razor (the battery-powered, vibrating kind) and a can of Fusion HydraGel. I had tried another Power razor some years ago (probably the M3 Power, which I believe was the first of its kind) and hated it--it irritated my neck something terrible, just like traditional electric razors do, so I didn't bother to install the battery in the ProGlide. Also I figured it would make for a more equivalent comparison to the Hydro if I wasn't using the power feature.

As for the gel, I haven't used any shaving product that squirts out of a can in probably fifteen years, if not longer.--they just don't give a good shave for someone like me with ultra-sensitive skin. I'll get around to trying it at some point, but I don't have high expectations for it, so I'll probably end up keeping it around for an emergency, or giving it to my brother. And again, I wanted to make my comparison as fair as possible by using the same products (face wash, pre-shave oil, and shaving cream) as I did while shaving with the Hydro.

By the way, the ProGlide went on sale about ten days ago, and I had originally intended to have this review ready right around that time, but I wanted to get at least three shaves with it first, and since I only need to shave a couple of times a week, I wasn't paying enough attention to the on-sale date to figure out when I should have started using it in order to make that deadline. Also, I was still shaving with that first Hydro blade, and it was still giving me great shaves, and that reservoir still had moisturizing lotion in it. I think I used it six or seven times and it was still getting the job done; in fact, when I finally discarded it, there was still some lotion inside the head, and if I hadn't needed to start using the ProGlide, I would have kept using it.

It had been more than a year since I'd first tried the original Gillette Fusion, so in a sense I was trying to compare the ProGlide to that as well as to the Hydro. Ultimately I came away with the same opinion as before, with one slight difference. The blades on the ProGlide have thinner edges, but it still rinses easily and generally handles well. But what surprised me most was that, despite Gillette's claims that the ProGlide gives a smoother shave, I found the shaves to be less smooth and less comfortable than either its predecessor or the Schick Hydro. This could be attributable to the composition of the lubricating strip (they've added mineral oil), to a new "low-resistance coating" on the blades, or some other reason. Also, even though Gillette says that lube strip is 25% larger, it still wears away pretty quickly: after three shaves it was pretty much gone.

I wanted to like the ProGlide. I was hopeful that Gillette had produced a product that would eliminate the bias I have against them based on my prior negative experiences with their products. But it didn't happen. Keep in mind, you might be completely happy with your Fusion, and you might get totally different results than me with a ProGlide. And that's fine; that's why there are competing products at the drug store. And if you do decide to try a ProGlide, I suggest you look for sales or coupons (I think I saw some in this past Sunday's newspaper coupon inserts, or you can check this out) to save yourself a couple of bucks.