The Schick Xtreme 3 Eco is a temporary/disposable razor, but it works with the effectiveness and feel of any full-time blade. Made from recycled plastic hangers and available in a four pack via packaging of 100% post-consumer recycled paper, the Xtreme 3 is light and straightforward.

It’s a disposable razor, but it’s a long way from what you normally expect from a disposable razor. The main thing I expect whenever I hear the term “disposable razor” is a certain level of cheapness, something similar to this – just a stiff piece of lightweight plastic with a shard of metal used to scrape the whiskers off your face when you’re in a hurry visiting the in-laws or on that business trip. Expecting anything but agony from a disposable blade is foolhardy.

The Xtreme 3 Eco’s handle is contoured to fit your hand, so you can actually negotiate the terrain of your face comfortably, rather than a non-contoured handle that makes you adjust your shaving style to it. Another surprising feature was the fact that the triple blade set up flex and pivot based on the amount of pressure you apply to it. Generally speaking, that type of a blade isn’t available in disposable form.

I really couldn’t get over how it didn’t just bend, but the whole surface of the blades adjusted themselves when in use. I sat there like an idiot for several minutes pressing the blades with my finger from different angles; I was mesmerized.

Located just above the triple blade setup is the Comfort Strip. The Comfort Strip delivers the ingredients Vitamin E and Aloe to your skin immediately after being gone over by the triple blades, which seriously reduces irritation.

One small thing I liked in particular was the razor cover. Most disposable blades that I have encountered usually have a cheap plastic slidey thing to cover the blade when not in use. But the Extreme 3 had a cover that could only be removed if you pinched both ends at the same time – it was almost like a clamp, which is great if you’ve got this in the bottom of a loosely fitting gym bag, or if you have a curious four-year-old.

The Schick Xtreme 3 Eco is a great disposable razor. Based on your amount of beardage, and if you’re only using it at irregular intervals, you can get at least 25 quality shaves out of it.

For ordering information, click here.

When I was a kid, it was easy to locate a barbershop thanks to the telltale barber’s pole located on the outside of each establishment. And I always wanted to crack that barber pole open and see what it felt like, it’s texture, assuming that its taste was not that far off from a peppermint.

Most barber poles are gone now, but the sentiment, style and quality of a bygone era is thankfully still maintained by the gents at Proraso.

Proraso is an Italian company that has been specializing in men’s shaving for over 80 years. In many ways, it is a remnant of how seriously men used to take the duty of shaving; it was an experience to be enjoyed, not a task to be hurried through.

The first thing I noticed about the pre-shave cream was the texture. It isn’t a cream in the gloppy, lotion sense. When you stick your finger in, it doesn’t necessarily cover your finger, but rather encompasses it – it has a feeling akin to something lighter than air, really. Loaded with eucalyptus and menthol, you can feel the refreshing sensation that is in store for your skin the minute you remove the lid and catch a whiff, before you even apply it.

Once you do apply it, your skin begins to tingle within a few seconds. Honestly, it felt great to just leave the pre-shave cream on and hang out for a few minutes, letting it settle before I added the shaving cream.

Shaving cream gets a bad rap these days, thanks to the cheap stuff in a can that you can get at almost any store. That stuff is so light and airy, in many cases, it feels as though you’ve barely applied any of it to your face prior to dragging a razor across it, which makes for a substandard shave. But the Proraso shave foam had a different volume, felt heavier yet still light, and had its own texture as well. It is a foam, not a cream.

It’s the kind of shave foam that a barber would lather the back of your neck up with after a haircut and annihilate the hair with a straight razor, before that was outlawed.

I could feel the same refreshing, clean, open skin feeling for a full 20 minutes after the shave. It evoked the kind of feeling that makes you want to rub your hand across your freshly shaved skin because it feels so crisp and alive. And it left a clean surface with no stubble or whisker untamed. Also, my skin didn’t feel dried out or scaly after that feeling abated; instead my skin felt protected and solid.

I really like the old school appearance and feel of Proraso. Don’t let the canister fool you – it isn’t the bland, “Brand X” canister you can get at any store for $5 dollars. This is like your grandfathers shaving cream: bold, full-bodied, and undaunted by the fact that it’s a legit, old school shaving cream in a time of gels and other gimmicks.

Buy the Preshave Cream for $13 and a canister of Shave Foam for $12 by clicking here.

In the heart of the current political season, and in the interest of full disclosure, I must say that I have always been pro-Gillette throughout my personal shaving career.

It started way back in the mid-nineties, when I fell in love with the Gillette Mach 3 right out of Harvard Law. Three blades at the time was revolutionary (not as progressive, but certainly more moderate than the Schick Hydro 5 Power Select and it’s five blade setup) and I used it faithfully for years.

That being said, I was totally unaware and fully surprised when I recently received the Gillette ProGlide Styler for review. So rest assured, this review comes to you as the result of a fully non-partisan effort.

The 3-in-1 features the ability to shave with the Fusion ProGlide Power Blade, the Power Trimmer to trim your facial hair or beard, and the Precision Edging Blade to make crisp, defined lines to finish your cut or look of choice.

Right out of the box, I immediately liked the weight, feel and contour of the tool to fit in your hand.

The Precision Edging Blade is a great touch and totally removes the need for a separate tool to tighten up you sideburns, mustache, beard or just your look in general.

The Power Trimmer came with three adjustable attachments to trim up a beard or sideburns, but you could just as easily use it for some spot manscaping or even to trim a wild hair on your head.

The coolest feature on the Fusion ProGlide Power Blade is the built in Microcomb at the base of the razor. This helps by guiding your hair to the blade so you can shave, even against the grain, in a more controlled, close manner. The razor didn’t feel as solid as I would’ve liked (it felt somewhat flimsy), but it gave me a very close shave.

While using it, I got the feeling that this is a great 3-in-1 tool for a person who does a lot of traveling. There are very few attachments to carry around and lose while on the road. Also, there is no need for a charger because it is battery powered. Switching attachments was somewhat difficult at certain points.

The ProGlide Styler is waterproof and is also contoured and coated in rubber, which means that it’s not only more difficult to drop should you be shaving with a wet hand, but it could also withstand said drop should it hit the sink.

The built in Organizer Case was also a nice touch to make keeping track of the attachments and interchangeable parts even easier.

Accompanying the ProGlide Styler was the Fusion ProGlide Shave Gel. Interestingly, the shave gel was actually clear and barely foams up in the sense of a more traditional shaving cream. It definitely made it easier to see the area you were shaving, so you can “see where to shave and edge more accurately”, which was true. There was no blind shaving, which was a great touch and definitely lent itself to the quick shave a man may need to undertake when he is on the road shaving in a hotel room for business.

The versatility is what any user of the ProGlide Styer will like the most. It is a quick and easy alternative to using separate tools for each shaving task.

For more information, click here.

I’m not going to screw around here, guys. The Schick Hydro 5 Power Select razor is the best razor I have ever used. I could seriously just end the review right there.

Was it the battery-powered, multi-speed vibration that gently eased and spread the whiskers from my face during the shave? Was it the LED Digital Interface that lit up to show the multi-speed vibration between three different settings? Was it the “Fliptrimmer” razor with the flip-top back that allowed me to flip back and shave to the contours of my face and precisely trim any area I desired?

It could have been any one of those aforementioned features, but there were a few more in particular that caught my attention.

How about five blades, hence the name Hydro 5? For years, I have been using the Gillette Mach 3, with nary a negative thing to say about it. But I had never used a razor with five blades before; I immediately realized that three were inferior. Yes, five is more than three, wisenheimer. But I mean in terms of feel. And not just on the relatively contour free, non-sensitive areas like your neck or sideburns.

For me, the most sensitive area is where my mustache would be if I could grow one (if I were a man), i.e. the area right below my nose, above my upper lip. I anticipate this will be a painful exercise literally every time because it has been for about 15 years; the only way to numb the pain was to load up on high quality shaving cream (or whiskey) and have at it.

But with the Hydro 5, I glided over that area with absolutely no problem, and almost no friction — I couldn’t believe how well it worked. The combination of slight vibration of the razor with the ridiculous amount of blade-age left me with mouth agape in amazement. Almost on cue after I finished my shave, a neighbor came over to my house and used the bathroom. He came out holding the Hydro 5 in hand (which I had left on the sink), accompanied with a look of bewilderment on his face.

“Five blades! Five fucking blades, man?” he sputtered. “That is why you have such a clean shave — those grimy hairs don’t stand a chance!”

What aided those five blades was the Hydrating Gel Reservoir at the tip (which is water activated), just preceding the five razors. If there was ever a gimmick, I swore this was it as I perused the package prior to opening the Hydro 5. As men, how many times have we heard about “cooling gel” or some other “lubrication strip” that proves to be nothing but slick marketing?

Not only could I feel the effects of the gel, but I could see the gel coming out of the razor as I pressed it against my skin. The gel is comprised of vitamin E and aloe, which is even more soothing in use than it sounds in print.

The most amazing thing about the Schick Hydro 5 Power Select is that it retails for only $12.99. Even though it’s priced along the lines of a disposable razor, just holding it in your hand and feeling the weight of it proves that it is anything but and can hang with any of the overpriced razors on the market.

The following day I had two separate people comment on how smooth my skin looked, with one person asking me if I had “gotten a haircut or something because I looked different.”

Buy the Hydro 5 Power Select from Schick. It is the best money you will ever spend on a razor. For more information, click on this link.

After the last product review I did ended up being somewhat of a dreadful experience, I’d be lying if I said a feeling of dread hadn’t since settled over me. I was really hoping the next product I tried wouldn’t lead me to another “dread” end. But alas, the shaving products from Dreadnought Shaving we’re anything but “dread” on arrival.

So, what is a Dreadnought? A “dreadnought” is defined as:

1) A person who fears nothing

2) One that is among the largest and most powerful of its kind

The Dreadnought Avenger Shaving Brush was a little piece of awesomeness I didn’t even expect. It was solidly built, but not heavy or cumbersome, and when using it, you could tell the impact it made right away. I followed the instructions and added a dollop of Dreadnought shaving cream.

The dollop was described as “almond sized” and I didn’t think that would be enough, but I did it anyway. I was amazed, as that small amount covered my entire face and neck and there was actually plenty left over in the Avenger Brush that I had to wash out; in today’s green world of limiting carbon footprints and“minimizing waste, I felt ashamed. And all I could think about was the old “Keep America Beautiful” campaign with the old Indian crying. But I moved on and was somehow able to proceed with my shave.

The shaving cream itself had a very masculine smell, yet wasn’t overpowering. The cream actually looked to be almost a gel-like substance compared to a typical shaving cream — sort of like how Dep hair gel is to today’s hair paste. I thought it may be too runny, but as I applied it to my face, it was the perfect consistency. Shaving was easy and smooth; it was like the shaving cream adapted to my facial hair (if that makes any sense), and I never had to go over an area more than once with my razor.

And while the shaving itself was smooth, the Post Shave Balm came in and really just felt great. When I read the ingredients, I wasn’t surprised that the dominant ingredient was aloe vera because my skin felt rejuvenated and revitalized. Some after shaves are loaded with water or glycerin, which means in about five minutes after applying, your skin needs another application to get that fresh feeling again. But with Dreadnought, my skin felt tight and crisp for a solid 45 minutes post shave.

The only thing easier than using the Shaving Cream and Post Shave Balm in concert was cleaning the Avenger brush. From the product description: “After using your Avenger, rinse the brush clean in warm water. Give it a little squeeze to get rid of as much water as possible, give it a good shake, [and] then rest on its base so it can dry out.” I followed the instructions, and by the next morning, the brush was completely dry and soft, like I had never even used it.

Between the Shaving Cream ($19.00), Post Shave Balm ($19.00) and the Avenger Brush ($15.00), $53.00 is incredibly reasonable for the shave that’s in store for you — especially when you consider that each 100 ml canister of shave cream will provide a total of 50 shaves, or roughly $1 a shave. The value of the product combined with the price makes it unbeatable.

I highly recommend all three products which can be purchased through the company’s website at www.dreadnought-shaving.com.