When travelling I still couldn't get hold of my usual disposable weapon, the Gillette Blue II Slalom. Disappointed with my Gillette Fusion experience, I thought I'd try something new. I have already declared my unswerving allegiance to a wet shave and I now put my cards on the table regarding manufacturer. For a long time I've been a Gillette man; I suppose we all have our allegiances when it comes to shaving. I can't even explain mine, so long has it been thus. I seem to vaguely remember starting off with Bic disposables in my youth, inherited from my father, but that was only a passing fancy. Ah that brings back memories; lathering up with a brush and hacking my face off with a blunt single blade. This would be the first Wilkinson Sword product I'd ever tried; it felt like cheating on my girlfriend.
QUATTRO TITANIUM DISPOSABLE
This is a disposable version of the Quattro Series, and boy are there a lot of non disposable ones; Quattro, Quattro Titanium, Quattro Titanium Energy and Quattro Titanium Precision (which appears to be more of a trimmer and edger) I had some fun navigating the website in my investigations. No wonder metrosexual man is so confused these days; when I started shaving in the mid 80s it was a choice between 1 disposable single blade cheese grater and another. Aloe Vera hadn't even been invented, never mind on the razor to condition your face. Wilkinson Sword claims that this is the first 4 blade disposable razor. The blades are coated with titanium for extra strength, hence the name.
I bought 4 blades, and they come in a blue box with a transparent plastic front. You can get the razors at the back through the cardboard backing, where a dotted area is where you can push in. You can get these for £4.99 for 3 blades in Tesco, but I got one extra blade free. To be fair, I didn't by them from Tesco, but if I said I got them from Netherlands chain Etos it wouldn't help you really would it!
For a fully disposable razor, this looks rather fancy. It has a very comfortable contoured blue handle with rubber grips on the sides. The 4 bladed silver head is held on to the handle with a spring loaded pivot. Toward the top of the handle is also silver, and it widens to make 2 forks which connect to the blade, giving a quite wide base for the blade, which should help stability. Below the bottom blade is a blue lubricating strip. There is a white one above the top blade, too.
I have to admit that I didn't even know how to remove the travel cap, as I'm so used to pulling them off from the top. With this, you have to slide it off to the side (oooer missus). One good thing about this kind of cover is that it wouldn't easily fall off during movement, making the blade safer to carry around with you in a bag.
THE SHAVE
I used this with Gillette Gel Sensitive Skin as the lubricating agent for my face, which I find pretty effective stuff. Actually any Gillette Gel would have been just as good if you ask me. The fancy schmancy Fusion Hydra Gel is dropping in price so that's probably good too. Wilkinson Sword have their own range of gels and foams as well as the old fashioned brush and soap, but I'll stick to what works thanks very much.
I am a bit of a lazy shaver these days and shave every 3 or 4 days. I'd do it even more infrequently but I find that the blades can't handle any longer, which usually ends in much pain, swearing and blood for my part. Depending on your point of view, I'm either very lucky as I can have decent, uniform, thick facial hair or else I'm unlucky as it already looks like I need a shave in the evening. Personally I'll stick with lucky; I would never fancy being the hairless type who looks messy after a week of shaving as there are random tufts of bum fluff on his face.
I was initially encouraged by the fact that it feels like you can manipulate this round your face without having to worry about if the blades are digging in at a funny angle - which is my only previous experience of more that 2 blades, with the Gillette Fusion razor. This meant that I wasn't nervous about shaving at an angle round the difficult, irregular parts of my face. It was also quite good at tackling my chin after a few days of stubble. Round the nose area I had no problems at all reaching to the edge.
Post shave, my face felt quite smooth and I would class it as a fairly decent shave, probably the best I have experienced from a fully disposable razor. When I rub the hairs under my chin against the grain, I can feel a slight roughness, and I am not accustomed to this with the Fusion, as it's usually impressively smooth. However, 12 hours later and my face still felt relatively smooth, which really impressed me. I had no nicks at all and didn't feel in any danger of having one whilst shaving, which is a big plus. The shave was quite quick because of my immediate comfort with the razor on my face, another big plus. And the rubber grips seemed to help as it felt comfortable in my hand as I whizzed it round my mush. Generally I find a pivoting head makes a big difference and this was no exception.
One gripe is that hairs got easily stuck between the blades and couldn't be washed away very easily. My usual way round this is to use the travel cap to ease them away from the blades, but this didn't seem to help much. Rinsing under the tap didn't work either, so I still have some hairs stuck fast between the blades. The hairier you are, the worse this will be, I assume.
I experienced perhaps very mild razor burn. I'm not really sure as I don't get this, my face being as hard as nails, but anyway, my face didn't hurt afterwards, just perhaps a twinge or two!
CONCLUSION
In the perennial trade off of convenience versus close shave, the Quattro Titanium disposable certainly wins in terms of convenience. It enables a quick, painless, pretty decent shave. I have to admit though, that the Fusion has it beaten purely on close shave. I would therefore recommend this if you want a fairly smooth, quick shave. Although as soon as I can get hold of a Blue II Slalom I'm having a dab with that old friend. It's cheaper than either of these and has served me well, although maybe these new fangled gadgets have raised the bar in terms of my expectations, so we shall see.
ABOUT THE COMPANY
Wilkinson Sword were founded in 1772 by gun maker Henry North. They became royal gun makers to King George III in 1804. Later on the company expanded into sword manufacturing and from the 1890s the product range was expanded. At the turn of the century, over 5000 products were sold, including cut throat razors. They introduced a safety razor in 1898. They produced armaments for World War I and commando knives and armoured clothing such as Flak jackets in World War II. They expanded into garden tools after this, and in 1956 produced the first stainless steel double edged blade. Lots of razor innovations followed, including in 1983 Retractor (first disposable razor with retractable blades) and in 2001 Xtreme 3 (first disposable with triple blades).
CONTACT INFORMATION
Wilkinson Sword Ltd Sword House High Wycombe Bucks HP13 6DG
