Shaving razors

Cutting beards down to size.

MANY YEARS AGO, I asked John and Joe, the no-nonsense barbers in my small town, about shaving with an old-fashioned straight razor. “Don’t bother,” they told me. “You’ll ruin your face.” So I know there have been advances in shaving technology. But while the shaving industry upped the number of blades, added lubrication, and introduced something called the Flexball, I got a two-blade disposable and never looked back. Until now. I came across an ultra-engineered shaver called Oneblade, the first razor I’ve seen that touts how few blades it has (sadly, it seems currently to be US -only). It seemed like a good occasion to finally take every configuration out for a test drive. A lot of stubble down the drain later, here are my observations.