“I SHAVED WITH THE MUCH TALKED ABOUT GILLETTE FUSION PROGLIDE FLEXBALL RAZOR AND I SURVIVED (WITHOUT BLOODSHED) TO NARRATE THE EXPERIENCE."
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With the power of social media, fashion trends seem to spread faster than rumours and eventually die out even before people finally learn to master the trend. Every Tom, Dick & Harry is suddenly sporting a hipster beard and the trend seems so 2-0-1-4 now. I'm bored of facial hair, be it my little goatee or beards that surround me. Thankfully, style icons including the likes of Leonardo di Caprio are setting an example by returning to the classic clean shaven look.
Despite my deepest desires a year ago, I could never manage to grow a Hipster beard. All I end up with is patches of asymmetric hair when I go two weeks without shaving. On the bright side, I never had much of maintenance issues when it comes to grooming the facial hair. I have a relatively smooth skin texture. A Mach3 turbo razor and an electronic trimmer are more than enough to suffice my facial hair grooming needs. I sport a trimmed goatee and otherwise a neatly shaven look. A goatee since I could never master the art of shaving under the chin without cutting myself or leaving behind patches of uncut hair. And suddenly Gillette’s latest offering the flexball technology made headlines in most men’s fashion websites & got my attention.
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The razor arrived in box much bigger than what I had anticipated. Gillette scores brownie points for attractive packing in black and orange, with the words FLEXBALL in capital letters. The razor came along with a pamphlet/product note highlighting the four key features – 5 finer blades, precision trimmer, enhanced lubrastrip and flexball technology. I was quite surprised how they didn’t mention the grip as 5th point. The handle had a good heft to it, quite grippy!
I lathered my little patchy stubbles with shaving foam and glided the razor while still looking into the camera (with a mirror in behind). I didn’t really feel the razor cutting the stubbles and quickly peeped into the mirror suspecting uncut facial hair. Well, the razor was working just fine. In no time, I had removed all the facial hair in my cheeks with just one stroke at a place, like they show in advertisements.
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And then, came the tricky part where I really wanted to put Flexball’s ability to test – removing my hair under the chin. I have a bony facial structure and removing the stubbles just under the jawbone was annoyingly time consuming. With a regular razor, I need to crane my neck, look at the mirror through the nose, shave in tiny stokes by holding the razor in several angles, and eventually cut myself to bleed like in Dexter’s title song. Flexball surprisingly passed the test. All I had to do was to tilt the handle sideways for the blade to automatically adjust to the contour of chin. Yes, I still had to be slow and careful but I managed to shave without leaving patches of unshaved hair or cutting myself. A clean shaven face!
In short, will Gillette Fusion Proglide give you a faster shave? Yes. Will the razor give cut-free shave? Depends on your shaving skills, strictly prohibited for 5yr olds. Does flexball technology really make a difference? Yes, you don't have to change the angle of the razor or remove the razor from your face, like a hundred times. It's definitely a move forward, to make a razor move sideways. The bigger (& cliched) question, is Gillette Fusion Proglide the best a man can get? I’d probably have my doubts if there was an android powered razor. In a way, Gillette is to shaving industry as Android is to smartphones; it's either a big yes or you end up spending lot more on something else that offers more or less the same (actually less).![]()
With the power of social media, fashion trends seem to spread faster than rumours and eventually die out even before people finally learn to master the trend. Every Tom, Dick & Harry is suddenly sporting a hipster beard and the trend seems so 2-0-1-4 now. I'm bored of facial hair, be it my little goatee or beards that surround me. Thankfully, style icons including the likes of Leonardo di Caprio are setting an example by returning to the classic clean shaven look.
Despite my deepest desires a year ago, I could never manage to grow a Hipster beard. All I end up with is patches of asymmetric hair when I go two weeks without shaving. On the bright side, I never had much of maintenance issues when it comes to grooming the facial hair. I have a relatively smooth skin texture. A Mach3 turbo razor and an electronic trimmer are more than enough to suffice my facial hair grooming needs. I sport a trimmed goatee and otherwise a neatly shaven look. A goatee since I could never master the art of shaving under the chin without cutting myself or leaving behind patches of uncut hair. And suddenly Gillette’s latest offering the flexball technology made headlines in most men’s fashion websites & got my attention.
THE RAZOR
Not very long ago, Mach3 razor seemed like THE groundbreaking innovation yet in men’s shaving razor segment. Gillette then added an aloe strip (for moisture) to the razor. Gillette’s latest offering: Fusion Proglide razor retains the aloe strip and has 2 additional blades. You read that right, 5 blades in total! It doesn’t stop with 5 blades. More than the blade count, it’s the infamous flexball technology that attracted all the attention. Flexball isn’t exactly a ball but a hinge system, a round fulcrum that swings to either side. Flexball technology along with traditional tilting blade mechanism makes three dimensional movements that give you better navigation on your face contours and 5 blades reportedly cuts hair one-fortieth of a millimetre shorter than other razor blades (or something like that, as if you could visualize one-fortieth of a millimetre.) So, I decided to put all the theory on fluidity and flexibility to test by shaving with Gillette Fusion Proglide razor and I survived (without bloodshed) to narrate the experience.THE EXPERIENCE
The razor arrived in box much bigger than what I had anticipated. Gillette scores brownie points for attractive packing in black and orange, with the words FLEXBALL in capital letters. The razor came along with a pamphlet/product note highlighting the four key features – 5 finer blades, precision trimmer, enhanced lubrastrip and flexball technology. I was quite surprised how they didn’t mention the grip as 5th point. The handle had a good heft to it, quite grippy!
I lathered my little patchy stubbles with shaving foam and glided the razor while still looking into the camera (with a mirror in behind). I didn’t really feel the razor cutting the stubbles and quickly peeped into the mirror suspecting uncut facial hair. Well, the razor was working just fine. In no time, I had removed all the facial hair in my cheeks with just one stroke at a place, like they show in advertisements.
And then, came the tricky part where I really wanted to put Flexball’s ability to test – removing my hair under the chin. I have a bony facial structure and removing the stubbles just under the jawbone was annoyingly time consuming. With a regular razor, I need to crane my neck, look at the mirror through the nose, shave in tiny stokes by holding the razor in several angles, and eventually cut myself to bleed like in Dexter’s title song. Flexball surprisingly passed the test. All I had to do was to tilt the handle sideways for the blade to automatically adjust to the contour of chin. Yes, I still had to be slow and careful but I managed to shave without leaving patches of unshaved hair or cutting myself. A clean shaven face!
In short, will Gillette Fusion Proglide give you a faster shave? Yes. Will the razor give cut-free shave? Depends on your shaving skills, strictly prohibited for 5yr olds. Does flexball technology really make a difference? Yes, you don't have to change the angle of the razor or remove the razor from your face, like a hundred times. It's definitely a move forward, to make a razor move sideways. The bigger (& cliched) question, is Gillette Fusion Proglide the best a man can get? I’d probably have my doubts if there was an android powered razor. In a way, Gillette is to shaving industry as Android is to smartphones; it's either a big yes or you end up spending lot more on something else that offers more or less the same (actually less).