Ever Closer Shaves: A Review of the Power Fusion Razor
For the last several weeks, Gillette’s been playing “peek a boo” with its advertising, promising to unveil something called “Fusion” on Super Bowl Sunday. In what is the most off topic ever post of this blog, one that could only be explained as an AdSense experiment, we took advantage of the appearance of Fusion in a Canadian supermarket last night, ponied up our $45 CDN for a razor and eight blade cartridges, and took it for a test drive this morning.
We gave the new five bladed Power Fusion the complete test, to the point of allowing two long showers in a row to so deplete the hot water in the house that the water we had to work with was decidedly luke (as opposed to the usual lukewarm).
The packaging was as annoying as usual, requiring scissors to open. Gillette thoughtfully bundled one of its Everready “AAA” batteries, and it took a few minutes to figure out how to twist open the handle to insert the battery. For those readers over 40, the instructions are useless without a magnifying glass. The version we bought came with the cartridge pre-installed, but in our usual comprehensive approach, we removed the new cartridge, and attempted to fit a used cartridge from our Mach 3 power. Of course, the cartridge connector was significantly redesigned, ensuring no competition from older model cartridges.
After pressing the better placed switch, we held the razor to assess the changes in vibration frequency. We’d say the Fusion vibrates slightly faster and smoother than the Mach 3 Power, and a lot smoother than our Oral B battery operated toothbrush. The smoother vibration was noticeable on the face, as well, though so much so that we really wondered if this razor was getting all the stubble on our face. We obviously swiped over previously cleared face a few extra times this morning, so it is difficult to express the relative closeness of the shave on the long flat runs on the cheek & jowls.
Which leads us to a pet peeve, and Gillette’s proposed solution. We’re clean shaven at This Duck’s house, and many have loved us for it. But as the number of blades per cartridge have increased from single bladed to twin bladed Sensor, to triple bladed Mach 3, to four bladed Quattro…two things have been true: The assembly gets stiffer with all that stainless steel reinforcement, and the amount of space required for the plastic cartridge to hold all that stell grows with the number of blades. The upshot is that “curvier” parts of the face get less attention, and edges, especially around the nose, lips, and ears, tend to be a little ragged compared to older blade technologies.
Fusion Power takes a new approach to this problem, and adds a sixth blade, on the reverse side of the cartridge from the other five blades. We must confess, this blade goes where all others will not, and we have the sensation once felt while drawing a single edged blade across our face…you can feel each and every single blade of hair falling while drawing that blade over the stubble. We were extremely careful this morning, so we can’t yet say whether the single blade approach risks nicks as much as it feels like it should, but for the time being, we think this is a reasonable compromise…especially since 95% of This Duck’s face can be shaved by the virtually nick-free design of the Gillette multi-blade models since the mid ’90’s.
As for the nice to haves…Power Fusion apparently has two lubrication strips, and a much “fatter” cushioned handle that the Mach 3 Power…and lots of extra plastic surrounding the cartridge…at this rate, we’re headed into Lady Gillette wide body territory in the next ten years. Nonetheless, for all the fun we make of the handle design, it is actually more comfortable than the razor we’ll be retiring.
May we quack/whine about price? Nah, that’s what razors are all about…charging way too much for a few doodads we don’t really need.
Overall, we’re happy with the Fusion Power, and recommend it.
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