The best cartridge razors

Why this page exists on this site

Most of this site argues that a safety razor is the better long-term purchase, and the arithmetic behind that argument is published rather than asserted. But plenty of people are not switching - because the format works, because a pivoting head is genuinely easier on a jaw, or because they simply do not want a project.

Telling those readers nothing would be useless. So this page ranks the cartridge systems on the same method as everything else here: what the maker publishes, what it does not, and what the consumable actually costs you.

What this page ranks on

1. Published blade count and head behavior. How many edges, and whether the head pivots or flexes - both published claims rather than inferred ones.
2. A published blade life. Any figure at all, from the maker, for how many shaves a refill gives.
3. Disclosure. Materials, origin, steel. This category publishes less about its hardware than any other on this site.
4. What is in the box. A handle with two cartridges is a sample; a handle with three is a start.

Published figures

The pick: Harry's Original

Five blades that Harry's publishes as engineered in its own German factory from Swedish steel, with a published flex hinge, a lubricating strip and a precision trimmer. Three cartridges in the box, and a weighted handle with a textured rubberized grip.

The reason it wins is disclosure. Nobody in this category publishes much, and Harry's at least tells you where the steel comes from and where the blades are made - which is two more facts than either Gillette line offers about its hardware.

The honest cons. No warranty term: a published 30-day return is not the same thing. The cartridges are proprietary and fit only the Harry's Original system. No weight, length or country of manufacture is published for the handle. And retail copy still uses the retired "Truman" name for a system Harry's now calls Original, which makes buying refills more confusing than it should be.

The most features: Gillette ProGlide

Five antifriction blades, a FlexBall head Gillette publishes as moving with the contours of your face, a precision trimmer on the back, and a lubrastrip Gillette says carries more lubricants than the Fusion5's. It also publishes a blade life - up to 20 shaves per refill - which is the only such figure in this ledger.

If you want the most engineering in a cartridge handle, this is it, and the trimmer on the back genuinely earns its place under a nose or along a beard line.

The honest cons. Gillette publishes no weight, no material and no warranty for the handle - the entire hardware sheet is blank. The pack sold here is a handle and two refills, which is a sample rather than a supply. And ProGlide refills are the most expensive consumable on this page by a distance.

Fewer blades, less irritation: Gillette Mach3

Three DuraComfort blades in what Gillette publishes as an open-blade architecture, with a lubrication strip and a published blade life of up to 15 shaves per refill.

Three blades is the point. Each blade is another edge crossing the same skin, and for a face that reacts to five, dropping to three is a change you feel immediately - the razor burn guide explains why pass count and edge count do the same damage. The refills are also the cheapest of the Gillette systems here.

The honest cons. Gillette publishes no pivot or flex claim at all for this head, and there is no trimmer on the back. Gillette's own site sells Mach3 refills rather than this handle pack, which tells you where the product sits in its range.

The running cost, plainly

This is the part the packaging never shows. A cartridge refill is a proprietary part with no substitute, priced accordingly, and you will buy it for as long as you own the handle. A double-edge blade is made to a single standard by many manufacturers, which is why a hundred of them cost less than a pack of four cartridges.

We do not publish prices, because prices move and a remembered number is worse than none. The calculator takes the prices you can see today and does the division for you - per shave, per year, for both formats.

Making a cartridge last

Gillette publishes up to 20 shaves per ProGlide refill and up to 15 per Mach3 refill. Those are the maker's own best cases, and on a cartridge the gap between the published figure and what you get is mostly about what happens after the shave rather than during it.

• Rinse from the back, not the front. Water pushed through the cartridge from behind clears the hair and soap trapped between the blades. Running it face-on packs the debris further in.
• Shake it dry and store it dry. Water sitting between blade edges is what dulls a cartridge between shaves, and a razor parked in the shower stream never dries at all. A shelf outside the spray does more for blade life than anything else here.
• Never wipe the blades on a towel. Dragging fabric across the edges folds them over - the same damage that stropping exists to undo on a straight razor, with no way to reverse it.
• Change it when it tugs, not when the strip fades. The lubricating strip runs out long before the edges do on some faces, and long after on others.

None of that changes the arithmetic in the section above - it just stops you buying refills faster than you need to.

The verdict

Harry's Original for most people staying with cartridges, on published steel origin, three cartridges in the box and the same five-blade geometry as the competition.

ProGlide if you want the pivoting head and the trimmer and are comfortable with the refill cost. Mach3 if five blades leave your neck sore. And if the arithmetic in the section above is the thing you keep rereading, the safety razor roundup is the page this site was built to write.