Harry's Razors Review

I recently spotted an ad for Harry’s Razors, a shave club similar to Dollar Shave club. Right down to the packaging humor, or so I found out. And wow, do I wish I hadn’t.

The online experience wasn’t horrible, but also not the best for someone who at one point seriously considered User Experience as a career. I was able to start a trial, one razor and a can of shaving cream, and picked the number of razors I wanted and how many months between shipments. Standard practice there. Then I saw was presented with a bonus offer, a mystery gift for 10 dollars that was WORTH at least 10 dollars. I’m all for a mystery, so why not. All purchased! And the wait begins.

The package arrived fairly quickly, and when I say package I mean it was taller than my forearm and yet weighed less than five pounds. I have five-pound weights, I checked. If Harry’s wins an award for anything, it’ll be amount of packaging. Inside the box were a smaller box and a bag with my mystery item. I had a bet going with my family on what it was. None of us were close. But more on that later.

The small box within a box that housed the razor and shaving cream wwas easy enough to open. Accompanied were a booklet and a card that were both informative and funny. The bag which held the mystery gift, which took up 80 percent of the total weight of the box, was nicely designed. Inside were three of the bars of soap, in scents of fig, shiso, and stone. I like bar soap, which means its not a bad mystery gift. However, given I could have just purchased the bars on the site, it doesn't feel overly like a gift. No complaints so far, apart from the excess packaging.

Today I finally used the razor and ran into a world of problems. It looks like on the surface, nice handle with more weight than I’ve ever had in a razor, good grip, the head is flexible. But there is such a thing as too flexible. When I actually shaved, the head leaned so far back and it felt like the blades weren’t actually touching my skin at all. I ended up pressing too hard and the blade slipped and I actually ended up cutting myself more than I normally would. I’m not sure how much hair that razor actually shaved off, I do know I had to go back over with my normal razor and do it again though.

Maybe I’m rushing judgment, something I normally try not to do, but I was so put off by that one experience I canceled my subscription. I have experience with shave clubs before, and while entertaining marketing is swell, and appreciated, at the end of the day I should be able to feel not only I'm getting a good shave, but that I feel like I'm not going to get cut while doing it. I'm no stranger to nicks and cuts while shaving, I notoriously shave quickly. However, I found myself constantly feeling that if I applied too much pressure it would happen for sure. This led to a cautious shave, and when I did that it was like I couldn't even feel the blades, leading me to go back to pressing hard.

At the end of the day, the most appealing thing about my trial with Harry's was the mystery gift. It is also the item I'm enjoying the most. And considering they're a Shave club, that's just not good enough.