Love Shick

I recently took the plunge into the unchartered waters of Shick injector razors and bought - for a laughably reasonable price, I thought - a type G, which you can see here, and some Personna injector blades. You'll also notice two other Shick razors in the background of the photograph. That's because I enjoyed the shave from the type G so much that I immediately started hunting down others and ended up, in the space of three weeks, with three of them. I mean, it would have been rude not to, really. So, having feasted your peepers on the type G, shall we have a look at the others? Shall we? Shall we? Come on, then.

This is the type L. In fact, in the interests of precision and being smugly knowledgable, it's an L1 which I believe would put its date of manufacture at 1965, which - aside from The Walker Brothers, The Rolling Stones, Sonny and Cher, Ken Dodd and The Byrds all achieving number 1s in the UK - was a particularly interesting twelve months historically, internationally and for other reasons which I'll leave you to research in your own good time. Let Google be your friend. Or, in fact, let this book here be your even better friend. 1965 also happens to be the year I was born. Incidentally, Roger Moore shaved with a Shick type L in the James Bond film Live And Let Die, if you're interested. But not in 1965.

Now, listen to me. I'm about to say something controversial.

This Shick M1 adjustable razor is the best adjustable razor I've ever used. I'm not exaggerating. I've tried the Rex Ambassador, the Merkur Progress and a Merkur Futur clone and while the Rex Ambassador is undoubtedly a fantastic razor and the Merkur Progress certainly gets the job done, I find the Shick adjustable, even on its highest, most aggressive setting (and it dials up to an impressive 9), gives such a smooth, comfortable shave that I barely feel what I'm doing. Which can be a little disconcerting. I tend to start high (number 9) then decrease the setting to about 5 and then, if I'm feeling in the mood, down to around 2 or 3. By the time I get down to the lower numbers, it feels like I'm shaving with a silk handkerchief sewn by kittens.

So there we have it for the time being. I think that's more than enough Shicks to be getting on with. All three of the above are excellent shavers and I particularly look forward to whenever I have a shave with the type G, in much the same way that I might wake up in the morning and think to myself, I know. I'm going to have lamb chops for my dinner tonight, with those little mini Yorkshire puddings that take four minutes to cook, and roast potatoes and honey-glazed carrots, with a large dollop of horseradish sauce on the side of the plate. My only complaint is that you can't really take the injector blade itself blade out of any of the three that I own in between shaves for cleaning purposes. Well, I guess you can, but then it's tricky to get it back in again without slicing bits of your fingers clean off. But that is honestly my only complaint across all three of them.

Shick razors, then. 10/10