I know they are always coming out with the latest and greatest razor blade that has an extra blade, extra close shave, etc - but I really never noticed a difference between most of the razors to be honest. I started doing some research, and then I finally stumbled across the following Youtube video:
It was humorous but also immediately made me want to check out the website to see what 'the great shaving ripoff' was all about, which then eventually led me to the official Dorco USA website. This was around last Summer - you can see the video itself was posted in April of 2012 so the Dorco website was almost brand new. There weren't many reviews on the website, maybe 2 or 3 per razor. Now there are 100s of reviews, youtube reviews, and they even sell on Amazon too.
When I saw the prices I was simply amazed! I could get 16 razor blades for around $20, it seemed too good to be true. The blades looked like standard Gillette or Schick razors but at 30-40% of the price. I decided to take the gamble, these razors couldn't be too bad, could they? I decided to pick up one of their 'Frugal Dude' packs which at the time I believe contained 1 razor, 16 blades of 2 types, and 2 disposable razors. It was just over the price of free shipping ($25) and seemed like a great value to me. Fingers were crossed that they would actually work though!
I received my razors about a week later and decided to give them a try one morning. I started off with a 4-blade cartridge and I was pleasantly surprised. I have pretty sensitive skin so shaving is never that great of an experience for me, so I was pretty skeptical from the start based on the price. You get what you pay for, right? Wrong in this case - this worked just as well as any Schick and Gillette razor that I have used and I just use standard Edge shaving gel. A week later I even received a thank you letter from the CEO for my purchase along with another complementary disposable razor. Can you tell this company is dedicated? (I was also a very early purchaser like I had said, guess I had good timing)
The blade lasted about 2 weeks worth of shaving, which is pretty standard for me. Obviously that will depend on the person but I didn't really notice them lasting any longer or shorter than Gillette or Schick. I also received 6-blade razors with this bundle, and while they provide a great shave I did notice some tug with them for sure. I finished all the blades up as it's not like I was cutting myself any more often than usual, but I've been sticking with the 4-blade razors ever since.
If you are still using Gillette or Schick products I would 100% recommend at least giving Dorco USA a try, it's worth the money you will save if you get the same results I did. Maybe the next step will be ditching wet shaving completely and trying out the trimmers, but we'll see :) I pretty much got a years supply for a little over $20 so I have no complaints.
Photo credit: David Robert Wright / Foter / CC BY-NC-ND
I'm an electric person myself, but the cleaning solution is silly expensive. I'm always keeping an eye out for ways to beat the system on this stuff.
ReplyDeleteYeah I've been thinking about switching back to electric in hopes to keeping costs down, but this will definitely do for now. My neck has always been a pain to shave and with the electric I seem to have even more problems with razor burn as well as cuts.
DeleteHonestly, with the customer support that Dorco has shown me so far I don't mind paying them for the razor blades at all. Even if their prices were a bit closer to Gillette and Schick I'd probably still throw my money their way because of that.