I’ve been shaving my legs for almost 20 years. In all that time, I’ve never had a razor I just love. I mean they all do their job, removing the hair from my body. I think people who have transcended shaving and are comfortable in having body hair are incredible and I just don’t think I’ll ever get there and I honestly can’t afford double therapy to work through it. So I’m always on the lookout for a great razor. Like the razor to make me forget all other razors. Are we still talking about razors?
My personal dilemma in finding a good razor is that I have pretty sensitive skin. After shaving, I can easily end up with red bumps on my legs and very dry skin. For a long time, the best (relatively speaking) razor I could find was the Venus for Sensitive Skin. It did a pretty good job, but I felt wasn’t as sharp as it could be. Sometimes I’d have to shave my legs twice in one shower to not leave any spots. Annoying, but my legs are always smooth and only very little irritation after shaving.
But I wasn’t married to this razor. I’m open to moving on if a better razor comes along.
I kept seeing tons of ads on Instagram and Pinterest about new, clean beauty razors and creams coming out. And you know I am on the journey of switching to all clean beauty, so I was very excited to try them out.
Billie: The Razor That Almost Made Me Quit Shaving
Let’s begin this tale on a positive note. I saw the Billie razor all over Instagram and Pinterest and was so easily influenced by it. I’d love a pink razor. It’s very millennial of me, I get that, but if loving cute things is millennial then count me in. I was super excited about their mission to produce a clean razor and shaving cream.
The Billie setup is that you order online and can opt in to a subscription for it. Which sounds great to me, because I enjoy automating as many errands as I can. I’m doing this Scandinavian thing where I do all my chores or errands during the week so I can truly save my days off for having a day off. But that’s neither here nor there. Billie has a great online user experience and was super easy to set up my recurring order.
My Billie order arrived a few days later and I was very excited to get started on my clean shaving journey. My first time using my new razor was….. not great. The mechanics of the razor were great, 5 blades, great movement to get knees, the backs of legs, etc. But the experience was as I told their customer service “like a Quentin Tarantino film”. There was a lot of blood. A lot of nicks and cuts. It was like I was a 10 year old kid who had stolen a razor and had no clue what they were doing. I haven’t gotten a nick from shaving in maybe a decade or longer.
But I thought, maybe it’s a first time use thing. I was sympathizing with my abuser. So I gave it a go the next day and surprisingly there was more blood than day 1. So like any normal person, I kept using it for another 28 days because I am a masochist. I wanted to give it a good try to see if it was a new razor thing or if it was a bad razor thing. After 30 days of use, I can confirm it was very much a bad razor thing.
I was so surprised because they market it as great for sensitive skin. I can definitively say it is not. I also did not love the shave cream. I’ve always used sensitive skin specific shave cream, so I felt like this one didn’t do a good job at helping the shaving process. If you don’t have sensitive skin, it might be worth a try. It did smell really good.
Final Thoughts: If you have sensitive skin, absolutely pass. If you don’t have sensitive skin, also probably pass.
Flamingo: More Like Flamingyes
I kept seeing ads for the Flamingo razor all over the Internet and thought it was cute so let’s try that one too. Flamingo is available at Target, so it was easy to grab one while I was already there. It comes in a few cute colors and has its own shave cream you can grab too. So I picked up both.
The first time I shaved totally made up for the literal bloodbath of the Billie days before. My legs were much smoother with minimal need to go back over any spots. It was great at getting spots like my knees and my bikini line with the flexible head. I only noticed a few tiny nicks here and there, but I’m blaming that more on the fact that I had just recently shaved an entire layer of my skin off with the Billie razor. The longer I use Flamingo, the less I notice any nicks or red bumps after.
I also really love the Flamingo shave cream. It smells really good and is very foamy which is great for sensitive skin. The Flamingo razor is a really good value and a much lower price than other sensitive skin razors.
Final Thoughts: Definitely worth picking up next time you’re at Target. If you have sensitive skin, try it at first with sensitive skin shave cream to make the transition a bit easier on yourself.
