Braun Series 1 and the Pocket/Mobil line are actually decent shavers, provided you shave every day.
foil vs rotary
- Thread starter donaldbathe
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Braun Series 1 and the Pocket/Mobil line are actually decent shavers, provided you shave every day.
rotary shavers, e.g. Norelco give a closer shave but are useless for detail work, e.g. under your nose if you have a pencil moustache.
That would be me. Right now I'm using my Series-7 shaver. The shaves are as smooth as the Series-9, they just take a little more time to complete. Braun makes a great shaver.
Clayton
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Rotary shavers don’t shave me as close as foil shavers. Generally, rotary shavers are not as harsh on your face as some foil shavers. However, I have not tried a mid to high end Phillips Norelco so I haven’t any recent experience with them.
The same is true with foil type shavers. That’s what the trimmer is designed to accomplish.
The common perception seems to be now days that rotary shavers are harsher. Personally, I don't buy it. I find rotary shavers to be unexceptional- you'll find more variance now days in foil shavers in terms of harshness, with the worst being Panasonic, and especially, Remington.
My only recent experience is with a 7 or 8 year old triple head shaver that my son used when he was a teenager. When my previous Panasonic ES8103 started dying I tried using the Norelco. It took much longer to shave and didn’t give a very close shave. I realize I didn’t give it a fair two week trial but just bought the Braun 7893s shaver.
IMO the rotary flexes too much too the contour of your face, the foil will not, it stays closer to your beard.
I keep a cheap foil razor in the center console of my car if I need to go into work emergently so I can have a sat shave. I’ve used one of the lesser expensive norelcos as well in the past... and started with a different foil before the rotary. The only real advantage I had with the rotary is that the motion did tend to lend itself to feeding/cutting hair better. The foils gave a closer shave, but I have to run a finger to lift the hair all over my face to get a smooth shave. It still gives me a shave equivalent to what a DE gives me about 12-18 later. Perfectly good enough for a 8 hour workday. I’m downright prickly by the end of the day though. I’ve never used preshave... though I’ve had Lectric shave back then and even now. I don’t really get irritation from foils. The rotaries could irritate a smidge but never too bad.
I’d choose a cheap foil over a cheap rotary any day. I don’t know if the expensive rotaries are substantially better... but I don’t see how.
I’d choose a cheap foil over a cheap rotary any day. I don’t know if the expensive rotaries are substantially better... but I don’t see how.
That's not really the reason. A foil is alot thinner than a rotary's head.
Regardless that Norelco touts their lift and cut system, I have always gotten a closer and faster shave from a foil rather than a rotary shaver. The reason is that an electric shaver uses either a thin foil or a slotted metal protective devices to separate the moving blades from your skin. The protective heads on the rotary shaver are part of the structure that supports the rotating blades and has to be made thicker and less flexible to support the shape of the mechanism inside containing the rotating blades. The heads contain slots that the hairs pass through to be cut by the rotating blades. The cutters in a foil type shaver vibrate under a thinner metal shield containing small holes that the hairs pass through to be cut by the separate vibrating cutters. The foil can be made thinner because the foil is curved which provides the structure like an arch yet it remains flexible. The thinner and more flexible the protective surface that separates your skin from the blades results in a closer shave.
The rotary shaver is actually older technology. At the time that the rotary razor came out just before WWII, all shavers were more or less of the slotted-head type that trapped hairs between oscillating trimmer blades, and none delivered a particularly close shave.
Closer for me too by a noticeable margin... and I understand the differences between the two systems. In my experience... it’s just not faster. More time and effort is needed with the foil. I have to keep running my finger across my skin constantly to get my hair to stand up to feed into the holes in the foil. Otherwise, I’m just mashing hair that’s laying down against a flat foil, especially around my neck and it does little to nothing. I’d never buy a rotary again, though I’d replace the foil as my emergency on-the-go razor.
The Phillips Norelco shaver and the Braun model S50 and the Phillips one head shaver were both designed in the late 1930s. However, WWII got in the way of development and production. Norelco introduced their one head design shaver in 1948 which wasn’t popular. However in 1951 they introduced a two headed egg shaped version which was successful. Max Braun entered production of the S50 model in 1951. Braun entered the U.S. market in 1952 by having the shaver manufactured under liscence by Ronson. The rotary shaver beat the screen type shaver by a short time. However, Remington introduced their middle E shaver using a metal screen in 1937.
Interesting. My grandfather who passed 25 years ago this year *always* used a norelco. I got mine a few years after he passed mostly to see what the fuss was about. My dad never shaved in my life... I never saw him without a beard except in pictures, so seeing my grandfather shave with his norelco was essentially the only exposure I ever had to a male family member shaving before I started. It worked... though not great and I have no designs on ever getting another, but norelcos have the distinction of being ‘grandpas razor’ to me.
Everyone has a different beard. I shave almost every day and my stubble is so short that it has no problem getting into the holes. Since April I have only gone one day without shaving twice and had no problem with two day’s growth getting into the holes.
My hair is very, very... well, ‘stupid’ comes to mind but probably isn’t the best adjective. Hey... it works. It takes me running my finger across my face and moving the razor in a bunch of different angles to not leave patches everywhere. But... it’s what I’ve got. When I get a good shave from my foil, it’s not enjoyable like using one of my DE razor, but it defiantly feels like an accomplishment.
For me to get a really close shave I have to shave my entire face in two directions, left and right as well as up and down. It takes going over each area several times. However, the entire process takes less than 5 minutes.
I think to get a very good shave with an electric shaver requires that you use it consistently. When switching to an electric shaver from a blade or a different type of shaver it requires that you shave with it daily to acclimate your beard and face to the new shaver for a couple of weeks.
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