When I started DE shaving last February, my initial impulse was to research the entire landscape of modern razors seeking out "the best" based on the sort of commonly found internet reviews that had served me well in other areas. What this meant is that I came very close in my first month of shaving to buying either a Pils101NE or a Feather AS-D1. What stopped me wasn't the cost, though it certainly delayed my decision, but rather the incredibly wide range of opinions on these two razors. Meanwhile, while trying to decide, I stumbled onto a vintage Gillette New OC Long and was talked into an EJ 89 and the quality of the shaves I got from them at the price point paid persuaded me that perhaps there simply wasn't the value in either the Pils or the Feather when compared to these two razors. At the time, it wasn't clear that either was worth the risk. As the weeks and then months went by, I accumulated some genuinely fine vintage DE's and my interest in the moderns simply evaporated along with the concept that there even was a "best" razor. After all, it's a truism here on B&B, and a truism I subscribe to, that YMMV. At least, I thought that was universally true until a week ago when another member of extraordinary generosity lent me his Pils.
The razor is an stunning piece of beautiful engineering. More than any other razor I've held, it captures perfectly the Bauhaus demand of form serving function. There's nothing extraneous or extra or decorative about the razor. It is ruthlessly clean and engineered solely for the purpose of removing whiskers.
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View attachment 274402
One sees a similar aesthetic in the design of Mjolnir, Thor's hammer another weapon of great simplicity and destruction.
The Pils is a two piece which I liked a lot. Most of my other razors are three piece and fumbling with getting them all together while holding a blade has made from time to time for some interesting moments of unscheduled manicuring. The Pils does the hard thing, the supremely hard thing, of making a complex tool with demanding requirements simple. I had no trouble with the blade alignment. It all fit together without worrying about adjustment. One of the things to note, is that unlike every other razor I've used, the blade sits flat held securely on top and bottom by two massive slugs of stainless steel. I noticed after the second shave that unlike my other razors, the tolerances are so tight that water seemed to remain in the head even after 24 hours. As a result, for the remainder of the testing period, i loosened the head to allow it to dry.
Here you can see the blade is held securely on the ends and gets centered by the two raised nubs on either side of the center tapped hole.
View attachment 274401
I spent a full week shaving with this razor and had I spent less, don't think I could have given a meaningful review. 30 days might have been better, maybe much better, but Thor's Hammer always returns to it's owner and so a week is all I could spend. The revelation of this razor is the following: Your mileage will NOT vary. This razor, used as designed, is simply the most efficient shaver I've ever used. If your technique is excellent, then you will have excellent shaves. No exceptions. I would not assert that for any other razor I've tried.
The thing one notices using the Pils for the first time is how top heavy it feels. I understand there are others like this out there, but among the vintage razors, this seems to be a rarity. In fact, it was during my first use that the image of shaving with Thor's hammer came to me. In that first shave, I never did get the hang of how to hold the razor and constantly being aware of managing the weight of the head left little room for considering the proper angle of the head/blade on my face. The results of that first shave, therefore, were mixed. There was some very noticeable stubble along my jaw line (an area I always have to pay close attention to) and elsewhere, but in other places, it was as close a shave as anything I'd ever had. I don't believe there was more than one weeper on that first shave which surprised me given the difficulty I had handling the razor. The first impression was that the detractors may have been right. Perhaps it is too mild, but I didn't form a firm opinion as I knew my technique with it was off. Way off.
Over the following evenings (I'm a vampire shaver for the most part), the Pils began to reveal itself to me. Unlike any other DE I've used, the blade angle at which the razor cuts is precise. All my other razors allow for a few degrees of variance without penalty, but not the Pils. Like my old wooden Slazenger tennis racket from High School, it has a very narrow sweet spot. If one maintains that blade angle then one learns about another of the Pils' characteristics. It's quite a chatty razor. The audio feedback when the angle is correct is fantastic. Even on the third pass of a shave, one can hear the devastation the Pils wreaks on a beard. If one can't maintain the precise angle, then there's virtually no cutting at all on the second and third pass. I think this is where the incorrect attribution of mildness comes from.
As I got to the fourth and fifth shaves, I no longer noticed the top heavy quality of the Pils and had come up with a grip that worked for it. These shaves were my closest shaves, maybe my closest ever, but they were also bloodier than normal. Weepers only, but blood was spilt. (Keep in mind that I hadn't had a weeper in nearly two months now of daily shaving and believed my technique was perfect. This error of self knowledge is since corrected.) I realized that I'd figured out the grip, figured out the angle, but now I was back where I was when I first started DE shaving using too much pressure. By my last few shaves, I was managing the pressure better, getting the angle right more consistently and gripping it better for control. Those last shaves were not perfect, but they promised perfection.
My conclusion is that the Pils is a razor that demands as much from the user as the user demands from the Pils. It's not a casual shaver. One has to be willing to exercise perfect technique, but if one does, then there is nothing, absolutely nothing, about the razor that could be called mild. In the hands of a brilliant shaver, it becomes a brilliant shaver and if someone more experienced or knowledgeable than me (and there are many of them) were to tell me that it is the best razor ever made, I would have no trouble believing them. It is certainly the most perfect one I've ever used.
So, the million dollar question (actually, it's a 250 dollar question) is will I be buying one? The answer is: probably not. I was amazed by the Pils, humbled by the Pils, forced to improve my technique by the Pils, but I could not love the Pils. It's an engineer's razor or an experts razor or, better, a perfectionists razor. The Pils is a jealous mistress. It wants to be your only shaver because in order to be effective, the razor must be handled with the same degree of precision that one sees in military snipers. If I were to only own one razor, it most likely would be the Pils, but I own and use about a dozen and all of them are more forgiving and demand less of me. As I think about it in light of those words, it appears that the Pils has revealed more about my character than I've revealed about its.
Addendum: Last night I shaved with the second of two recently acquired old German Slants. It was my first shave with it and the first shave with anything other than the Pils in over a week. It reinforced what I'd already written in this review. The shave was excellent, truly excellent, with no bloodletting and very little effort on my part. It was not quite as close as the Pils' best shaves, but neither did it require great concentration to achieve them.
The razor is an stunning piece of beautiful engineering. More than any other razor I've held, it captures perfectly the Bauhaus demand of form serving function. There's nothing extraneous or extra or decorative about the razor. It is ruthlessly clean and engineered solely for the purpose of removing whiskers.
View attachment 274400
View attachment 274402
One sees a similar aesthetic in the design of Mjolnir, Thor's hammer another weapon of great simplicity and destruction.
The Pils is a two piece which I liked a lot. Most of my other razors are three piece and fumbling with getting them all together while holding a blade has made from time to time for some interesting moments of unscheduled manicuring. The Pils does the hard thing, the supremely hard thing, of making a complex tool with demanding requirements simple. I had no trouble with the blade alignment. It all fit together without worrying about adjustment. One of the things to note, is that unlike every other razor I've used, the blade sits flat held securely on top and bottom by two massive slugs of stainless steel. I noticed after the second shave that unlike my other razors, the tolerances are so tight that water seemed to remain in the head even after 24 hours. As a result, for the remainder of the testing period, i loosened the head to allow it to dry.
Here you can see the blade is held securely on the ends and gets centered by the two raised nubs on either side of the center tapped hole.
View attachment 274401
I spent a full week shaving with this razor and had I spent less, don't think I could have given a meaningful review. 30 days might have been better, maybe much better, but Thor's Hammer always returns to it's owner and so a week is all I could spend. The revelation of this razor is the following: Your mileage will NOT vary. This razor, used as designed, is simply the most efficient shaver I've ever used. If your technique is excellent, then you will have excellent shaves. No exceptions. I would not assert that for any other razor I've tried.
The thing one notices using the Pils for the first time is how top heavy it feels. I understand there are others like this out there, but among the vintage razors, this seems to be a rarity. In fact, it was during my first use that the image of shaving with Thor's hammer came to me. In that first shave, I never did get the hang of how to hold the razor and constantly being aware of managing the weight of the head left little room for considering the proper angle of the head/blade on my face. The results of that first shave, therefore, were mixed. There was some very noticeable stubble along my jaw line (an area I always have to pay close attention to) and elsewhere, but in other places, it was as close a shave as anything I'd ever had. I don't believe there was more than one weeper on that first shave which surprised me given the difficulty I had handling the razor. The first impression was that the detractors may have been right. Perhaps it is too mild, but I didn't form a firm opinion as I knew my technique with it was off. Way off.
Over the following evenings (I'm a vampire shaver for the most part), the Pils began to reveal itself to me. Unlike any other DE I've used, the blade angle at which the razor cuts is precise. All my other razors allow for a few degrees of variance without penalty, but not the Pils. Like my old wooden Slazenger tennis racket from High School, it has a very narrow sweet spot. If one maintains that blade angle then one learns about another of the Pils' characteristics. It's quite a chatty razor. The audio feedback when the angle is correct is fantastic. Even on the third pass of a shave, one can hear the devastation the Pils wreaks on a beard. If one can't maintain the precise angle, then there's virtually no cutting at all on the second and third pass. I think this is where the incorrect attribution of mildness comes from.
As I got to the fourth and fifth shaves, I no longer noticed the top heavy quality of the Pils and had come up with a grip that worked for it. These shaves were my closest shaves, maybe my closest ever, but they were also bloodier than normal. Weepers only, but blood was spilt. (Keep in mind that I hadn't had a weeper in nearly two months now of daily shaving and believed my technique was perfect. This error of self knowledge is since corrected.) I realized that I'd figured out the grip, figured out the angle, but now I was back where I was when I first started DE shaving using too much pressure. By my last few shaves, I was managing the pressure better, getting the angle right more consistently and gripping it better for control. Those last shaves were not perfect, but they promised perfection.
My conclusion is that the Pils is a razor that demands as much from the user as the user demands from the Pils. It's not a casual shaver. One has to be willing to exercise perfect technique, but if one does, then there is nothing, absolutely nothing, about the razor that could be called mild. In the hands of a brilliant shaver, it becomes a brilliant shaver and if someone more experienced or knowledgeable than me (and there are many of them) were to tell me that it is the best razor ever made, I would have no trouble believing them. It is certainly the most perfect one I've ever used.
So, the million dollar question (actually, it's a 250 dollar question) is will I be buying one? The answer is: probably not. I was amazed by the Pils, humbled by the Pils, forced to improve my technique by the Pils, but I could not love the Pils. It's an engineer's razor or an experts razor or, better, a perfectionists razor. The Pils is a jealous mistress. It wants to be your only shaver because in order to be effective, the razor must be handled with the same degree of precision that one sees in military snipers. If I were to only own one razor, it most likely would be the Pils, but I own and use about a dozen and all of them are more forgiving and demand less of me. As I think about it in light of those words, it appears that the Pils has revealed more about my character than I've revealed about its.
Addendum: Last night I shaved with the second of two recently acquired old German Slants. It was my first shave with it and the first shave with anything other than the Pils in over a week. It reinforced what I'd already written in this review. The shave was excellent, truly excellent, with no bloodletting and very little effort on my part. It was not quite as close as the Pils' best shaves, but neither did it require great concentration to achieve them.
