I am generally skeptical of new products with extra features that boast greater convenience and savings in time, particularly when they require a disproportionately greater outlay of money in exchange. It seems that manufacturers are desperate for some new innovation that will make their time-tested products stand out from those of their competitors, and very few innovations actually improve the products.
Because of my skepticism, the Schick Intuition razor I received as a gift sat in my closet for nearly a year, until I had used up my favorite, basic disposable razors. My intuition was good in that case – the basic models were the better razors.
The Schick Intuition advertises itself as a time saver – no need to use shaving cream, as it has a built-in lather bar (loftily called a “skin conditioning solid”), which looks a lot like a double-wide stick of deodorant surrounding the razor blade. However, any time I might have saved in lathering my legs with shaving cream was wasted in unwrapping the razor from four – yes, four – layers of difficult-to-open packaging. (Okay, only two of the layers were difficult to open, but still, were all those safeguards really necessary?)
To save the shower from a more permanent adhesive, the razor’s hanger sticks to the wall with a suction cup; so far, the suction cup actually holds fast, and the bulky razor fits in it well. (The thickness of the handle is about two to three times that of most non-electric razors.) The first shave felt strange on my legs – I could not feel the razor inside the lather bar, which ran smoothly over my skin. Between the light touch and the fact that I could barely see the lather, which reached my hair immediately before the razor, I had some trouble telling which parts of my legs I had shaved and which I had not. I’m sure I covered some parts twice and missed others entirely. (I usually use my shaving cream’s lather as a guide to what areas I still need to shave.)
After shaving my legs once, a flaw in the Intuition’s one-step lather/shave system became apparent – the lather bar had worn down below the level of the razor blade. A good deal of lather remains, but I would have to hold the razor at an awkward angle to use it. (The blade adjusts slightly when used, but not enough, and if there is another way to move the bar up to the height of the blade, it’s not immediately apparent.) Despite this awkward angle, I shaved my underarms and wound up with razor burn. Ouch!
I might consider the Intuition a convenient razor for a short trip, as it eliminates the need for shaving cream, but if I’d expect to shave more than twice while I’m away (once for each blade cartridge included in the original package), I would have to pack the shaving cream, anyway. At nearly $10.00 for the original Intuition razor and a similar price for a refill pack of three cartridges, shaving cream with basic model disposable razors is a better value. When I restock the razors in my closet, I will buy something without a skin conditioning solid.
