You may well have seen internet ads for the Dollar Shave Club, which promises subscription monthly delivery of razor blades for a dollar a month. Well, not really. With shipping, it’s $3, but you get a box of 5 razor blades and the first month you get a razor handle as well. So this works out to 60 cents a blade, including shipping. You can join and cancel at any time.

As much as possible, they want to look presentable and appealing not just in the eyes of men but in the eyes of the people in general. Because of this, different hot topic for women products and procedures are offered in the market to address the growing demands of the female community.

Now if you compare their basic twin blade razor blade to the Sensor Excel, which run $17.54 to $22  (plus $5.99 shipping) for 10 and at Amazon, you can buy 20 for $27.99 (free shipping), this still seems like a pretty good deal. The cheapest deal is the Amazon one which makes the blades $1.40 each.

So we decided to give them a try. We ordered the inexpensive twin blade razor blades for $1 plus $2 shipping and had them in our mailbox in 3-4 days. They’ll send them monthly until I cancel. They also offer a 4-blade and a 6-blade model at higher prices.

So we opened the box and found the razor handle, the 5 blades and a free sample of Dr Carver’s Shaving Butter.  It looks like their real business might be selling all these shaving products, under or over and hair gels.

Now shaving and razors are sort of a personal thing, depending on your beard weight and direction and face shape. Our beard is not too heavy but grows in in all sorts of directions, so shaving it means shaving in several different directions to cut all the whiskers.

We tried the twin blade (“Humble Twin”) blade and razor this morning, using it just as we’d use our normal Sensor Excel blades.

And how did it do? It was at best adequate. There was a significant amount of drag, leaving you feeling like you might cut yourself at any minute, and this was just the first use of the blade. We would expect this drag would get worse as it dulls during the week. It is about the quality of the throw away Bic razors (12 for $3.14) you get in hotels, and nothing special. We probably will go back to our Excel.

On a second day, we used their free sample shaving butter and compared their Twin with our Excel. With this smooth lubricant, the difference was less marked, but the Excel was still superior.

Two days after the blade arrived, but before we tried them, we received an upsell message suggesting we were using the Humble Twin model but their most popular model was the 4-blade “4X” model, and would we like to upgrade (4 for $6 with free shipping). We ordered those for next month, but do not expect to be impressed or to continue after that. We’ll report on them when they arrive but for now our quest to find the best beard kits continues.

Now, there are others in the blades by mail business. Gillette has a similar club where the blades run $3.50 and $4.50 each for 3 and 4 blades. You will find cheaper plans from 800razors, Harry’s and many others, at varying price points. But the point is, you can’t judge the razor blades short of buying them, and we found these disappointing. Their price seems to be a good quality indicator, though.

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