Dollar Shave Club vs. Harry's

Harry's Emerges Victorious in the Battle of the Subscription Services

My beard grows at an obnoxiously fast rate, so much so that I have never really been able to invest in those fancy Gillette razors that cost $20.00 for a pack of four blades that will only last for a few uses each. When taking long trips it's always a challenge to anticipate exactly how many razors I will need so that I have enough, but do not have to fill my bag with an unruly amount of razors. I had been using disposable razors for a while and then I switched to using a safety razor for a bit. Although this made me feel super masculine and it was super cheap to buy new blades, I felt a very large amount of curiosity when I first started seeing advertisements for the Dollar Shave Club. Their marketing was brilliant and their promise was to offer quality shaving at a cheap price and all conveniently delivered to my door. 
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Dollar Shave Club Impressions

 I really wanted to love the Dollar Shave Club and they did manage to deliver on their promise of convenience and price (I found out later that you can in fact purchase the same razors directly from the manufacturer for cheaper, but who really wants to make the extra effort). However, the quality of the shave was no where near what I was hoping it would be. Now just a disclaimer I will add that I went for their mid tier offering and not that higher end model so that may have affected my opinion but if the idea is to get a great deal then it doesn't really make sense to go the highest offering. ​Every time I attempted to shave with the razors I received I ended up with multiple cuts. I have been shaving for over ten years now and I do not really have what you would call sensitive skin so I could not understand what I was doing wrong. I even managed to cut myself more then when I first started using a safety razor! I (painfully) finished out my first order and then proceeded to cancel the service as I concluded it was not really for me. 

Enter Harry's

Soon after canceling my Dollar Shave Club subscription I started seeing a lot of adds for a new service: Harry's. The offerings seemed to be similar, but Harry's focused more on the five-blade razor at a pretty good price and they offered to send one for free. I was still skeptical that Harry's could deliver on the same promises that Dollar Shave Club had made, but I was still curious and hoping I would find an effective and affordable solution to my shaving woes. 

I am very happy to say that I was pleasantly surprised with the quality of shave that I found using the Harry's razor. For the free sample they offer the Truman set, which is the cheaper model of shave handle but the blades are the same. In addition, the blade came with a travel-sized shave gel and a cool little cover for covering the blade for travel (the globe-trotter in me was already starting to love them). From the first stroke that I took, the blade slid across my face effortlessly and with no pain. I was able to shave my entire face at a pretty fast pace without cutting myself once! I was so impressed, but I immediately figured this would be short lived and that the blades would get dull very quickly and I would constantly have to be reordering them. Once again I was surprised! I managed to use the sample razor that I received 5 times, which is very unusual for a 5-blade razor for me. I excitedly reordered my next set of blades (8 for $16!) and I even ended up ordering this dope dopp kit which happens to be the perfect size to hold all of my stuff during my travels without occupying too much space.  

Conclusion

Although both services offer a good price and convenience, I much preferred the shave offered by Harry's razors and will continue ordering from them for the foreseeable future.