Well, I’m not that guy who shaves every day. I like to keep my 2-week beard and then trim it down to 1mm with my Philips beard trimmer which is actually very good. But sometimes comes a time when you want to shave clean. I actually don’t like that ritual, many men actually could agree that it takes just too long to do, and it just frustrates me when I get cuts and I have a white shirt on me, so it get’s pretty messy fast. Usually, my choice is 2€ razors that you can find at local supermarkets all over the world. But lately when I read many articles about shaving and have been checking out many razors like dollar shave club, every man jack and others. I came across Bolin Webb, and I really liked the handle designs, they use the Gillette Mach 3 razor ends, but as I never tried them, I wanted to dive in. So I wrote them and they sent me an R1 razor.

The company is pretty new in razor business. They are located in the UK and make all the razor handles in the UK too. So it is kind of cool that you get UK made razors. For me, who lives in Latvia, and if someone makes these kinds of things in Latvia, it is a big thing. The founder Derrick Webb made the company because he saw that every big company just made compromises in the design, quality or performance and he just wanted to make a perfect handle, perfect razor!

The R1 took about 5 days to come from the UK. The packaging is ok for something like this. You open the box and all you see is short instructions on how to change razors and that’s it. I took it into my hands and it felt very good in the hand, the lines are smooth and it has futuristic, sleek shape to the handle. Overall impressions were good. The razor felt actually that it costs 4 times more because it just looked something out of design store. In my opinion, the shaving process isn’t anything beautiful, it is just another thing that is on my “not to do” list 😀 But this razor just asks for “shave the beard off with me”.

So the Bolin Webb R1 uses the Gillette Mach 3 razor cartridges. The Gillette Mach 3 razor was released over 19 years ago, and it’s no surprise that this is still one of the most popular cartridge razors on the market today. It is pretty cheap I actually found 24 cartridges on eBay for 18$ with free shipping. It shaves pretty clean and it is pretty hard to cut myself.

The Mach 3 is a triple-blade razor was introduced in 1998 to great hype and fanfare. In a short time, it was flying off of store shelves. And it’s no wonder, as it is an excellent razor. A razor is only as good as it’s blade, and the Mach 3 blades are excellent. They’re extremely sharp and durable; I get more shaves out of a Mach 3 blade than any other blade I’ve used. In front of the blades, ‘micro-fins’ are intended to help your hair stand up straight. Behind the blades, a ‘comfort strip’ is intended to soothe the skin. They seem to do their jobs, as the irritation level is pretty low. The blades have an interesting ‘open’ design that makes them easy to clean. So I really can see why the Bolin Webb went with Mach 3 on R1, and not going to other maker or making they’re own.

The handle is really nice. It has a metal upper plate with this graphite colour with the R1 writing on it. The underside is this silicone/rubber type of material. Changing the razor cartridges is pretty easy too, with just push of a button. The handle feels really nice in the hand, it’s like it was just made to fit my hand. It is also a bit heavy so it doesn’t feel cheap.

Overall I think this product is to those people who care about the look of the stuff which they use, The ones who wants the best looking thing that’s main and only purpose is to do stuff properly and not to look beautiful. But I can understand that you want good looking things in your life, and I kind of like the R1. I think this is gonna be my go to handle for 2017 until now. I also will write an update to this after some time of use.

On the site, there are many variations of R1 and there also a Fusion blade versions called X1.

Price: £45.00 @ bolinwebb.com