I recently decided to finally try out Dollar Shave Club after first hearing about it several years ago. I don't usually shave that often, but after letting my Novembeard grow all the way through the end of March I decided to go clean-shaven for a while.
Dollar Shave Club has three membership levels to choose from, and I went with the middle option - $6 per month, free shipping, and you get 4 four-blade cartridges per month along with a handle when you first sign up. Here's my experience with the first shave:
The supplies come in a simple but well-planned box with a friendly welcome message and a long fold-out pamphlet explaining what to expect and so on:
There was also this friendly reminder to make sure you use up all four blades in a month so you keep your subscription active ;)
The small box contained my allotted four blades, and in the larger portion was a nice handle with rubberized grip, a sample size of their "Shave Butter," and an advertising piece for the Shave Butter:
Righty-o, time to shave. I trimmed my face whiskers down to the shortest length offered by my hair clippers:
I'm looking forward to trying the Shave Butter but since it had been so long since my face felt the shave of a razor (probably close to a year) I opted for the shaving gel and aftershave lotion that I had used before. I held a hot washcloth to my face for 30 seconds or so, bathed my whiskers in shave gel, and said goodbye. It wasn't so bad.
Overall, I was quite happy with the shave. Especially considering that a handle and four blades was only $6, I'd recommend Dollar Shave Club to anybody looking for a cheaper way to shave. The only downside I noticed was that the razor cartridges don't rinse out as easily as some other designs. Note in the photos below how obstructed the back side of the blade is in the Dollar Shave Club cartridge (left) vs. the Gillette FlexBall blade (right)
I will say that the Gillette FlexBall does provide a better shave than the DSC blade, but at a much higher cost. I was lucky enough to get the FlexBall for free a while back as part of a promotional giveaway, otherwise I think it's unlikely that I would have tried it out. I paid for the Dollar Shave Club blades with my own dollars, but if you try it out through my links to their site, I do get a $5 credit for the referral.
Well there it is. Shout out to my cousin Joel via the shirt.