Finding a good razor is like finding your prince; you’ve gotta kiss a few frogs first (or in this case, get razor burn). But once you find ~the one~, you hold it close to your heart. It takes a LOT to change a made up mind and convince them to try a new blade to take to their face, legs, arms, or wherever they wanna shave. But the Philips OneBlade is one of the new dogs on the grooming block, and curiosity got the better of us.
To give you the marketing spiel: the Philips OneBlade is an electric trimmer and shaver with a 360, dual-sided blade designed to move with the contours and curves of your face without nicking you in the process. It has a 20-length precision comb designed to give evenly trim hairs, ranging from a 0.4mm to 10mm finish. It also boasts 120 minutes of shaving time for a one-hour charge. Not bad, right?
Except there was one problem with me reviewing it.
While I have hair in handfuls, it unfortunately isn’t on my face. (Image: Alyssa Forato)
My lack of facial hair.
So I enlisted the help of my colleague and PEDESTRIAN.TV’s resident drag queen, Nick Daskalovski, to put it to the test and report back with all the good, the bad and the ugly.
If a Macedonian drag queen says a shaver’s good, then you know it’s good.
Philips OneBlade Review: First Thoughts
It’s sleeeeek. (Image: Philips / Above The Collar)
When unboxing the razor, Nick was surprised to find that there was a bunch of goodies in the box.
“I thought I was just getting the razor, but there was the clipper guards [and] the spare clippers,” Nick said. “That was a big plus for me, that it had that wide range of clipper guards and also the little goodie bag to store it all in because there was so many elements. It came in the bag which was really really lovely and quite surprising. I didn’t realise it was going to come with so much.”
For those wondering at home, it also comes with a 20-length precision comb, guards, a body kit and charger.
As for shape and feel, Nick said that it’s sturdy without being bulky, and a clumsy fumble won’t destroy it. At the same time, it’s not heavy, so it won’t add unnecessary weight to your carry on if you take it travelling.
When Nick got the OneBlade, it was on 10 per cent, and after leaving it to charge for approximately three hours it was fully charged “which was kind of wild.”
Philips One Blade: Road Test And First Impressions
“Everything clicks in extremely easily, even all of the guards,” Nick said. “It’s pretty user friendly. It’s not like you have to solve a Rubik’s cube to put it together. It’s really simple.”
Our road testing king. (Image: Nick Daskalovski)
When it comes to shaving, Nick said that he normally feels the razor drag because he has thick hair. But with the Philips OneBlade, there was no drag and it guided across his skin really easily and gave a really close shave.
“Honestly, crazy close. I was kind of weirded out by how close it got. It got down to a near perfect on the cheeks and everything…” he said.
“I used the clipper without any shaving cream and I got a bit of razor burn on my neck, but then when I used the gel, which I didn’t realise you could, it smoothed and got everything down to such a close shave that I just had to do a quick swipe to get the areas that it had missed.”
The shoes match the razor! (Image: Nick Daskalovski)
Nick mentioned that while a typical shave during drag prep typically takes him a minimum of 30 minutes, the OneBlade halved the time.
“Just to give you insight, when I do my drag queen shaving of my face, I use hair clippers to get rid of the bulk of the hair. I use a balm from Lush to soften my beard hair. Then I shave, then I put shaving cream on, shave again, and then I get a shaving cream on again. I spot shave to make sure that I haven’t missed anything. So, it’s almost a five, six step process to shave my face. But when I used this, it was only two steps,” he explained.
“It also worked really nice on arm hair… I shave my arms because I don’t like having hairy arms as a drag queen. It’s just because I’m Macedonian, so it’s really thick black hair and it really shows… so I clipper everything. Arms, hands, knuckles, chest, it’s a full process to get myself ready for drag.
“And I even shaved my eyebrows with it. Yeah, it’s pretty good.”
Cleanshaven diva alert! (Image: Nick Daskalovski)
He also said that because there’s two blades, his beard hair regrowth didn’t feel as sharp. Instead of cutting the hair on an awkward angle, it cuts it flat so it doesn’t feel as coarse when it comes back through the skin. When we chatted, he said he was on day two of his regrowth and that it was “quite even all over”.
“It also worked really nice on arm hair. I normally have to use a blade and do this back and forth. But it was so smooth. I clipper everything — arms, hands, knuckles, chest — so this really cut the process down and caused less irritation.”
As for its shortcomings? Nick said he did experience razor burn on his neck, but mentioned that was because he didn’t use shaving cream — and that razor burn is pretty standard for him.
“It was gone the next day. And I didn’t get any ingrown hairs or cuts,” he pointed out.
“I normally cut myself quite a lot around my Adam’s apple, but none of that happened when I was using it.”
He also raised that the packaging and instructions didn’t mention that the razor could be used with a shaving cream, so he went forth with the assumption he had to raw dog it.
“I only found out when I started going on TikTok and looking it up and researching it to see if I could,” he said.
“I just wish they would have put on the packaging a bit more bolder that it can be used with a shaving cream because when I think of a clipper, you’re not never supposed to use it with a shaving gel because it can clog up the clipper… This one’s a bit different, so you’re allowed to use shaving gels.”
Philips OneBlade: The Final Verdict
Overall, Nick was seriously impressed with the capabilities of the Philips OneBlade.
“I was like, ‘Oh, I want to try and think of something bad to say.’ But there wasn’t anything bad to say because it actually did a really good job,” Nick laughed.
He did point out that $150 isn’t the cheapest razor around, but if you plan on using it regularly, it’s worth your money.
“I normally spend 30 bucks a month on new [razor] blades. So using less blades and using the clipper would save a lot of money,” he said.
“It’s actually worth it because it did the job that it was selling.”
The best (and most important) part? It’s currently on sale for $150, 21 per cent off from its usual price of $189 as part of Amazon’s Big Smile sale. It’s running from March 16 to 22, so you’ve got a week to snag it at a cheaper price.
