Thursday, August 14, 2008
Review Day 2: Schick Quattro Titanium Trimmer - This Time, It’s for the Swag
Part II of my swag review: Schick Quattro Titanium Trimmer. Part I is immediately below. I know it’s asking a lot but it would mean so much to your mother if you read it first.
Bill raised a cogent point in the comments last time around: where are the blasted photos? Of course he is cool and does not say “blasted” but I go around in a waistcoat and plusfours and find myself saying “blasted” all the time. But this is not about my archaic expostulations. This is about the pictures of my Schick Quattro Titanium Trimmer and my further scrupulous assessment of its qualities, both practical and platonic. You are trying to distract me. Stop shining that in my eyes.
As I was saying: the package came in the afternoon mail, small yet bulky. Inside the packwrap was a box big enough to hold one of them thar ol’ fashion VCR tapes, with red, grey and black graphics. Inside was a blister pack with essentially identical design, and that’s where I’m going to start. And yes, I’m a lazy codpiece who just took one photo and cut it up, not a whole mess of photos of each element, and if you don’t like it you are warmly invited to bite me. This is what you get and I’m sorry it’s fuzzy but I bet you could handle it if you stopped whining for fifteen seconds.
The Schick people are so proud of Angelo now. I’m on my second day of the review and I have not reviewed a goddamn thing. THIS IS MY SPECIAL GIFT. Surrender to it, Mr. Schicky Schicklestein.
In the blisterpack, I find what appears to be quite the fistful of male grooming apparatus.
Broadshouldered yet sleek; heavy in the shaft and thick enough up top to elicit comment. Like, “dang, that’s a thick razor.” Not that that’s a bad thing. I’ll be honest, I wanted to rip it open at that moment and find something to shave, but I held off. I am nothing if not disciplined enough not to shave at my desk with my brand new blogswag. I mean, let’s not set the bar too high.
It’s nice, right? Let’s take a closer look at the elements:
They want you to know that this razor has a total of - no, this can’t be possible! FIVE blades? They must be mad!! That’s not a grooming device, that’s a gang! I tremble - terrified, yet thrilled.
Notice well, the broad tapering face of the trimmer utility functionalisation interface. It lies dormant, awaiting but my touch before roaring back into action! Yes, it’s rather narrow-gauge, but DUDE IT IS IN THE HANDLE OF YOUR RAZOR. One-stop shopping, shave-wise. One-stop shaving. You’re not getting me. We’re moving on.
So, I have to admit some trepidation when I see
theseThese hirsute pink things are clearly pod shoots from Invasion of the Body Snatchers (non-porn version). Should I expect this to happen to me? Am I supposed to be shaving these off of my face? Because there is one thing for sure, if those hairy pink things start growing out of me I will damn well be shaving them off. And if this razor can do that for me, I am going to keep it within arm’s reach so long as humanly possible.
My faith was further restored when I noticed (and I cower to admit that I failed to prepare a special visual for this) that, while the product required a AAA battery for full functionality, my swag came with the battery PREINSTAlLED. What could be sweeter? Other than a nine-volt deal or better, NOTHING. Damn that’s a sweet touch. It’s ready for me anytime I’m ready for it. This must be how God feels.
Here’s the back of the package:
There’s no thick glistening object to be the focus of attention in this view. They made up for that loss of visual excitement, however, by CRAMMING IN AS MANY PICTURES WITH WORDS AS POSSIBLE.
The product has been broken down for me, in terms of its primary operating systems at least:
At the top are four blades, appropriately enhanced with a strip of lube at the leading edge and gleaming with cold confidence. Their inherent titaniumosity and tetranumerous quantity are irrefutably demonstrated by a series of grey indicator bars that literally bend over backwards with enthusiasm. Obviously this is a serious shaver. There may be a hair or two that might escape one of those blades, but not all four of them. My face is their house. I just live there.
We are instructed to “shave;” argument is clearly futile. We are promised “comfort,” by a visibly relaxed man stroking his denuded chin. He’s been to the mountain. Are YOU ready to go?
Then - and this is cool -
- you can turn the razor around and there’s a single blade just hanging out at the back of the head, the narrowest cutting edge I’ve seen in maybe ever. It can sneak in and extirpate those errant troublemaker hairs that lurk in places too constrained for a full four-blade head to reach. I am intrigued. You have my attention, Quattro Titanium Trimmer. Especially with the apparent ability of this blade to grow me a nice mephistophelian goatee while I shave. No wonder that guy in the first panel looks so cocksure. He’s got the goatee-growing power of the single edging blade! Damned if I know how it works but I am sure as hell ready to try it out.
The trimmer is almost an afterthought after that amazing performance by edgy edgemeister, you crazy kid you.
Yes, it’s right there at the butt-end of the shaft, as is so often true of vibrating objects full of sharp blades. It apparently can also call forth a chinstrap beardlet from your sideburns, snap it off, and wrap it around your piehole as a goatee. This guy’s facial hair is just flowing freely over his face like some kind of wooly willy. But with the battery preinstalled. I tell you, this is heady stuff, and not just in the really obvious way.
So much information is crammed into this series of images that it actually makes me giggle with overload. I particularly like the image on the right, of the trimmer comb actually lifting off after a countdown to zero. The ominous arrow pointing back down is a comment on the evanescence of human endeavor, and, by extension, a good shave. These guys have whole english departments working on this crap, people. I’m just here to report on it.
We are instructed to use Schick Quattro Titanium 4+1 replacement razors, but I imagine any 4+1 would suffice. They are endemic these days.
The “to clean, rinse with water” datapoint is much appreciated. When you have to keep dumping the razor in the autoclave you lose a lot of quality shave time. But really, I love the “shower safe” medallion: (gushing shower head)/"OK" in red!! It’s okay to be a showerhead - even metaphorically! Today is the first day of the rest of your shower! Just don’t forget, every time you take a shower, three baby salmon die in an arid streambed. Callous bastards. Callous, shower-shaven bastards. And I say this as one who showershaves on a very regular basis.
And finally, as is true for all swag, we are confronted with the true underlying price: legalese.
Don’t worry, I speak it well. Um, this is actually the libretto for “Rent.” Wait, no, it’s legalese. Common mistake. My comments:
DAYUM they got shaving dot com. That is really going to pay off, and I’m not sure they have to rely entirely on the men’s grooming market. I’m just saying, I bet there’s a lot of visitors to that URL who are not looking for a 4+1 that features titanium blades.
Performance guarantee is worthless to me. My purchase price was zero. I would prefer next time, Angelo, to be given products with disclaimers that provide me a substantial cash award and a lifetime of professional bodywork if not completely satisfied. I’m just saying. I can be a reasonable man given reason to do so but honestly I’m not wedded to the idea.
We also learn that the handle, which really is not that big when you get down to it, was manufactured in China; the blade assembly came from Germany; and the battery comes from Singapore on behalf of a corporation based in St Louis (Surinam). It’s an amazing testament to freemasonry and the global conspiracy. Those Germans and Chinese are troublemakers. Good thing we’ve got the insensate rigidity of the Singaporean to even things out.
Finally, we are advised that Schick and Quattro, as well as Energizer, are registered trademarks of Energizer. I imagine the Audi people and a certain soccer ball manufacturer will be surprised. Reminder: henceforward “penne quattro fromaggio with chives” will be known as “penne Schick Quattro Titanium fromaggio with Trimmer and chives.” I guess they couldn’t trademark “titanium” or “trimmer.” It’s a pity, really.
Sixteen US patents are identified as protecting Energizer’s interests in this product. They are not listed in numerical order. This confirms my “body snatcher” hypothesis: this is a code, intended to guide alien overlords who will rule us with unspeakable and amoral power and turn us into something that grows huge hairy pink tendrils but at least has the good sense to shave them off. I’m not sure how I feel about that future.
The Practicum
I’ve used the SQTT several times now. It is a bit heavier than I’m used to in the hand, but delivers good momentum to the blade surfaces and shaves very cleanly. I have yet to cut myself in any significant way, despite the seemingly clumsy quintibladed mass. The single edging blade works even better than I’d have expected, and proved its fell quality by going quite a ways toward carving me a third nostril before I even noticed one bleary morning. The trimmer - well, it works, but I don’t really have even a sideburn to trim and tempt into turning into one of those metamorphic beard/goatee/sideburn things. (I will not report the results of my experiment with the trimmer, but will clarify that it was not a test of its trimming ability in the strictly traditional sense.)
My conclusion is that this is a quality razor but I wonder how much the replacement blades will cost. The trimmer, I can’t say anything about, but it’s a fun feature. If they had given me a t-shirt, I’d have kept it. (Angelo, I trust you are keeping notes.) I don’t know that I’d have made the investment to buy this package off the shelf - that would depend on pricing. However, I am tickled to have gotten it for free and will continue to use it so long as it remains free. When I wear out the blades, which will happen eventually and soon enough, I will have to assess if it’s so much a better, smoother, and more satisfying a shave as to justify whatever they’re charging for replacement blades.
I give it a solid B, except on the compulsories where I recused myself for the trim competition ("competrimition"). I am satisfied with this service or product. I hereby award it the Chucklehut “I Used It On Purpose” seal of approval. It would get an A- but for the ease with which the blade cartridge came detached when I tapped out the many stubble-crammed crannies of the razor while using it. You can rise with water till the cows come home (and in some of your cases I recommend it) but sometimes all that gets you is a load of wet stubble. A man has to tap his razor sometimes, people. We aren’t barbarians. And the blade very easily pops off when you do. It goes on again easily enough, too, but it is a bit of a pain. (When you pick up the detached blade cartridge, don’t forget that there’s one blade pointing up at you when the four are pointing safely down.)
Schick Quattro Titanium Trimmer: swagmeter points to “kick-ass.” Thanks, Angelo, it was good working with you. Tell our alien overlords that I say hi - and I’m ready for them when they’re ready for me.
