Unsurprisingly, the multinationals are once again promising us a smoother, closer, better shave… meet the Gillette FlexBall, coming soon to a store near you:

• Handle allows blade to pivot – why is this a good thing? I want my razor to go where I tell it to, not crosswise and slicing me open. It’s a gimmick, although one that looks like an interesting piece of engineering; a small universal joint.
• 20% fewer missed hairs – I though that is why you had 5 freaking blades to begin with? Funny how I use a single blade, two passes and have zero to none missed hairs…
• Cuts hair shorter – which in the case of me and other traditional wetshavers means scraping off the top layer of skin. Also; 23 microns – that is one 50th of a mm, or just shy of a 1000th of an inch. Clearly a major step forward there…
• Increased skin contact – which is another way to say the previous design was sub-optimal. Also keep in mind that more contact isn’t automatically a good thing – it could simply mean 23% more razor burn…
• Compatible with earlier cartridges – I’ll give them that one; it’s actually a good idea and will make the buy-in easier for the consumers.
•  Battery-powered? I’ll take that to mean this one vibrates as well then – because sharp blades on a wobbly stick needs to vibrate with at least 120Hz to shave your mug, I guess…

Want to impress me Gillette? Release a line of DE razors again – fixed, adjustable, three-piece, TTO, anything. Match that up with decent quality soaps and creams – the kind that needs a brush. THEN I’ll be mightily impressed.