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Now that Gillette has announced the launch of its new 5-blade Fusion razor, the death march begins for the twin-blade Sensor. Starting early next year, five blades officially becomes "the best a man can get", the three-blade Mach3 gets bumped down to "so 1998", and the Sensor Excel, the best multi-blade razor anybody's ever produced, gets whacked.

Gillette has a history of killing off the low razor on its totem pole when the company comes out with something new. When the Mach3 was launched, Gillette bumped the then-flagship Sensor Excel down to triple-A and ended production of the single-blade DE razor, the very product that put the company on the map over a century ago and cemented Gillette's dominance of the worldwide wetshaving industry ever since.

Now that five is the new three, two becomes the new one. Which is a drag, really, because I love the Sensor Excel. Of all the multi-blade razors I've tried over the decades I've been shaving, I like the Sensor Excel best.

For starters, it shaves circles around the Mach3. I remember reading Malcolm Gladwell's glowing article on the Mach3 in the New Yorker before the official launch and nearly wetting my pants waiting for the damned thing to finally hit the shelves so I could get my sweaty meat-hooks on it.

Then I got one, and the shave was, well, anti-climactic. I mean, it felt different, sure, but the shave itself wasn't any better than what I'd been getting for years with the Sensor. And the Mach3's more aggressive blade array left the sensitive areas on my neck red and sore all day long. Plus the fact that the new blades cost so much more than the Sensor's, even though they only seemed to last about half as long.

This was awhile before I became aware of old-school wetshaving, so I was still trapped in the mentality most guys have, which is, "Whatever Gillette comes out with has got to be the best, because it's Gillette." But I kept going back to the Sensor Excel and getting closer and more comfortable shaves. Then I'd think nahhh, can't be -- I just have to adjust to three blades. So I'd go back to the Mach3, suffer for a few weeks, and then go right back to the Sensor. Finally, I gave up on the Mach3 completely and went back to the Sensor for all my shaves, because it was better cheaper, and the blades were available everywhere.

These days I shave with vintage single-blade razors -- Schick Injectors, along with the occasional DE shave with an old Gillette or a new Merkur -- and I get better shaves than I did with the Sensor Excel. But I'm still sad to see it die off. After the DE, the Sensor is the best razor Gillette ever came out with, and no matter how many blades they're able to cram into a shaving cartridge down the road, I don't see them ever besting it.

Most of all, I'll miss the Sensor because Beloved Wife still shaves her gams with one, and it does a fine, fine job. What are we going to do when Gillette sends its goons onto the factory floor with pick-axes to bash in the Sensor blade assembly machinery? Beloved Wife won't shave with the Mach3's femmelganger, the "Venus" -- it nicks her stems something fierce -- so I'm guessing the 5-blade Lady Fusion (the Fuscia?) won't fly either. Maybe she'll finally give that Lady Injector a serious go.

Can't wait for the 7-blade Gillette to kill off the Mach3. Will I still be sentient when that blessed event happens? 50-50.