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I tried Gillette's new 5-blade Fusion razor over the weekend. Not the battery powered version -- that's for saps. No, I just tried the regular Fusion. Five blades on the shaving side, and an extra blade on the back for trimming around the sideburns/goatee/pubic mound or anywhere else five blades can't quite spelunk.

I actually snuck out to CVS last Thursday to get a Fusion on the first day they put them on the floor, lying to Beloved Wife that I needed to go run a few errands, because I couldn't admit to her that I was getting in my car and driving to the drugstore solely to buy the new Gillette shaving system. I can stand in front of this woman in boxers and black socks without shame, but I couldn't tell her where I was going or what I was going to do when I got there.

It wasn't any better standing in line to pay for it. I would've felt less embarrassed holding a tube of strawberry K-Y and a copy of Barely Beagle in full view. I felt like a sucker, and if anybody I knew had come into the store, I would've dropped the package and pretended I was there to buy almost anything else in the store. Seriously, how can anybody at Gillette say the words "five blades" with a straight face? Three blades was silly. Four was ridiculous. Five is where I feel pretty confident that, as Hunter Thompson put it, the wave finally broke and rolled back.

As a card-carrying shavegeek who loves vintage razors, I'd love to dis the Fusion's fake macho futuro/Nike/Terminator looks, but as Gillette chose a blue/orange motif -- Bears colors -- I cannot. The plasti-chrome is plenty cheezy, but the colors are sacred. Sweetness. Danimal. Fridge. Ming the Merciless. Iron Mike. So we won't spend any time making fun of the looks of this razor. We will let them be and move on.

The thing that bothers me most about the Fusion's design isn't the fact that it's got five blades. It's that the "micro-fins" that precede the blades as you shave, supposedly raising your whiskers and setting them up for the cut, take up much more space in front of the blade array than on any other razor I've ever seen. The Fusion's micro-fin zone is twice as long as the Mach3's, even though its shaving area is nearly the same size, owing to the closer grouping of the Fusion's blades versus the Mach3's.

Why does the Fusion need such a long patch of micro-fins in front of the blades? Well, because if it had as short a patch as the Mach3, you'd slice your face open. The extra-long micro-fin zone is required to keep the 5-blade array flat on your face so it won't nick your skin. The more blades Gillette puts on a razor, the longer the safety bar in front of the blades has to be to keep the blades angle from becoming too aggressive.

Do you see where this is going? When they come out with six, or seven, or maybe ten blades (laugh now; report back in a few years), they'll have to lengthen the landing strip in front of the blades even more, till the shaving head becomes nearly as big as your face. The Fusion's shaving surface is too long for the average face, and makes the Mach3 seem compact and nimble by comparison.

In fact, the Fusion's head is so large, it's even harder to shave under your nose or square off your sideburns than it is with the Mach3. So Gillette put a single blade on the back of the Fusion, just for these tasks. Some shavegeeks have even hoped this single-edge blade might actually deliver a better shave than the front of the razor, and convince billions to suddenly throw down their multi-blade razors en masse and join the DE-volution.

Keep dreaming, boys. The single blade on the back of the Fusion is mostly useless at anything but trimming your sideburns. I tried shaving half my face with it to see how it performed, and it's just not up to it. The shave was mediocre, harsh, and not nearly as good as using the front of the razor.

As for the Fusion's 5-blade shave, I'll give it this -- it's surprisingly comfortable, even a bit moreso than the Mach3's shave. After tearing my face up with the free 4-blade Quattro Schick sent me awhile back, I was leery of shaving with a razor with yet another blade added to the mix. But the Fusion is actually a very comfortable razor to shave with -- razor drag is practically nil, and even against the grain the Fusion simply glides across the face as if it were hovering. Of course, my prep was better than the typical scenario this razor's going to find itself in -- I took a hot shower beforehand and used Nancy Boy shaving cream and a Simpson Wee Scot badger brush -- but even so, the Fusion was a bit more comfortable to shave with than the Mach3.

That's the good news. The bad news is, the quality of the shave just wasn't any better than a Mach3's. Rubbing my fingers against the grain, I could still feel stubble, despite three full passes -- with-grain, against-grain, and then a second against-grain because I still felt stubble all over. Yet even this extra against-grain pass didn't leave my skin as glass-smooth as Gillette's 66 years-older Super Speed DE safety razor does every morning. What I got was the typical Mach3 shave -- quick, easy, requiring no thought, technique, or concentration, and looking good enough for the office even though if you rub your face you'll still feel some stubble.

Like the Mach3, the Fusion's a deceptively comfortable razor. During the shave it hardly felt like I was shaving at all. But afterward, my skin felt raw for hours, and still felt pretty tender at the end of the day. I remember feeling this way every day back when I was using the Mach3, which is why I tried so many different shaving creams and after-shave lotions to help "fix" the problem, which immediately went away when I started using a DE.

All that said, I don't think the Fusion sucks. It's no better than a Mach3, but it's no worse, either. I don't care for these razors, but they don't suck. They just don't shave nearly as closely or as irritation-free as a safety razor.

Finally, there's the matter of cost. Much has been made about the price of the Fusion's blade cartridges -- $3.50 apiece on average, or 50 cents more per blade than the Mach3's. I don't know and won't be finding out how long a Fusion cartridge lasts before the shaves start to go south, but I was only ever able to get about three or four good shaves from a Mach3 catridge. That's a buck a shave! (Could I have ever been that stupid?) (well, there were those parachute pants
back in the 80s..)

I remember back in '98 when the Mach3 hit the market. Guys (me included) went apeshit for it, because it really did shave and feel different than any razor that had come before it. Millions of men felt it really was much better than what they were using at the time. I mean, the freakin' New Yorker even did a profile on it written by Mr. Tipping Point himself, Malcolm Gladwell, who treated the new razor like the Next Big Thing that it actually was. The Mach3 devoured the market in no time flat. 99 percent of the guys I know who shave, shave with a Mach3.

I don't think the Fusion's going to be the same kind of hit. Besides the fact that there's a world of difference between the tail-end of the go-go Clinton years and the slow-motion depression this country's in today, the simple fact is the Fusion just doesn't shave any better or differently than its predecessor. It's a bit more comfortable during the shave, but that's it -- the shave's no closer, the razor burn's no lesser, and the blades are even more expensive. It's hard for me to imagine anyone trying a Fusion and feeling it's better than, or even different enough to elicit interest in switching from, the Mach3.

I'm not one of those deluded shavegeeks who thinks the world's male population is just one DE shave away from a mass exodus away from multi-blade razors. It's never going to happen, for a myriad of reasons, first and foremost being that it takes some time spent learning the proper technique before you start getting amazing shaves from a safety razor. With the Mach3 and Fusion, your first shave is as good as it's ever going to get. It may not be "the best a man can get", but it's pretty good right off the bat and stays that way, and for most men that's good enough.

It'll be interesting to see what happens in the next few months. The ad blitz during the Super Bowl will be concussive, and then the apes will descend upon the fruit. You can't count Gillette's marketing expertise out, but this time, I wonder if they can really convince a planet of men to change razors when the new one shaves just like the old one but costs more.