For years, innovation in men’s razors seemed to center on adding more blades[1]. More recently, with the advent of upstarts like Dollar Shave Club and Harry’s, the focus has shifted to affordability. Gillette’s latest product rejects both of these trends. The Heated Razor adds not a blade, but a “warming bar” that keeps its cartridge toasty throughout your shave. And at $150, it’s unabashedly priced for a premium crowd.
“In the end, the search for warmth, the heat, has always been a constant,” says Donato Diez Guerrero, global brand manager for Gillette. “What we’re trying to do with the Heated Razor is providing them that consistent, sustained warmth that gets distributed over the face in an even way.”
It achieves that through some clever—and yes, safe—engineering. In fact, the most surprising thing about the Heated Razor may be how closely it resembles a more traditional model. At a glance, the cartridge looks quite a bit like other top-end Gillette options, and while the handle appears to add a little bit of bulk to accommodate the heating element, it’s still in line with what you’re used to.
The difference-maker is a heating element near the top of the handle, where it connects with the cartridge. Once you activate that, with the push of a button, it takes less than a second to heat the warming bar to either 113 or 122 degrees Fahrenheit, temperatures that Gillette senior engineer Stephanie Niezgoda Moss says will have the broadest appeal globally, depending on just how hot some like it.
“As far as keeping that consistent temperature, we have four sensors that are in the warming bar that are constantly monitoring the temperature, so as heat is transferred to the skin, the handle’s continuing to replenish...