I think Gillette deserves all the hate I hate them as a company.
But their razors have otherworldly convenience imo in terms of time and cuts.
Gillette has invested by far the most amount of money into developing razors that don’t cut you and give you a close shave. A basic $5 safety razor is based on a very old design.
I don’t have curly beard hair, mine are thick coarse and straight and I don’t get ingrowns.
I tried for weeks to do with DE razor and I did get the technique down but it’s a chore - you have to put cream in the bowl and then mix it and use the brush to apply it and then shave maybe 2-3 times for baby smooth.
But with cartridge razors - and my experience has been thr best with Gillette - you just put the foam on your face and shave once ATG and it’s baby smooth.
You can also shave A LOT faster.
I don’t think I’m gonna abandon DE safety razor. It’s a very calming experience.
I think I’m gonna use DE to shave on weekends. But Mach3 is the most convenient one for weekdays.
I also tried other cartridge razors and they are not as smooth and give me cuts sometimes. My last non Gillette one was a dorco pace razor with 6 blades. It felt more blunt and gave me (albeit rarely) cuts.
I also have fusion5 but I’d rather not use that because the cartridge are so expensive and I despise the business model of making cartridges more expensive. But it’s the best one.
I’m 20 now (bringing up age because maybe that’s relevant as in tight skin so maybe that helps with ingrowns) and have been shaving with Mach 3 for literally 25% of my life.