Wilkinson Sword Quattro Review

Overall Rating

The design is good to impress your girlfriend

Quattro just cannot shave

I obtained a free Wilkinson Quattro razor from my friend. I did not buy it. I never considered shifting from my faithful shaving stick which has only two blades, which are enough!

I would never have considered buying a four blade shaver. I think that had Gillette not come out with a three blade shaver, Wilkinson would have never dreamed of marketing one with four. It's their way of saying ours is better.

Quattro comes with a big seating base, the purpose of which is still unknown to me, apart from adding to the marketing hype. If they wanted to provide protection to the blade while not in use they could have opted for a small plastic cover that covers just the blade.

A razor with four blades has definitely got to crowd the blades together, otherwise the blade is too big to adapt itself to the facial contours, and Quattro's blades are too close together which results in the blade clogging too easily. Rinsing and trying to remove the unwanted hair blocked within is a nightmare. This will result in frequent replacement of the blades.

The blade is still too big. It cannot be moved easily in concave areas such as below the lower lip.

The blades are mounted on some kind of suspension and thus they retreat as soon as pressure is applied on them, such as putting the blade into the desired position across your face to start shaving. When you adjust your hand to accommodate the new angle taken by the blades the same thing happens again. This continues on until the blades cannot move back further. This results in you having to adapt to the blade, difficulty in giving one clear downward blow and much longer shaving time.

Wilkinson came up with the stupid idea to hold the blades in place with vertical wires. I am sure that these wires have been tested for resistance to breaking, which could result in some unpleasant face scratching, but I am not willing to take the risk.

Also, how can one pretend that the blade does it job when it is partly covered with these wires? Any hair happening to be underneath these wires when you pass the blade over your face won't be shaved for sure. You will have to pass a second time, and oh man, I did! Quattro's website says that these serve to protect your face from the blades, and sure they do, but anything underneath them is not shaved!

These wires accentuate further to the clogging problem.

The lubricating strip is just marketing hype (sorry Gillette, but your lubricating strips are hype too).

The price of the replacement blades is too high.

All said, I will dispose of this blade and confine it in a place where humanity cannot find it.

Dear Wilkinson and Gillette, we need a blade with no spaceship design that is durable. I am sure you know how to do it, but you just don't want to in case it will hurt your cash flow due to less frequent blade replacement . And please, Wilkinson, do offer some serious competition!