Gillette Mach3 Turbo

Bottom line

The Gillette Mach3 Turbo is nominally a men's razor, but quite a few women love it too. They say it gives a great, close shave, especially on the underarms. The replacement heads are pricey, though, and some say they go dull very quickly. At least one reviewer dislikes the feel of the handle.

Performance

Fleeting but effective. The editors of Which? magazine choose the Gillette Mach3 Turbo as one of their top manual razors for men, but acknowledge in a separate article that the majority of women polled prefer men's razors. Plenty of users agree.

The Mach3 Turbo's lubricant strip doubles as a wear strip; owners complain that both it and the blades wear out quickly. "The lubricant strip wears out after 2 or 3 shaves and the blade gets really dull after about 5 shaves," writes one woman posting to Drugstore.com.

Reviewers say the Mach3 Turbo's shave is nearly unparalleled. "It gives the closest smoothest shave, I never have problems with ingrown hairs anywhere, and my skin doesn't feel dry afterwards. Love it!" writes another woman at Drugstore.com.

Ease of use

Almost identical to the Venus Divine. The Mach3 Turbo is very easy to use, but at least one women posting to Amazon.com says she still prefers the feel of the Venus, which is "a lot less slippery and just more viscerally pleasant and easier to hold."

Aside from cosmetic differences, the Mach3 Turbo is functionally quite similar to the Gillette Venus Divine (Est. $9) . It does have one feature the Venus Divine lacks -- a color-changing wear strip that tells you when it's time to change the cartridge. Those cartridges don't come cheap; at about $25 for 8, changing them twice a month nets you a monthly ownership cost of $6.25 or a yearly cost of $75 for cartridges alone.