The Best A Man Can Get

I'm thinking that, as their slogan goes, Gillette is the best a man can get.

Several weeks ago, towards the end of a challenging pay period where the bills and expenses overpowered the amount of available funds, I was in need of a razor, having stretched the re-use of my existing one to about three times it's expected life.

So, at my local Shopper's Drug Mart, while browsing through the razor blades, I decided to forgo my default purchase of the MACH 4 Gillette razor (or whatever number they're at now, since they just keep increasing it to make it more and more impressive -- soon, I'm sure I'll be using a MACH 4000). Instead, I bought one of the cheaper knock-off brands -- in this case, the much lower priced Life Brand razor (a Shopper's Drug Mart branding for better prices on various products)

The Life Brand, in most other cases has proven to be a suitable compromise for me. Better price, seemingly no difference in quality.

Except when it came to the razor.

How do I best state this? Okay, let me try.

Ouch!!!!

Ahhh!!!!

Damn!!!!

Oy!!!!

By the time I was finished, my face looked somewhat like Frankenstein's monster. Seriously, the tiny nicks and cuts of outrageous fortune were all over my face, some of them running deep and taking well over a week to heal.

Needless to say, I eagerly awaited the next pay coming in so I could buy a decent razor. A Gillette.

BTW, this ad isn't sponsored by Gillette, and they know nothing about me talking about this -- IE, this isn't a sponsored post. I told myself to write it. I've also used Wilkinson and Schick and others, and they all do well, too.

I guess the point I'm trying to make here (aside from an attempt at telling a humourous story about hurting myself by trying to be cheap), is that you often get exactly what you pay for, and that, being price conscious when shopping is, of course, a good thing to do, but there ARE cases where the "deal" is not a "deal" because it's a lesser quality product that costs you something else.

In my case, the cost was blood.

I'm not slamming Life Brand, because there are various Life Brand items I use that are perfectly fine. But when it comes to safety razors I'm going to stick with Gillette and the other top notch brands that cost more, but keep my face smooth and sleek and free of the thousand thin razor cuts that flesh is heir to.

I'm sure you might have your OWN examples of when you tried to make do with a lesser brand or service because of cost savings and ended up doing yourself a huge disservice.