shaver – miyagi.sg

The Unbreakable Braun Series 7 Shaver

OK, this is a bit late for a Christmas gift idea post, but this morning as I was charging my Braun Series 7 Shaver, I tried to recall when it was that mrbrown and myself received these Uncle Gifts from Braun’s then PR company.

It was April 2008. That’s almost 8 years ago, and we’re both still using the damned thing. It’s probably also lasted longer than the PR company that represented Braun then. So if you’re looking for some appliance that lasts, this is one of them. The model we have – Braun Series 7 (790 cc Type 5671) has been discontinued, but you can find the new Series 7s here.

Thank goodness the refills for the cleaning liquid and blades are still compatible.

You can read the original review here.

Pulsonic washable

I had my first shave with the Braun Series 7 (790 cc Type 5671) and it was good.

It was the closest shave I’ve had since my Army motorcycle skidded and crashed into the path of an oncoming Armoured Fighting Vehicle (M113) whose driver and vehicle commander were both looking out of my line of sight and who were only alerted when my Combat Team Sergeant Major threw a rock and hit the vehicle commander on the helmet with it, causing him to shout into the intercom to tell the driver to stop. (It was a good thing too that the driver’s surname was “Au”).

Thank you Encik. The puddle around the bike was petrol, I swear.

So anyway, with the shaver fully charged, I went to the bathroom mirror and turned the thing on. My heart beat was still louder than the whirr of the shaver, and I put the thing to my face.

You have to understand my fear of electric shavers. The last time I used one, it was a cheap, borrowed plasticky one from an uncle, who passed it to me thinking I’d be smart enough to check if it was working properly and that it had some juice left in it’s batteries.

I wasn’t and it didn’t, and the thing died while in mid-shave, clamping a portion of my chin hair good while I used a free hand to look frantically around the house for a pair of scissors.

No such problems this time. This baby’s LCD “battery” indicator tells me how much power it’s got left, as well as how hygienic I am.

I was however, a little perturbed when I saw the word “Pulsonic” on the top of the shaver. It took a while before I worked out that it was probably derived from the words “pulse” and “sonic”, and not “pull” and “sonic”.

So, a few minutes and a lot of other preening in front of the mirror later, I was done, and very happy with the results.

Before:

After:

A check on the LCD panel told me that in shaving my face, I had used up none out of six battery bars, as well as two out of six hygiene bars. This meant it was time for a clean and recharge.

Cleaning and recharging is simple, you just chuck the shaver head down into the cleaner-charger and it tells you if it needs a eco, normal or intensive clean, and then you just press the “start cleaning” button and Bob’s your uncle.

The canister of flammable cleaning liquid lasts up to 30 washes depending on how hairy each shave is, but you can also wash the shaver manually if you so wish, so that you won’t have to keep going out to buy replacement canisters of flammable cleaning liquid.

Pretty neat if you ask me. My face so smoot now.

Take your Jedi weapon. Use it.

The doorbell chimed, the dog barked and I went down the corridor to open the door, where a man stood and said, “Benjamin Lee? Your shaver is here”.

So I screamed and ran and hid behind the sofa until he was gone, leaving a huge plastic bag containing a box which contained a Braun Series 7 (790cc Type 5671) self-cleaning electric shaver.

Then I remembered that a PR company had written a month ago asking if I would test drive Braun’s new self-cleaning electric shaver, and that they would send me one if I said yes, and I had said yes. I think they knew that I wasn’t a fan of shaving, and that my unshaven look was borne of an aversion to shaving rather than anything to do with fashion.

I don’t have that much of a problem with facial hair, like most Chinese men, and you can’t really call mine a five o’ clock shadow. It’s more like a April 2nd shadow, as that’s how slowly our facial hairs grow.

But the thought of not having to use shaving cream/gel and a manual razor was appealing. Anything you need to plug in and recharge is appealing.

Hmm… wonder what’s inside?

Excited, I opened the box…

Removed the pamphlet on top of the styrofoam inner box…

And revealed the top of the styrofoam inner box.

Then I took off the lid of the top of the styrofoam inner box.

And I thought, “that’s a pretty big thing to bring up to your face”, before I calmed myself down and took apart the rest of the box and its contents.

There was this little canister of clear liquid with a “flammable” warning.

Highly flammable. So that’s why they want a blogger to test it

The shaver part of the whole kit was in it’s own plastic spectacle case, and opening it revealed a sleek silver thing with buttons and an LCD display at the end.

Darth Vader had one of these, and he cut off Luke Skywalker’s hand with it 25 years ago, so this is not new technology.

Still, I read the instructions very carefully (anything with flammable liquid in a plastic canister and a plug to put into an electrical socket requires you to do so), and I’ve started charging the thing to use later. It should charge in a short while I go find the rest of my Jedi outfit.