The Best Electric Razors for a Smoother Shave

An electric shaver’s singular goal is to transform your face from hairy and unkempt to smooth and stubble-free before you have to repeat the ritual again. But there are a lot of nuances to the act of weed-whacking your skin that could greatly impact the quality of your shave, from the type of shaver to the accessories it comes with.

There are two main types of electric shavers. A foil shaver refers to the boxy, rectangular design that lines up your hairs through tiny holes in a metal screen, to their doom. A rotary shaver typically has three spinning blade mechanisms under circular metal guards; as your hairs cross the threshold between guard and blade, they get real short, real quick.

Our top pick, Braun’s Series 7 7027cs, is a foil shaver that performs as well as models that cost hundreds of dollars more. Not only does Braun’s shaver have the best combination of accessories at a reasonable price to cover a wide range of facial hair styles, but it’s also comfortable and should be easy to use for just about everyone. You can find a capable electric shaver for even less, but the learning curve (and lack of add-ons) could prove problematic. Depending on your budget and your shaving needs, we also recommend Andis’ ProFoil, the Panasonic Arc 5 ES-LV65-S and Philips’ Norelco 9500 as alternative options.

If you’d like to read how we vetted and tested these electric shavers, scroll down for all the details.

Best overall electric shaver

Pros

• Strong shaving performance that’s comparable to much higher-price foil shavers
• Excellent mix of accessories for its price, so you can try many different facial hair styles
• Around an hour of sustained battery life and speedy charging

Cons

• “360-degree” head design is less practical and pleasant than a standard foil shaver’s top-to-bottom design
• No way to lock the shaver head in a fixed position
• For safety, cannot use when it’s plugged in and charging, as it supports wet and dry shaving

Braun’s Series 7 7027cs is a nice-price shaver that’s great at the basics: giving you a good mix of shaving performance and accessories without costing a small fortune or taking up valuable real estate around your bathroom sink. Its simple, no-fuss design of two foil cutters and a single, central trimmer attacked two days’ worth of stubble and multiple days’ worth of longer hair growth as quickly as the fastest other shavers we tested, and the smooth results were indistinguishable from shavers that cost hundreds of dollars more—including other Brauns. It also irritated our skin much less than the higher-price rotary shavers we tested.

Every Braun Series 7 electric shaver is the same; the different model numbers indicate what comes in the shaver’s box. The 7027cs version comes with a precision trimmer attachment, simple travel case, charging stand and five trimming guards. We think that’s worth the extra $20 or so over the basic Series 7 7020s, which only has a precision trimmer and travel case. “The one I use at home is a Braun,” Macklan Clendenin, a faculty member at the San Francisco Institute of Esthetics and Cosmetology, told us, saying he likes it because of all its accessories. The 7071cc replaces the trimming guards and charging stand with a bulkier station that can charge and clean your shaver, but it eats up a lot of space on your sink (and is just one more thing you’ll have to clean and pay to refill with cleaning cartridges). If you must have it all, and a stubble beard trimmer, consider the Series 7 7085cc.

The 7027cs isn’t flawless. Its “360-degree” head, which pivots side-to-side from a central point in addition to the traditional front-and-back motion, gives the shaver a slightly more awkward feel than shavers that feature a sturdy, giant head unit attached to the base at the sides. You also can’t lock the head into a fixed position. But our biggest gripe was that you can’t use the shaver when it’s plugged in and charging, an understandable safety feature based on its “wet-and-dry shaving” design, but one that’s still annoying. (It’s technically waterproof and can be used in the shower, but everyone we spoke to said to avoid that because you could reduce the shaver’s lifespan.) That said, the shaver gave us just over an hour of sustained shaving on a full charge, and took around a half an hour of charging to nearly top off a dead battery. That should be just fine for most vacation shaves, even if you forget your power cable.

Runner-up electric shaver

Pros

• Shaves just as well as our top pick for a similar price
• Built-in, pop-up trimmer means no fussing with accessories for simple styling
• Easy to lock the shaver’s head into place

Cons

• No included accessories like trimming guards for achieving various degrees of stubble
• Extra foil blades don’t improve shaver’s overall performance

You can usually find Panasonic’s Arc 5 ES-LV65-S shaver for around the same price as our top pick, Braun’s Series 7 7027cs. The Arc 5 performed just as well as Braun’s shaver for short- and medium-length hair growth, but this version of the shaver comes with far fewer accessories than the Braun; there’s no charging stand or any other attachments for shaving hairs to different lengths. The Arc 5 has a built-in pop-up trimmer, but that doesn’t even the score.

If you can pick up the ES-LV65-S on a great sale, and you generally sport a clean-shaven face, the Arc 5’s four-foil, single-cutter design will do you well. Like Braun’s shaver, the Arc 5’s head moves in all four cardinal directions, but you can lock it with a handy little switch on the shaver’s back. A physical dial also prevents you from accidentally turning the shaver on when you’re traveling.

Panasonic, like Braun, offers the same shaver in a variety of different packages. The ES-LV95-S version of the Arc 5 comes with a charging and cleaning station, but we think it’s overkill for most people (especially since it costs more than Braun’s version, the Series 7 7071cc). The price differences only get worse from there: The Arc 6 ES-LS9A-K, Panasonic’s $500 flagship shaver, didn’t give us $350 worth of extra facial smoothness compared to the Arc 5 ES-LV65-S, nor was it a faster dry-shaving experience.

Best lower-price electric shaver

Pros

• Widely recommended by all barbers we interviewed
• Excellent price for pure shaving performance
• Incredibly easy to clean

Cons

• Super-thin foils might cause sensitivity issues for certain skin types
• No accessories; you’ll need another product for stubble or beard styling
• A steeper learning curve than most consumer-grade shavers, with more potential irritation
• Not as comfortable to hold compared to shavers with more contoured designs

The Andis ProFoil isn’t for everyone, but we heard enough praise from barbers we interviewed that it’s worth highlighting for the patient shaver. This model does one thing and one thing only: It removes the hair on your face in the beard and mustache areas. It has no attachments, no screen, no flip-up trimmers and no head movement. It is two foils and cutters attached to a small, ergonomically boring box that you can use plugged in or not. (Even more experts recommended the ProFoil in our Pro Picks guide to beard trimmers.)

Expert barbers swear by this shaver from a family-owned, Wisconsin-based company over models from the “Big Three”—Braun, Philips and Panasonic. “The Andis? Those are my favorite,” says Arthur Yusupov, owner of Barbershop NYC. “You just take it, and in two seconds, you can go over [your face], and it’s the smoothest shave that you’re ever going to get.” But if you’re a person who thinks less about shaving technique and more about shaving quickly and getting out the door, the Andis ProFoil may not be the perfect fit. Even Yusupov, who is a fan, notes that it’s best for short hair, so if you tend to go days between shaves and you’re not very diligent about applying light enough pressure, you may end up with some skin irritation.

If you’re willing to put in some time mastering your shaving routine, the Andis ProFoil could give you a solid shave for half the price of our top pick. If you just want a solid shave without all the strategizing, our Braun pick is a more forgiving partner.

Best rotary electric shaver

Pros

• Performs as well for shaving as Philips’ higher-price rotary shavers
• Convenient built-in hair trimmer 
• Easy to access blades for brushing and cleaning

Cons

• Caused more noticeable irritation than any of our foil shavers
• Might not give as close a shave for your skin type as a standard foil shaver, and costs a lot more for similar results

We didn’t encounter any major issues with Philips’ Norelco 9500 during our shaves. But while the shaver did a great job of removing short hairs to create a smooth face, we experienced more unpleasant skin irritation with this rotary shaver than with any of the foil shavers we tested. And when we accidentally ran it over medium-length hairs, we noticed more pulling and yanking compared to its foil counterparts.

The shaver comes with a bulky cleaning and charging station, but no attachments; a single hair trimmer comes built into the shaver, unlike the pricier Philips Norelco S9000 Prestige, where it’s a snap-on accessory. Cleaning this shaver is simple, as a single button pops open the entire head assembly. You have to pry it open yourself on the S9000 Prestige, which gets annoying. Both shavers cut short hair with no noticeable difference in our testing. While the S9000 Prestige is more pleasant to hold, as its design is contoured for your hand, we don’t think it’s worth the extra money. You don’t even get a charging and cleaning station.

Others you should know about

Generally speaking, most shaver manufacturers build a single version of a shaver—say, the Braun Series 7—and make a ton of similarly numbered packages that feature different accessory combinations. They also might slightly update the shaver itself and make a whole new series of numbered versions to represent the upgrade. It can be a little confusing. Our advice? Make sure the electric shaver you’re buying has the accessory package that makes the most sense for your needs and your budget. We directly tested all the major shavers from Philips, Braun and Panasonic, along with some other brands, and researched a total of 22 shaver/accessory combinations to help us land on our featured selections for this guide.

The only other shaver we tested that we didn’t mention alongside its peers was Braun’s Series 9 Pro 9477cc. The Series 9 Pro, Braun’s flagship shaver series, comes with an incredible (albeit bulky) travel case that powers the shaver while you’re on the go, just like a pair of AirPods. It doesn’t come with any attachments, though a hair trimmer is built directly into the shaver, and it has the same kind of cleaning-and-charging station you’ll find on other Braun shavers. We preferred the sturdier design of the Series 9 Pro (and Series 9) to Braun’s Series 7 shavers, especially how you can hit a button to easily lock the shaver head in place or open it up for cleaning. Though it gave us a faster shave than the Series 7, we still don’t think the seconds we saved, nor the shaver’s better design, is worth more than twice the price of our primary pick.

How we picked

Trust us

I’ve built benchmarks, set up spreadsheets of specifications, and tested the best and worst of consumer technology for leading product-recommendation websites and magazines for more than a decade. Though my expertise lies in gadgets and appliances like Wi-Fi routers and desktop monitors, I also have a fondness for shavers. I used my dad’s rotary shaver when I was growing up, and slowly graduated to a variety of foil shavers—even going through a safety razor phase—in the 20+ years I’ve been trimming hair on my face. For this article, I interviewed three barbers and barber educators to get their insights from the copious number of faces (and skin types) they interact with on a daily basis: Macklan Clendenin, a faculty member at the San Francisco Institute of Esthetics and Cosmetology, as well as a 15+ year licensed cosmetologist and 5+ year licensed barber; Arthur Yusupov, owner of Barbershop NYC in New York City and a 15+ year barber; and Steve Pierce, a second-generation barber at The Executive Room in Napa, Calif.

We tested

All of our experts agreed that you should only need to spend around $80 to $120 for a great shaver. Unfortunately, only one shaver we researched—the Andis ProFoil—fell within that range. Based on our testing, we noticed little to no difference in shave quality between shavers that cost around $100 and shavers that cost multiple hundreds of dollars. As the joke goes, you can keep adding blades to a razor, but that doesn’t mean you’re going to get a shave that improves its way to infinity.

Which kind of shaver gives you the smoothest, closest shave may vary depending on your specific hair type, which is also one of the inherent complexities of finding a “best” shaver for everyone. “Foil shavers are better for finer to medium beards; they’re a little bit better for sensitive skin just because a rotary shaver has got a little bit more power to it and it usually has a lift-and-cut mechanism. On sensitive skin, that can create agitation,” Clendenin says.

We didn’t notice a huge difference in smoothness in our testing, but rotary shavers definitely created more skin irritation. In addition to shaving quality, a great shaver should also have the following:

• Rechargeable battery: A cordless shaver is much more convenient to use than one that has to be tethered to the wall. It’s even better when you can plug a shaver in and use it while it’s charging, but most shavers that support wet and dry shaving won’t let you do this. The barbers we interviewed generally recommended shaving dry, whenever possible, as it’s a lot easier to clean up afterward and won’t lead to any unwanted clogging or rusting inside your shaver head. But this, too, is a matter of personal preference (a great pre-shave product can help you get incredibly smooth results, such as the classic Williams Lectric “green bottle” lotion you’ve probably seen at the store).
• Accessories: Every shaver comes with different combinations of accessories. The importance of these, too, varies based on how you like your face to look. If you’re going clean-shaven every day, you probably won’t have much use for trimming guards. If you like to mix up your style, it’ll be important for your shaver to have add-ons that allow you to achieve different beard lengths or precisely trim your facial hair to specific shapes. None of the barbers we talked to had anything kind to say about the bulky cleaning stations many shavers come with; they take up a lot of space on your sink and, while handy, will cost time and money to care for and maintain. You’re better off just cleaning your shaver directly with a brush, some rubbing alcohol and an occasional drop or two of electric shaver oil.
• Run time: A great shaver should give you at least an hour’s worth of charge or so, or roughly two weeks’ worth of fairly long shaving sessions before you have to charge it again. However, in our experience, it only takes a few minutes for a dead shaver to have enough charge for you to get a quick shave in. While battery life is always important in a wireless gadget, we didn’t prioritize this for our testing, as it was rarely a hassle to plug a shaver in (or return it to the charging station or stand on our sink’s counter). Don’t forget your tiny charger when you’re traveling, and you’ll be fine.

I tested the shavers by using them to cut anywhere from a day’s to a few days’ worth of hair growth. I tested two at a time, recording the time it took to achieve similar results on half my face with each and then wrote down notes to compare my experiences (and took pictures of the results that I could zoom in to view later). I considered the following factors in my testing:

• Generally, how long did it take to achieve a satisfactory (almost entirely smooth) shave across half of my neck, cheeks and upper lip?
• How smooth of a shave did each shaver generally achieve? Could I tell the difference via touch or sight? 
• Did my face have noticeably more stubble the next morning between different shavers?
• How much irritation did I have after the shave? How much did I have to go over the same part of my face to get it smooth?
• Was the shaver easy to operate and adjust? Did it feel good to use?
• Was the shaver easy to clean?

Our experts

• Macklan Clendenin, a faculty member at the San Francisco Institute of Esthetics and Cosmetology, as well as a 15+ year licensed cosmetologist and 5+ year licensed barber
• Steve Pierce, a second-generation barber at The Executive Room in Napa, Calif.
• Arthur Yusupov, owner of Barbershop NYC in New York City and a 15+ year barber