The Best Men’s Razor for Traveling in an RV

Note: Don’t interpret my enthusiasm for this product to mean I was paid to write this article. I was not. The enthusiasm is genuine. However, the article does include affiliate links. If you click one these links and subsequently make a purchase, we earn a small commission. This has zero impact whatsoever on the price you pay for the product.

Necessity, the mother of all new purchases

I’ve been a razor-and-cream shaver since I was in high school. I think I initially started with an electric shaver during my fledgling peach fuzz years, but at some point early on I became a wet shaver and never looked back. The only real changes I’ve made to my process over the last 30-odd years are swapping my trusty Gillette Mach 3 for a Cremo razor and replacing generic shaving cream with Cremo’s “impossibly slick” premium alternative. Both of these were tremendous upgrades, providing this Sensitive Sally a vastly superior shave with dramatically reduced skin irritation. I genuinely loved those Cremo products and still highly recommend them to wet shavers everywhere, but when we started living in our Airstream for months at a time, I found myself yearning for a more convenient alternative.

Wet shaving in an RV

Maybe it’s just me, but I’ve found wet shaving in an RV to be a pain in the butt. Here’s why.

At home, I’d only shave when a shower was the very next thing on the agenda. Why? I can’t stand shaving cream residue on my face. (Again: Sensitive Sally here.) Even after thoroughly wiping my face with a damp washcloth, I’d still feel a sticky film on my skin that I found irritating. The only cure was a good scrub with soap and water. That’s no big deal when I’ve got an unlimited supply of water and infinite sewage capacity, but that’s not always the case in an RV. When we’re without water and sewer hookups, and the tanks are getting full, a shower isn’t always in the cards. Theoretically, I could also just leave the fur on my face, but in the absence of a premeditated plan to grow a beard, the itch factor eventually makes shaving a non-negotiable imperative.

Normal homes are also capable of providing a virtually endless stream of hot water. Our Airstream, on the other hand, has an on-demand water heater. These devices only heat water while one of the hot water lines is actively running. As soon as the line is closed, the heating process stops. The net result of repeatedly starting and stopping the flow of water is a so-called “cold water sandwich,” as depicted below. Guess what that means when you only need a few seconds of hot water at a time to repeatedly rinse beard bits and shaving cream from your razor blade? That’s right! Thirty seconds of cold water, followed by a short stream of hot water, followed by another 30 seconds of cold water. Rinse, repeat. Pun intended. In practice, this means (almost) always rinsing with cold water which, in turn, means repeatedly dragging a cold, metal razor across your skin. Not exactly a pleasant shaving experience. I also tried filling the sink with hot water and using that to rinse my razor. Unfortunately, the ‘submerge and shake’ method isn’t nearly as effective as waterboarding your razor under a steady stream of flowing water.

Ah, but what about RVs with hot water TANKS?

Indeed, many RVs do not have on-demand water heaters. They instead have tanks, just like in traditional homes, only much smaller. While personally I think on-demand water heaters are the superior choice for RVs, in this one regard tanks have the advantage. Assuming you start your shave with a full tank of steamy hot water, repeatedly turning the faucet on and off will not produce the dreaded “cold water sandwich”. The tradeoff, of course, is that once your tank is depleted no one gets any hot water until it replenishes.

“It’s just for traveling!”

I don’t exactly remember when I got on the Cremo bandwagon, but it wasn’t too long before we bought our first RV. In that time I managed to amass quite the collection of Cremo razors, replacement blades, and bottles of cream. I think Costco had them on sale and I went a little crazy stocking up. Then I came across a recommendation for the Philips OneBlade somewhere on Reddit. It was compact, lightweight, and got rave reviews everywhere I looked. It was also fairly inexpensive. The model I bought in November 2023, which included a beard trimmer that I rarely use, cost me just under $50. Two and a half years later, a comparable model is slightly pricier—to the shock of absolutely no one. But you can also get one without the beard trimmer. It’s more economical, but doesn’t include a battery level indicator, which is super annoying. (If it dies mid-shave, you’re gonna look mighty silly while you wait for it to recharge.)

As soon as I told Jill that I wanted to buy one of these things: “But what about all that Cremo stuff you just bought!!”

Me, in response: “I’m still going to use all that!! I’m only buying the new one for traveling!!”

Her: 🤨

Me: 😬

A year later, I found myself hawking my entire supply of Cremo accessories to anyone who would take them because I never touched any of it ever again. The OneBlade, it turned out, was my dream shaver. Once I started using it “just for traveling,” I couldn’t go back to my old ways—even at home. It produces ZERO skin irritation. NONE. This, more than any other reason, compelled me to ditch my old razor. No matter how delicately I dragged those blades across my skin, no matter how “impossibly slick” Cremo’s shaving cream was, I still often ended up with small patches of those ugly, irritating little red bumps known as razor rash. Since switching to the OneBlade, it’s never happened to me once. Victory!

There’s a long list of other, smaller reasons I love the OneBlade. It’s lightweight and compact. It fits comfortably in my hand. The cartridges last months longer than advertised. The battery runs for-ev-er on a single charge. (Note: I only shave once or twice a week. Your mileage may vary.) It’s water-resistant. No shaving cream is required, so there’s one fewer things to lug around on the road.

I can really only think of one “negative” thing to say, and for all I know it’s a common trait among electric shavers. When I shave with my OneBlade, whiskers fly off my face in every direction like exploding bowling pins. The blast radius seems roughly proportional to the length of the hair, so if you’re a sporadic shaver like I am, don’t be surprised when your entire countertop gets dusted with beard shrapnel. That said, the OneBlade does seem to cut longer hair more effectively—without yanking!—so I guess I’d call this an acceptable trade-off.

In Conclusion

If you’re looking for a convenient way to completely upend your shaving routine, go get yourself a Philips OneBlade “just for when you’re traveling”. Before you know it, you too will be foisting all your old shaving paraphernalia on anyone who’ll take it. The OneBlade is that good.