Jean-Benoit Buisson

How I got here

This site began with a question that has nothing to do with hair and everything to do with how these tools are sold: why does a machine that worked last month pull instead of cut? Every page I found while looking for an answer had the same shape — a ranked list, a score out of ten, an affiliate button, and not one figure I could check. None of them said what the step between the guards was, what a replacement head cost, whether the machine could be rinsed, or that the answer was usually two drops of oil rather than a new clipper.

That is the whole subject. The equipment in this category almost never fails; it gets blunt, dry or clogged, and then it gets replaced. A clipper arrives with eight guards that all step three millimetres apart, so it cannot blend. A shaver is bought at forty euros and its heads cost thirty every eighteen months. A dryer has one control for heat and speed together, so it cannot do the one combination most people want. None of that is on the front of the box, and all of it decides whether a tool is still in use in three years or in a drawer.

So this is the page I wanted and could not find. I read what manufacturers publish, I check every product reference market by market, I follow what things actually cost rather than what they are listed at, and I say plainly when a figure is not published at all. That last part matters more than it sounds: most of the disappointment here comes from a number nobody printed.

I keep notes — the honest specification of each family, the place where the manual contradicts the sales page, which head fits which machine, and the buying mistake each category invites. This site is those notes, put in order, in five languages, because the same question is asked in French, German, Spanish and Italian and gets a far worse answer in four of them.

I am not a hairdresser, and I do not pretend to be. What I can do is read carefully, compare honestly, and tell you which figure the maker left out.

What this site covers

Everything listed here is taken from the catalogue of this site, and each entry links to its own page. When the catalogue changes, this list changes with it. It is a list of what is covered — not a list of what I own.

• Panasonic ER-DGP84
• Philips HC5630/15
• Philips HC7650/15
• Remington HC5811
• Moser Ermila comb set, 6 pieces
• Wahl 03170-400

What I care about

Three things, and they shape every page here. The number that gets quoted is usually the wrong one — a clipper sold on motor power rather than on the step between its guards, a dryer sold on watts rather than on airflow, a straightener sold on a top temperature rather than on whether that temperature can be turned down. What the thing costs over three years decides more than what it costs today — heads, foils, blades and oil are scheduled parts, and on entry-level models they can outrun the machine. And the thing that matters most is rarely on the specification sheet at all: whether the head can be rinsed, because that is what decides if a tool stays in use or ends up in a drawer.

What I am not

I am not a hairdresser, a barber, a stylist or a dermatologist. I hold no qualification in any of them, I have never worked in a salon, for a manufacturer or for a retailer, and nothing here rests on how well I cut hair. Nothing on this site is a styling lesson, and nothing on it is advice about your hair or your skin: where a manufacturer publishes a temperature in degrees or an IP rating, this site reports it and stops there. There is nothing here about hair loss, irritation, ingrown hairs, pulsed-light hair removal or anything dental — those are health subjects and they belong to someone qualified. If you are looking for someone whose authority comes from a job title, this is not that site — what each judgement rests on is stated on the page it appears on, and you can read how this site reaches a verdict in full.

How I work

• Every figure names its source: a manufacturer specification, a manual, a standard, or the weight of long-term owner reports.
• No price, product reference or specification is ever invented. Where a figure is missing, the field is left empty and the gap is stated on the page.
• Product references are verified against Amazon before publication, per market. Where a model is not sold in your country, you are sent to a local search rather than to a page that does not exist.
• Where the cheap option wins, the page says the cheap option wins — and where the honest answer is a €5 bottle of oil, a guard with finer steps or five minutes with a brush rather than a new machine, it says that instead.

Why this site exists

Because this equipment is sold on the wrong numbers. A clipper is advertised on how many pieces are in the box rather than on the step between its guards. A kit is sold on thirteen attachments when three of them do different jobs and ten repeat one. A shaver is sold on its price and not on the price of its heads. And the parts treated as afterthoughts — the guard, the oil, the replacement foil, the brush — are usually the actual fix.

There is also a part of this that is not about buying anything. Most tools that get replaced were not worn out; they were dry, clogged, or fitted with the wrong guard, and nobody had written down the five minutes that would have fixed them. A blade that pulls, a head that was never rinsed, a set of guards that cannot blend, a nozzle that does not fit the barrel. Those problems are cheap to fix and almost never written down. That is the subject a page full of new machines is guaranteed to skip. It is not skipped here.

Correcting me

If something here is wrong, tell me and I will fix it and date the correction on the page. Write to [email protected].

Jean-Benoit Buisson · Montrollet, France