Braun 8595 Activator Self-Cleaning Shaving System with LCD Display

I have used a cheap Remington for a number of years and was getting tired of the irritation and occasional nicks, so I figured it was time to give a new shaver a try. I saw a rave review of this shaver in a Men's magazine, thought the self-cleaning thing was a bit gimmicky, but decided to take the plunge.All I can say is "Wow"! Of course, going from a $39 razor to a ~$200 razor is probably not a good comparison, but here are my observations:1. It really doesn't shave as close as my Remington did. Of course, that means that my neck is no longer nicked and beet-red after a shave. I consider this a plus.2. The self-cleaning thing is not a gimmick. It rocks! I discovered how good it is when I went out of town for a week. The base isn't sealed, so you can't travel with it--no worries though, the shaver comes with a brush, and the cord plugs directly into the shaver as well as into the base. Well, after a couple of days of just using the brush to clean it, I found that the shave just wasn't as comfortable. I don't know if it was oil from my skin building up, or just my imagination; however, once I got home and cycled it through the cleaner, it was as good (and comfortable) as new. Note that the cleaning fluid is a lubricant (supposedly) mixed with denatured alcohol and it works. Popping open the top reveals an immaculate interior, even after having not cleaned it for five shaves.3. Blue LED's suck. The LED on the base of the shaver could light your entire house. Can you say "Black Sharpie"?4. The self-cleaning cycle is not something you want to do at night (note that you initiate it manually, so you can control this). It runs the shaver to assist in the cleaning process and is a bit on the noisy side. Especially because it's intermittent. It will be quiet for 5 minutes, then suddenly run the razor for 15 seconds.5. Battery life isn't really what I expected. At six to seven minutes per shave, it consumes (at least based on the graphic on the LCD panel) about 20% of the battery. Not a show-stopper, more of an observation.6. NO MORE SHAVING WITH A RAZOR!! One of the annoying "features" of my Remington was if I skipped shaving for a couple of days, my beard would be too long for the Remington to pick up. Because of this, I would have to shave with a razor. Braun addresses this by having a "long hair cutter" (if you will) in the center of the shaving head. It really works!7. The swivel head thing is pretty cool. It really does work and isn't annoying like I expected it to be.8. Lifespan of the cleaning cartridge is a bit short. I get between a month and a month-and-a-half out of a cartridge before I have to replace it. Note that the shaver doesn't "use" the fluid up through the cleaning process per se. It is recycled back into the cartridge, along with your whiskers. When it sucks the fluid back up, it is through a filter. This means that the loss of fluid is due to evaporation exclusively, so the whole "Eco" clean thing is a bit hoaky.Overall I am very pleased with the shaver and have recommended it to a couple of my friends. At $200, it's a bit pricy, but with some of the deals Amazon has been running, it comes down quite a bit. I would consider it a steal at $100 and reasonable at $150.

I am a longtime electric shaver user, so no long wait for my face to 'adapt.' Past tries of variouus Norelcos burned my face badly. I last used a Panasonic Linear but not with shaving cream, which shaved better than dry but was more irritating. Both the Panasonic and Braun drag on my skin without pre-shave which I recommend. Neither shaver mentions preshaves at all. I always liked ability to clean the Panasonic with antibacterial liquid soap. However, once a new foil/cutter is used for a while, the shave quality went downhill. Finally replaced the Panasonic because battery charge time was dropping and I travel a lot. Went back to this Braun mainly because of the new foil design - hadn't used a Braun in over 5 years. This shaves only a little better than the Panasonic, probably because the foil/cutter is new. However, there is much less irritation than any other shaver I've used. No one mentioned the vibration from the oscillating head - I found it annoying on the chin line when the jaw bone vibrates with it. I thought the cleaner function was a gimmick, but was used to daily cleaning the Panasonic with liquid soap and water, so worth giving the Braun cleaner a try. However, since you can't travel with the cleaner and I spend 20 weeks a year on the road, there is no advantage and it cannot be cleaned with water. Replacement foil/cutter is cheaper than Panasonic's but I don't expect the Braun foil to last 18 months, more like 8-10 months like every other shaver I've had.

I got this shaver for Christmas expecting it to live up to all the hype about the foil head and self-cleaning, etc. I was sorely disappointed.First, I was a bit perturbed that you need to purchase new cleaning solutions (at $10 each!!) every MONTH! If I'm buying a $180 shaver, the last thing I want to do is spend more money on it. The $180 should pay for years of shaving, and having to constantly buy new cleaning solutions was an investment I wasn't willing to make...But I WAS willing to put up with it if the shave was great. Unfortunately, this was not the case. The first shave was disappointing overall--long hairs were completely missed, both on my neck and my chin. But I put this, too, aside, blaming it on my face. Surely after a couple shaves my face would adjust and I would be getting better results.Four shaves later, the Activator was not performing as it said it would. Hairs were continually missed, even after going over them several times and using both the pivoting and stable head options. Braun's claims that just a simple, fast shave would get the job done were not true. A couple times, after finishing with the Activator, I was even forced to SHAVE AGAIN with my OLD SHAVER to rid of the stray hairs!!! This was not looking good...Then came the base. First of all, the thing is huge. How am I supposed to take this on vacations, or to my other home? How do I even MOVE IT from one end of the room to the other without fear of spilling some of the precious cleaning solution!?!?!Secondly, the charging/cleaning base makes this high-pitched ringing noise, even when not cleaning or charging. My sink is in my bedroom so I keep my shaver there, and the noise was keeping me up at night. I figured I could get used to it but I was forced to unplug the base unit every time before I went to sleep--a very, very unnecessary annoyance, and one that could've easily been prevented with some modified design or internal readjustments.The cleaning process itself is LOUD. It sounds like a drill. On top of that, it takes a half hour to clean (nearly an hour on "intensive" mode). And you have no choice in how you would like your shaver to be cleaned--it is selected automatically. After two quick shaves, my shaver registered that it needed an "intensive" cleaning--something that takes nearly 50 minutes and uses a ton of solution. I can't imagine that there was that much hair in my shaver after only two quick shaves!Finally, I was keeping an eye on the cleaning solution level to see how often I would REALLY have to replace these things. The book says every four weeks, but after two cleans my solution reservoir was only 2/3 full. Do the math.At last, I gave up. I'm taking the shaver back, and I will never ever buy a Braun product ever again.DON'T BELIEVE THE HYPE!!! THIS SHAVER IS TERRIBLE!!! DON'T WASTE YOUR MONEY!!! BUY A CHEAPER SHAVER THAT WILL PROBABLY GIVE YOU A BETTER SHAVE ANYWAY!!!