Shaving is a natural part of personal grooming for both women and men. Women often use disposable razors to shave areas like legs, underarms, and the bikini line. But rechargeable or battery-operated shavers are a popular choice for various reasons. You don’t need to worry about shaving cream. There are no recurring costs for new razors. Plus, you keep garbage out of landfills. I have owned an electric shaver for some time, but there were a few things about the Panasonic Close Curves Wet/Dry Shaver that really piqued my interest.
What is the Panasonic Close Curves Wet/Dry Shaver?
The Panasonic Close Curves Wet/Dry Shaver, model number ESWL80, is an electric shaver that can be used to shave, trim, and thin out hair throughout your body. It’s designed to be used on sensitive skin with a gentle touch to remove hair from legs, arms, underarms, and the bikini area.
It features four hypoallergenic bi-directional floating trimmer blades that provide a close and efficient shave. It comes with a bikini attachment for using on the bikini area, ideal for a quick trim right before heading to the pool in your new bathing suit. There’s a pop-up trimmer for detailed control in extra sensitive areas like under your arms and, again, around the bikini area.
The wet/dry operation alludes to the fact that you can use this shaver both in the shower and out. The body and head are both waterproof (which also makes it easy for cleaning) and it’s cordless—the shaver is rechargeable by docking into the included AC power adapter.
While you won’t need to buy a new razor every week or few days, you will eventually need to replace the head and/or blades over time: Panasonic recommends doing this every two or so years. When the time comes, the Panasonic Close Curves shaver is compatible with WES9755PC replacement heads and WES9754PC replacement blades, or the WES9779PC replacement kits.
Using the Panasonic Close Curves Wet/Dry Shaver
The first thing I noticed when taking this shaver out of the box is a sleek, nice-looking device in an elegant, feminine lilac finish. It comes with a neat carry pouch, perfect for travel, along with the aforementioned bikini attachment, power adapter/dock, and a tiny cleaning brush for getting hair out of its crooks and crevices.
The first thing you need to do is charge the Panasonic Close Curves shaver. Place it on the AC adapter with the front facing out (away from the prongs) until you hear an audible click, then plug it into an outlet. It takes about 20 hours to fully charge, so I waited a full day before using it for the first time. Look for the glowing charging indicator to ensure it’s successfully charging. Unfortunately, there’s no way to know when charging is complete but since the battery is rated at about 35 minutes per charge, your best bet is to plug it in once a week to keep it fully topped up for daily use (less or more frequently depending on how often you shave, what areas, and for how long).
Once it was fully charged, I brought it up to my bathroom. After a 45-minute workout, I was ready for a shower and some personal grooming. I decided to first try the shaver in “dry” mode, outside of the shower to tackle my underarms and legs. It’s really simple to use: press the power button and glide it in a back and forth motion across the skin, keeping it at a 90° right angle. If your hair is extra-long (a likely scenario for busy ladies during the cold winter months!), slide up the pop-up trimmer to tackle it.
For underarms, it’s advised to hold your arm up high to stretch the skin and shave back and forth using the Panasonic Close Curves shaver. For lower legs, start from your ankle to your knee and go back and forth. With arms, go from the outside to the inside. When it comes to the sensitive bikini area, use the pop-up trimmer for excessive hair and the bikini attachment with the pop-up trimmer slid up for pubic hair. It’s recommended to do dry shaving for this area, stroking the hair against the flow first so that the flat hairs are standing up and can be captured easily. Then, make sure the shaver has contact with your skin, but don’t put too much pressure and move it slowly. Indeed, I found it much easier to do a dry shave of the more intimate areas, like the bikini line.
Using this shaver for a few minutes daily for quick clean-ups of my legs, underarms, and bikini area as needed, I found the battery lasted as promised, if not more. Consider that if you use it for maintenance and do a quick, five-minute shave every day, you’ll get a good week’s worth of use out of the shaver before needing to recharge.
Cleaning any shaver is important to maintain proper effectiveness and hygiene. With this one, it’s easy. Turn it off, apply some hand soap to the outer foils, turn it on and off for a few seconds, then press the outer foil frame release buttons and remove the outer foil frame. Rinse both the inner blades and the outer foil frame with warm (not hot) water, then wipe dry with a cloth. That’s it! For dry hair dust, you can use the included cleaning brush.
Final assessment of the Panasonic Close Curves Wet/Dry Shaver
Overall, I found the Panasonic Close Curves Wet/Dry Shaver to be most effective on longer hair. When you’re trying to get right down to the nitty-gritty, removing just a day or two’s worth of stubble from your legs before heading to the beach, you may find you’ll get a closer, smoother, shave with a manual razor and shaving cream. But for taking on vacation or using for big shaving jobs, especially when in a rush, this wet/dry shaver is a dream.
Every woman has been in that situation when you need to head out the door and realize you forgot to shave. Grabbing this shaver to do a quick job of every inch of your body is a fabulous option. And being able to keep it in the shower and use it with no mess nor sharp razors and bottles of shaving cream lying around is so appreciated.
The stand-out features of this razor, along with a comfortable, contoured shaving experience all over your body, is the built-in rechargeable battery and waterproof design.
While you might still require a manual razor and shaving cream for some jobs, having a wet/dry shaver can be a game-changer for the overall shaving experience. If you shave areas of your body like your arms as well and have sensitive skin (as I do), being able to do a dry shave will be so much easier and result in less mess (not to mention that you can avoid the off-putting smell of shaving cream). Plus, you can easily pack the shaver up and bring it with you to the cottage, on vacation, in a hotel room while traveling for work, and virtually anywhere without having to bring anything else along with it.
Check out the Panasonic Close Curves Wet/Dry Shaver at online at Best Buy.
