Review: Wahl professional balding clipper

Oops, meant to put this in the reviews sub-forum. Mods, feel free to move it.

My 15 year old electric clippers have been dying a slow painful death, so I headed on down to the local beauty supply & decided to give the Wahl professional balding clipper a try.

The "pro" clippers, like this one, in the $55 range, seem far sturdier than the drugstore clippers in the $25 range. Maybe that's a non-issue, since even the cheap one lasted 15 years, but having your clippers die when your head is half-shaved is an inconvenience I can do without ;) Call the extra $30 cheap insurance.

The balding clipper looks like any other clipper, except that the blades are much thinner, giving a lower cut, and the tooth pitch is finer. The photos on the box imply that this clipper will shave you as bald as a blade. It won't, but for a clipper, it DOES shave unbelievably close; about like a DE plus 2 days of growth. MUCH closer than my previous clippers.

If I am shaving a beard off, or if I've neglected to shave my head for more than 3 days, I like to make the first pass with clippers because I have a hard time getting the soap to penetrate through all the hair down to where the shaving is happening. This clipper does that job exceedingly well. It also works well for remofing excess body hair, and does not pinch or nick skin like my other clippers did, due mainly to the finer tooth pitch. I still would not use it to shave the most intimate of areas, however, though you can trim those areas by hovering over the skin. It also shaves my head close enough that I can opt not to bother wet-shaving my head if I'm pressed for time.

So overall, I like this clipper. Even though it doesn't quite do what it claims to, it gets damn close, much closer than any other clipper I've used. I give it one thumb up.

I have a set of Wahl Balding clippers and they work exactly as described. They get about as close as you can get without a razor. I used them for several years on my head with no problems, until I finally switched over to a razor for noggin.

I use Andis Master Series clippers everyday at work (I'm a Hairdresser). They've lasted me for years but I need to buy a new set. They're about 100$. Not a big deal for quality clippers, I think. The biggest problems for clippers are dropping them. Really it's the only problem. Once they've been dropped the blades are crooked and they make loud noises and can cut skin. I suggest buying replacement blades when you get your new clippers. From there, one can get blades that range from tight teeth, to large wide teeth. But for shaving heads bare I recomend small teeth blades. The only other problems are winding the cord tightly around the clippers or binding them in a tight knot. This will cause over time for the wires inside the cord to stress and break. And at last oil, keep them oiled after use, but like a gun, too much oil and that's another problem. Good luck

I've got a set of ceramic clippers, they work great if your hair is squeeky clean but stop working on anything else. I wouldn't recommend ceramic ones now for this reason.

I had a Wahl peanut and was a quarter through shaving my head, with about an inch of hair, when they mysteriously stopped cutting (still ran, but the blades just stopped doing their job). I was a truck driver at the time, trimming myself in a shower at a truck stop, at 1 a.m., so there wasn't a haircutting place open anywhere and I had to deliver the load to a warehouse lookin' like a freak.

So the next time, I dropped $80 at Sam's Club on a set of professional clippers. They don't clip as close to the scalp as what you're describing, but they're hardy. The nightmare youdescribed DOES come true and I never want to risk it again.

But the main reason I know I won't suffer that embarrassment again is because I've learned to shave my head with a straight razor. I had the beauty of a straight-edge demonstrated to me when I arrived at Fort Sill after 35 days of leave coming home from Korea in 1990. I'd done like every soldier does and grown a beard. I didn't have clippers of my own so I stopped at a barbershop, where the inexperienced girl on duty hacked at me for 15 minutes with a Bic. Then the Korean lady who owned the place showed up, and she whipped out the straight. It mowed my beard off, comfy and slick, in no more time than it took the girls in the barbershop at Camp Pelham to shave off a single days' growth on a Saturday.

Yes, you have to go slow and feel your way on the back of the head, and if you have a really knobby head maybe it's too dangerous for you. But with a super-sharp razor and hair nicely softened with lather, you can clear away a lot of growth fast. Most of the head is pretty easy to shave smooth with the SR; you might want to reserve a cartridge razor or DE for a hard-to-reach patch.

The biggest reason I use a SR for head-shaving is because I don't like replacing blades, even the inexpensive DE's. I want to feel completely self-sufficient in my hair care. For the same reason, I never use clippers to clear away a beard. Clipped hair falls everywhere, works its way into my undershirt, itches. Shaved hair falls in nice clumps into the sink. And it's just so darn satisfying to get rid of it that way.