Dermaplaning Tool Review: Professional Dermaplaning vs 25 cents and $80 dollar Razors

Dermaplaning is all the craze lately. It’s a treatment offered by spas that essentially using a sharp razor to exfoliate your skin and get rid of dirt and peach fuzz. It’s basically like shaving your face, but with a razor blade so you feel better about it.

The service is generally between $50 and $80 dollars and is often offered as an add-on service for other facial procedures.

The pros of this surface is that your skin will feel smoother (duh, you just scraped off all of your hair), your makeup will apply more easily, and it’s a great exfoliation treatment.

However, I don’t feel like these are good enough reasons to go to a spa and pay $50+ dollars for a treatment that doesn’t seem to require any specialized tools, products, or skills really. Blame the DIYer in me that’s always trying to find cheaper, cost effective solutions to the things I’ve seen.

Before I started my own dermaplaning experiment, I decided to book a real one with the spa. I wanted to experience the professional treatment and make sure that there wasn’t something I was missing out on.

Then I started my own experiment.

First Contestant: Amazon Face Razors

These popular razors are very, very affordable, like twenty or twenty five cents per razor. I used them for years to give myself dermaplaning treatments. Here are the pros and cons to using these razors for dermaplaning.

Pros to the Amazon Razors:

1. Cheap. There really is no beating the price of these razors. They do an okay job. If you’re mostly looking to remove your super fine peach fuzz on your face, these are probably good enough for you. However, if you’re looking for a more in-depth dermaplaning experience or have thicker hairs you’re wanting to take care of, this probably won’t quite cut it.
2. Convenient. I love that I can but these on Amazon in bulk, and always have some on hand. It doesn’t get much easier than that.

Cons of the Amazon Razors:

1. They are really only a one-time use razor if you’re using them for dermaplaning. They dull very quickly, and rust easily too. If they are left if your bathroom or any other slightly moist environment they will be rusty by the time you come back for them. So you’re probably only going to get one good dermaplaning session out of them.
2. Definitely not as sharp as professional razors. I definitely could tell that these razors weren’t doing the job as well as my professional treatment. They still did an okay job, and cut through most of the peach fuzz and got a nice amount of dead skin off, but I could tell that it wasn’t nearly as sharp as the professional treatment had been and they felt a lot rougher on my skin.
3. They really struggle with thicker hair. All of the thicker hair on my face, like my chin hairs, eye brown hairs, and even my sideburns, were a huge struggle for this razor. It’s just not sharp enough to handle these areas. Which is a bummer because I always wanted to clean up these areas as I was going.

“Professional” Dermaplaning Tool from Sephora

ttps://www.sephora.com/product/dermaplaning-tool-P441054?skuId=2194256&icid2=skugrid:p441054:product

ttps://www.sephora.com/product/dermaplaning-tool-refill-trio-P441046?skuId=2194330&icid2=skugrid:p441046:product

I finally, after years of getting by with the cheap razors, decided to give in and dish out money for the pricey Sephora dermaplaning razors. (Sephora claims they are exclusive to their site, but I’ve found them on Amazon so . . .) The initial price is a little more than a professional treatment ($74, yikes), so that was a little hard to swallow. However, I did the math and figured that if they worked then they’d be worth it in the long run. Here’s my experience with them.

Pros of the Sephora Dermaplaning Razor:

1. This razor was very sharp. I could immediately tell that it was doing a much better job than the previous razor, and I felt like it was pretty much doing as good of a job as the razor at the professional treatment.
2. Can handle thicker hair. It cut through my sideburns, a little too well, and my eyebrows easily. I feel like it still struggled with my chin hairs, but most razors do. Even the professional one did.
3. The dermaplaning lasted longer. Since this was a sharper razor, my dermaplaning treatment was better and lasted longer. Which means less time before I have to do it again, and less time spent doing it. Saving time is always a win for me. It also felt a lot smoother and less rough on my skin.
4. You can buy replacement heads, instead of the having to buy entire thing each time. The initial razor costs a whopping $75 dollars, but once you own it replacement heads are three for $24 dollars. That’s about 8 dollars a razor blade. If you get at least four treatments out of each replacement head, which I think is very reasonable, and it ends up being just a couple bucks a treatment after your initial investment.
5. Convenient. Like the above razor, you can order this online and do a dermaplaning treatment from the comfort of your home.

Cons of the Sephora Dermaplaning Razor:

1. So sharp I cut myself. I never actually cut myself with the previous razors, but the first time I used this one I cut myself twice. Whoops. I think it’s because I wasn’t being careful at holding my skin taut as I was so used to using the cheaper razors. You definitely need to be careful with this razor because if you get the angle wrong or aren’t holding your skin taut, it is sharp enough to slice you.
2. Cost. It is a much more expensive tool. So far I’ve done five or six treatments on myself and it’s still feeling sharp, but I don’t think I’ll be able to get enough treatments out of it to compare to the cost of the cheaper razors. It is, however, shaping up to be much cheaper and more convenient than going to a professional treatment for what feels like the same quality. If you wait to buy it during a sale, you can cut costs a little more.
3. There are some reports of it breaking after a few months of use. I haven’t personally had any problems with mine yet, but if it does break soon then it will significantly increase the overall cost.

Overall Thoughts:

For me, paying the price for the higher-quality tool is worth it. I felt like I wasn’t quite enjoying the full benefits of dermaplaning with the cheaper razor, but the more expensive one felt just like the professional treatment I’d received. Now that I have the blade, I’m quite happy with the cost of the razor replacements. As far as value for my money, I think this one wins overall.

I have no desire to use the cheap razors anymore. However, if you know you have really fine hair, can’t afford the cost of the pricey tool, or are okay with mostly removing your baby hairs but not getting the full benefits of dermaplaning, the Amazon razors do an okay job. You’ll probably be happy with them, especially if you’re new to dermaplaning.

Have you played around with dermaplanning? Let us know your thoughts and tricks in the comments below.

Happy shopping,

The Empowered Shopper

Want to see more reviews like this? Check out our review on the Billie Razor, our Manscaped Review, or our Stanley Cup Review next.