The Leaf Razor is an ideal marriage of the classic safety razor and easy-to-use disposable razors, so if you’ve been craving a sustainable shave but are wary of clunky safety razors the Leaf is for you. In addition to just being a great razor, the Leaf is made by a company that clearly cares about the environment, with Climate Neutral status and excellent sustainability initiatives.
Our Rating: 5/5 (See: How Leaf Score is calculated)
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Product Highlights
- Combination of a classic safety razor with the easy-to-use nature of a disposable one.
- Climate Neutral company that takes part in an excellent range of sustainability initiatives
- Removable blades can be arranged in 1-3 positions to tailor your shave to your needs
The Leaf Razor
The Leaf looks like a safety razor but has an innovative spring-loaded pivoting head that can hold up to three replaceable blades for a super close shave. This makes it super easy to use, with none of the learning curve (and nicks and cuts!) that comes from a fixed head safety razor. Instead, you get the benefits of plastic razors with flexible heads that follow the contours of your skin without the waste of disposables.
You can choose to load all three blades for a super close shave or load just one or two blades in the middle and/or top positions for sensitive areas. And because Leaf have designed this razor to have blades slightly further apart than a standard multi-blade razor, the tugging, pulling, and skin scraping of disposables isn’t an issue. This means less change of ingrown hairs, irritation, and razor burn.
The all-metal construction makes for a durable, easy to maintain design that can be rinsed clean and looks great. To load the blades, turn the screw on the pivoting head counterclockwise to open the blade holder. You can load up to three blades and then fasten the blade holder by turning the screw clockwise.
Leaf offers a rubber handle sleeve for the razor to help with grip, especially when the razor gets wet. The razor has some good heft without being overly heavy, and the weight of the razor does the hard work for you as you don’t need to apply pressure when shaving, just let the razor glide over your skin.
Perfect if you love sustainability but hate your safety razor!
If you’re put off by the time it can take to safely shave with a safety razor, and really love the pivoting head of disposables, the Leaf is absolutely worth a try. It is pretty much guaranteed to be better for your skin, your bank balance, and the environment.
The Leaf Razor is a great way to embrace a zero-waste shaving routine without having to contend with a safety razor. You’ll never need to buy expensive disposable heads again. Instead, just replace the inexpensive fully recyclable blades every couple of weeks, or more or less frequently depending on the coarseness of your hair and how much you shave.
Leaf offer their own single-edge blades but you can also use any standard double-edged blades. Just snap them in half in their paper wraps and load as with your starter blades from Leaf. These full recyclable blades are about a tenth of the cost of a disposable razor head.
The Leaf Razor includes the razor itself and a 10-blade starter pack. The Leaf Kit includes The Leaf razor and stand, 50-blade pack, and blade recycling tin. A 50-blade pack can also be bought for just $12.
You can choose a matte Black or Silver finish, or a reflective finish (Rose Gold, Chrome, Gold, or Mercury, though options change). The matte finishes are softer and more likely to show wear and tear, while the reflective finishes are a bit more resilient but in the case of Rose Gold can develop a patina as it is made with copper.
The Twig Razor
Leaf actually make two cutting edge (!) razors, the Leaf and the Twig. The Twig is, as the name suggests, a slimline razor. It is more like a single blade safety razor and great for getting into tight spots and for precision sculpting. The Twig has a fixed head, no pivot, and weighs less than half what the Leaf weighs (1.3 oz. versus 2.9 oz.). It is also all-metal and, obviously, 100% plastic-free.
You can use the Twig to shave everything you’d want to shave with the Leaf, it just might take a tad longer. So, if you regularly shave your head, intimate areas, and larger areas like your legs and face, you may want both a Leaf and a Twig!
Where the Twig really shines is in tight spaces. This is because the Twig is about half the size of a standard safety razor and is a single edge razor. Unlike with double-edged safety razors, the Twig only has one live edge, so there’s no need to worry about accidental nicks on the back edge when shaving behind ears, knees, or intimate areas.
The Twig is also different to a safety razor in that it has a single-body twist-to-open design for loading blades. Unlike with a safety razor that usually comes in three pieces, the Twig is super easy to maintain and even has a magnetic load-assist that helps keep the blade in place while you’re loading and tightening the screw.
The company
Leaf is on a mission to help everyone who shaves switch to a more sustainable (and comfortable) option. They claim that their 50,000-plus customers help keep 1.5 million disposable plastic razors out of landfill annually.
Leaf also ship everything 100% plastic-free and they audit their carbon footprint and offset their emissions. They also financially support non-profits working in the area of climate action, including The Adaptation Fund, and have been certified Climate Neutral since 2019.
Leaf offer a 30-Day Guarantee to be sure you love your new razor, plus a Lifetime Warranty as they want the Leaf (or Twig) to be the last razor you’ll ever buy. There’s also free shipping on all U.S. orders over $25.
You can take your used blades to a local scrap metal site, but Leaf also offers a blade recycling program. Just send them your used blades once your tin is full. The tin holds around 200 blades, so it will be a while before you have to send it back. And Leaf also accepts blades in any durable tin, so upcycle other metal packaging to make things even more eco-friendly!
If you’re looking to make your shaving experience a bit healthier for the environment – and yourself – you may be interested in some of the following posts: