The Best Budget Razor for UK Students — and Why SmartShave Costs Less Than You Think

A university student in the UK spends, on average, between £80 and £130 per year on shaving products. Most of that goes on replacement cartridges from the supermarket or pharmacy, bought reactively and at full retail price. It’s not a deliberate spending choice — it’s the default option. And like many default options, it’s not the most efficient one available.

SmartShave was built around a conviction that quality shaving shouldn’t require a premium budget. The trial kit at £9.99 — which includes a handle and your first blades with free delivery — is one of the lowest entry points in the UK razor market. The monthly subscription at £14.99 keeps the cost predictable for the rest of the year. And for those who’d rather not commit to a regular plan, the one-off kit at £19.99 gives you the handle once and lets you reorder cartridges directly whenever you need them.

Let’s put these figures in context.

What Shaving Actually Costs a UK Student Right Now

The typical student shaving spend breaks down like this, based on standard supermarket and pharmacy pricing in 2026:

Six Ways Students Can Get More Value from Their Shaving Routine

• Start with the trial kit, not a subscription. The £9.99 trial kit includes your handle and first blades. No recurring charge. Use it for a month and decide from there. You’re not committed to anything beyond the initial £9.99.
• Buy cartridges individually once you have the handle. The £19.99 one-off kit gives you the handle permanently. After that, order replacement cartridges from the SmartShave site whenever your stock runs low. No subscription needed, no minimum order.
• Change your blade every 5–7 shaves, not every 2–3 weeks. This is not about spending more — it’s about not wasting the cartridges you’ve already bought by using them past their useful life and getting a worse shave for it.
• Stop buying separate expensive shaving foam. SmartShave’s blades have a generous aloe vera and vitamin E lubricating strip. A basic, fragrance-free shaving gel at under £2 is all you need to complement it — not a £10 premium foam.
• If you subscribe, pause during university holidays. SmartShave subscriptions can be paused for any period with a single click. If you go home for the holidays and your routine changes, pause the delivery rather than wasting product.
• Use the student discount. SmartShave offers a student discount on the starter kit — check the site for the current offer. A small saving on an already-affordable entry price makes the switch even more straightforward.

The Smarter Student Shaving Setup

Here is the most cost-efficient way to approach shaving on a student budget, using SmartShave. Start with the trial kit. This costs £9.99 and gets you the handle and enough blades to form an opinion about the product. At this stage, you’ve spent less than two pints and you have a razor that will last indefinitely.

After using the trial kit, decide whether the subscription at £14.99 per month makes sense for your shaving frequency. If you shave four or more times per week, the subscription is almost certainly the better deal compared to supermarket purchasing. If you shave less often — twice a week or less — the one-off kit and cartridge ordering on demand will likely be cheaper.

Either way, the handle is the same. The blades are the same. The quality is the same. And you will never stand in a Boots queue at nine in the morning because you’ve run out of razor cartridges and you have a seminar in twenty minutes. That, for a student, may be the most underrated benefit of all.