When it comes to shaving your family jewels, your options have traditionally been… well, not great.
You could either go the old-school route, and take the same kind of safety razor that you use on your face, and apply it to your groin area.
(And hope that whoever makes your preferred razor puts a heavy emphasis on the “safety” part of the equation.)
Or, you could go the electric shaver route, and try using a beard trimmer, which also wasn’t really designed for pubic hair, on your most prized possessions.
Fortunately we live in an age of modern technological marvels, few of which are more miraculous than the invention of a purpose-built, dedicated groin trimmer.
Specifically designed for coarse, curly body hair (and the sensitive areas where they tend to grow), this new generation of grooming tool uses ceramic blades, and purports to provide a close shave without causing any close calls.
After previously conducting a thorough review of the Meridian trimmer (which, spoiler alert, I quite enjoyed), I was curious to try out Manscaped, which is arguably their biggest competitor.
I recently spent a few weeks shaving with the fourth generation of the flagship Manscaped trimmer, the Lawn Mower, to see how their ball shaver compares to similar products.
And – more to the point – to find out if the Lawn Mower is really the best tool for shaving your… well, best tool. (Sorry! Couldn’t resist.)
Scroll down to see what I found, and find out if Manscaped products are worth the hype.
Key Takeaways ↓
You can find (a lot) more detail below, but here’s a quick summary of the Lawn Mower’s pros and cons:
✅ Pros:
- Ceramic blades provide a comfortable, safe shave
- LED light provides better visibility than the comparable Meridian Trimmer
- Long battery life gives you up to 90 minutes of use on a full charge
- Travel lock is nice to have, but not a need-to-have
❌ Cons:
- Shave is not quite as close as the one provided by the Meridian
- Some guys have complained about unintentionally getting signed up – and charged – for Manscaped’s subscription service after purchasing. (I recommend buying through Amazon to avoid the possibility altogether.)
In-Depth Manscaped 4.0 Review
Is Manscaped worth it?
An Irreverent Gent Investigation
Review Methodology & Disclosure
This review came about because a member of Manscaped’s team reached out and asked if we’d like to try/review their product.
In keeping with our review policy, we told them we’d only be willing to try it if there were no strings attached. To their credit, they agreed, and sent us a sample trimmer to try.
What follows are my own honest, unfiltered opinions after trying the trimmer over the course of a few weeks.
Overview:
What is Manscaped?
Founded by Paul Tran in 2016, Manscaped is a San Diego based company that specializes in men’s grooming products. Its two best known products are the groin trimmer that I review below, the Lawnmower, and a nose hair trimmer they call the Weed Wacker.
After chugging away for the first two years, the company rocketed to popularity after Steve King (Tran’s partner, and another of the Manscaped founders) appeared on an episode of Shark Tank, where he managed to secure a $500,000 investment from sharks Lori Greiner and Mark Cuban.
The company has only grown and expanded since then, introducing a wide range of products and accessories, including everything from a body wash to a ball deodorant (which they cheekily call the Manscaped Crop Preserver).
They’ve also secured a major celebrity spokesman in the form of Pete Davidson, who signed on to represent the company in the summer of 2022, and helped the brand expand its reach even further on social media.
But hype doesn’t necessarily equate to high quality, so I was extremely curious to get my hands on their trimmer and find out how Manscaped tools would actually perform.
The Manscaped Lawnmower 4.0
As mentioned, their flagship product is the Manscaped Lawn Mower, a waterproof electric trimmer that they’ve innovated and iterated over the years.
Their latest model (at least as of this writing) is the Lawn Mower 4.0, which is the version I tested.
It uses what Manscaped calls skinsafe technology, which refers to the replaceable ceramic blades.
In addition to being ceramic, the blades are set back from the edge by 3mm, to put just a little distance between the sharp blade and the most sensitive part of your body.
It also has a 7,000 rpm motor, a lithium ion battery that provides up to 90 minutes of use on a full charge, and a small LED light that helps illuminate things when you’re shaving down where the sun don’t shine.
The Lawnmower comes with adjustable guards that shave to four different lengths, and a charging dock that uses electromagnetic induction to provide wireless charging when the trimmer is docked.
Right out of the box, the Lawn Mower checks quite a few boxes, even if it doesn’t look quite as cool as it does on the Manscaped website.
But let’s get to the good stuff, and take a look at what happened when I finally got a chance to use the damn thing.
And don’t worry – “take a look” is a figure of speech.
I’m not going to show you pictures of my junk – this is not that kind of website – but I’ll do my best to make my first-year journalism school prof happy and paint a picture with my words.
Manscaped Results
Assessing the Manscaped Lawnmower on comfort, closeness and smoothness
Comfort
This is going to sound weird (sorry!), but the first thing I noticed when I used the Lawn Mower for the first time was how nice it felt.
As I previously over-shared bravely revealed when I reviewed the Meridian trimmer, one of Manscaped’s competitors, I used to shave my nether region with the same manual razor I used for facial hair.
(But, just to be clear, once I used a razor cartridge on my crotch, I would throw it out and start a new blade for facial use. I wasn’t scraping my scrotum and then rubbing the same blade on my face, I swear!)
This usually resulted in a close shave, but almost always left me with nicks, cuts and a little bit of blood, which is never what you want to see around your crotch.
So when I started testing cordless trimmers with ceramic blades, I was both relieved and delighted to find that there was a noticeable difference in how they felt against my skin.
I don’t think “soft” is quite the right word, but using the ceramic trimmer blade on my most sensitive areas felt totally safe, even without the plastic guards, while still trimming quite closely (on which much more below).
In my personal experience, I would say the Lawn Mover was pretty comparable to the comfort of the Meridian trimmer, both of which are preferable to a manual razor.
Total Score for Comfort:
4.85/5
Closeness / Smoothness
The reason why I kept using the manual razor for such a long time was that, nicks and cuts notwithstanding, it left my boys feeling about as smooth as they could possibly be.
So coming into my first test of the Lawn Mower, I had pretty high standards for closeness.
But it’s worth mentioning that in my aforementioned test of the Meridian trimmer, I found that it didn’t get quite as close as my manual razor, so I also had more realistic expectations for the Lawn Mower.
[image: Janon Stock / Shutterstock]
And overall, I was quite happy with the results.
The Lawn Mower left things looking neat, tidy and (I hope) visually appealing to my girlfriend, without breaking the skin or causing much irritation.
The ceramic blades definitely leave you with slightly more hair on your nuts than a manual razor, so if you’re looking for the absolute closest shave possible, you’ll probably have to tough it out with a manual razor.
But as I discovered when I tested the Meridian trimmer, there’s actually an upside to leaving just a bit of length on your balls:
Leaving a bit more hair allows you to skip the super-annoying stubble phase, when your bald balls start to sprout tiny little blades of sharp, coarse hair, which both look and feel like you have a dozen tiny slivers in your balls.
Skipping the painful two or three days it takes to grow past the phase is well worth the sacrificed shortness, at least in my opinion, which is why I was quite happy with the Lawn Mower’s results.
Total Score for Closeness & Smoothness:
4.2/5
Features
Nowadays there’s a wide range of trimmers and other various grooming products specifically marketed toward tidying up your package.
So while comfort and closeness are arguably the two most important factors to consider when assessing Manscaped’s products, I think it’s also worth taking a quick look at the Lawn Mower’s various features to see how they stack up to the competition.
LED Spotlight
One of the niftiest innovations that Manscaped brings to the table is the LED flashlight that’s built into the Lawn Mower.
The light turns on automatically as soon as you press the power button, and really helps you see what you’re doing as you trim.
I used both the Meridian trimmer, which doesn’t have a light, and the Lawn Mower in my small bathroom, and found that the flashlight on the Lawn Mower revealed areas that I missed on my first couple passes, which I probably didn’t even notice when I was using the Meridian.
Battery Life
The Lawn Mower 4.0 uses a rechargeable lithium ion battery that provides up to 90 minutes of run time on a full charge.
This is fairly standard for most modern trimmers, and in my experience 90 minutes is more than enough time to get the job done.
(It also comes with a charging dock, which is another nice touch that the Meridian trimmer lacked, and makes for cleaner/easier storage when not in use.)
But what impresses me about the 4.0 is how well it holds a charge, which is especially good news for people like me, who chronically forget to plug his devices back into the charging cable after using them.
After my first use, I left the trimmer in my medicine cabinet for about a week and a half while the fruits of my loom enjoyed the fruits of my labor.
When it was time to clean things up again, I was pleasantly surprised to find that it still had enough juice for another trim, and I couldn’t detect any meaningful difference in its performance.
Ease of Use / Maneuverability
Unlike beard trimmers, which tend to have both a wider trimmer head and longer body, the Lawn Mower comes in a pretty small size that makes it easy to hold and move in multiple different directions.
It measures about 5.5 inches in length (the trimmer, that is) and is light enough that it’s easy to hold between two fingers, so you can easily maneuver it around those hard-to-reach areas.
The design and shape of the device is actually one of the biggest differences between the Lawn Mower 4.0 vs the 3.0.
Whereas previous incarnations had a rounder, more fluid design, the new design of the 4.0 includes a number of straight lines that run down the length of the device.
Personally I tend to prefer more fluid designs, like the Meridian trimmer, which I find more aesthetically pleasing.
But I have to admit I didn’t notice any difference in terms of ease of use, and have no complaints about how the 4.0 maneuvers.
Water Resistant
The Lawn Mower has a waterproof design that makes it safe to use in the shower, which is where I do both my best thinking and my best pube shaving.
(And another reason why I appreciate the onboard flashlight, because my shower is not particularly well lit.)
While I had no trouble using the trimmer in the shower, some reviewers on Amazon seem to have had mixed results with it.
A couple bad reviews, like this one, rated the rest of the trimmer highly but said that water leaked in when they used it in the shower.
Others, like this one here, specifically list its performance in the shower as one of its best attributes.
The majority of reviews that mention the waterproofing seem to skew positive, so I suspect the people who had a bad experience just got unlucky and received a faulty device.
But if you’re looking to shave in the shower, you might want to test your Lawn Mower right away to make sure it’ll hold up in the tub.
It’s eligible for return, refund or replacement within 30 days if you buy it on Amazon, so better to catch the problem early and get a new one sent out if need be.
Travel Lock
(I’m not great at music trivia, but I’m pretty sure that’s how that song goes.)
One handy feature that I haven’t seen on a lot of other ball trimmers is the travel lock.
It’s quite easy to use – you just press the power button three quick times – and keeps the device from accidentally turning on while it’s stashed in your travel bag.
This is one of those little things that’s not exactly needed – I don’t think anyone’s going to pass on an otherwise good trimmer because it doesn’t have a travel lock – but is definitely appreciated.
(Especially if you’ve ever been in the awkward position of going through TSA with what sounds like a vibrator rattling around in your luggage. One sentence I personally hope to never utter is, “Officer, I swear, it’s not a vibrator – it’s just my ball shaver!”)
Total Score for Features:
4.8 / 5
Manscaped vs Meridian
I’ve mentioned the Meridian trimmer a number of times now, and I think it’s worth breaking down the similarities and differences between the two devices.
Both trimmers do quite a good job, which on the one hand makes the comparison fairly easy, since I don’t think you can go wrong with either.
On the other hand, when you’re comparing two devices that are this closely matched, the devil is in the details, and it’s important to ask yourself what you want most out of a ball trimmer.
To begin with, here’s a head-to-head comparison of the scores I gave to each trimmer on comfort, closeness/smoothness of the shave and features.
| Meridian Trimmer |
|---|
| Price: $99.99 |
| Comfort – 4.8 / 5 |
| Closeness/Smoothness – 4.5 / 5 |
| Features – 4.5 / 5 |
| Overall Score – 4.5 / 5 |
| Manscaped Lawn Mower 4.0 |
|---|
| Price: $89.99 |
| Comfort – 4.8 / 5 |
| Closeness/Smoothness – 4.2 / 5 |
| Features – 4.8 / 5 |
| Overall Score – 4.6 / 5 |
Overall Impressions on Meridian vs Manscaped
Like I said: it’s pretty close.
Both are great products that come with adjustable trimming guards and offer the ability to buy replacement blades as needed.
Overall, I found that the Meridian trimmer gave a slightly closer shave, but it doesn’t have as many features as the Lawn Mower.
The biggest thing missing is the flashlight, which really does help illuminate things and make it easier to shave in poorly lit rooms (or in my case, showers).
So it really comes down to a question of preference. If your definition of the best trimmer is the one that will give you the closest shave possible (or at least, the closest shave possible with ceramic blades), opt for the Meridian.
But if you don’t mind sacrificing a millimeter or two in exchange for a light that will help you see better and cover a bit more surface area, go with Manscaped.
Other Manscaped Reviews
Reviews for the new Manscaped trimmer are quite positive overall.
At the time of this writing, the Lawn Mower 4.0 has an overall score of 4.4 out of 5 on Amazon, after more than 28,000 ratings.
Lots of brands try to game their Amazon reviews to make themselves look better, but 28,000 is a high enough number that it’s probably safe to say that the vast majority of those reviews are legit, which is pretty impressive.
The numbers are similar over on Best Buy, where they have an average rating of 4.5 stars after about 475 reviews.
Both of those numbers specifically pertain to the Lawn Mower 4.0, but it’s also worth noting that reviews for Manscaped as a company are in the same ballpark.
Sitejabber has them at 4.3 out of 5 after more than 800 reviews, while the Better Business Bureau gives them a 4.6 with more than 1,200 reviews.
Interestingly, their score is a little lower on Trustpilot, where they only have a 3.6 out of 5.
When you read through the negative one-star reviews, it seems the single biggest complaint people have is that when you shop through Manscaped’s website, you run the risk of missing the fine print, and accidentally signing up for a subscription plan.
These plans automatically send you – and charge you for – replacement blades and/or other accessories more frequently than you need them, which is not worth the money.
Unfortunately this is fairly common practice for online retailers these days, but the good news is that there’s an easy way around it:
Instead of buying from Manscaped’s website, just buy through Amazon. The retail price on Amazon is five bucks more expensive than on the Manscaped site, but if it allows you to avoid getting stung with hidden charges down the line, it’ll be worth it.
(Plus you get free shipping if you have Prime.)
Conclusion:
So… is Manscaped good?
Overall, I would say that Manscaped makes quite a good ball trimmer.
I haven’t tested their nose and ear hair trimmer, the Manscaped Weed Whacker, but I was quite impressed with the Lawn Mower 4.0.
It’s reasonably priced, easy to maneuver around your groin, and provides a safe, comfortable shave.
It doesn’t get quite as close as the Meridian trimmer, which is too bad, but my favorite feature was the onboard flashlight, which really made it easier to see what I was doing down there.
But, one (important) word of warning here: please be careful.
The Lawn Mower did a nice job on my nuts, but any time you’re taking an electronic device with fast moving blades and rubbing it all over your groin, it’s important to exercise caution.
Is the Lawnmower worth it?
At 89 bucks the Lawn Mower is pretty reasonably priced and provides solid value, so I would say yes, with two caveats.
First, as mentioned, for me the presence of the flashlight outweighs the fact that the Meridian trimmer gets closer.
But if you’re not concerned about light and just want the closest shave, you might want to shell out the extra 10 bucks for the $99 Meridian.
Second, I highly recommend buying the Lawn Mower on Amazon, not through Manscaped’s website.
Their website will try and upsell you on the Perfect Package, which comes with not just the trimmer, but accessories that you probably don’t need, like the Crop Reviver ball spray toner and the Magic Mat for catching your clipped hairs.
Plus, as mentioned, a few people have complained that they accidentally got signed up for the Peak Hygiene Plan, which is a subscription plan they didn’t want.
So I think the best thing to do is just skip their website entirely and shop through Amazon.
Total Score for Manscaped Review: 4.6/5
The Recap ↓
Summary
I was quite impressed with the Lawn Mower 4.0. It’s reasonably priced, easy to maneuver around your groin, and provides a safe, comfortable shave. My favorite feature was the onboard flashlight, which really made it easier to see what I was doing down there.
FAQ
