Wahl Stainless Steel Lithium-Ion Beard Trimmer Review – Accessories Galore!
Wahl Stainless Steel Lithium-Ion Beard Trimmer
The Wahl Stainless Steel Lihtium-Ion Beard Trimmer is an excellent example of how small ergonomic tweaks can make a trimmer feel great to use. Unfortunately, it is let down by its lack of a place to grip it and its lack of cutting power.
Pros
Ergonomically easy to hold and use
Plenty of accessories, including nose and ear trimmer
Bright LED when charging
Fast Charging
Self Sharpening Blades
Locking Power Button while on the charger
Cons
No real grip
Hard to keep track of all the Attachments
Requires regular blade oiling
Back again, bearded gents, with another trimmer for you to take a look at.
Today, we are looking at the Wahl Stainless Steel Lithion-Ion Beard Trimmer.
Wahl is a well-known brand in the grooming community, having been around for the last century. They specialize in trimmers for professional barbers and trimmers for use in the home or on the go.
All this to say, they have experience and knowledge when it comes to making trimmers for hair and beards. It is a name you can bank on.
This sleek little gadget comes with a bevy of attachments and cutting blades to be your all-in-one beard and face grooming kit. It does anything you might need it to do. All you need to do is change up a few attachments and get to trimming.
However, does all that adaptability make it a good product? Let’s take a look.
A Note (well, more than a note) On Model Numbers
As usual, with trimmer and shaver companies, these models and numbers can get confusing. I will provide some guidance on these as Wahl does not offer much.
Wahl offers various models that fall under its stainless steel product line.
These trimmer models all offer the same power and battery charge and only differ based on what is mentioned above (i.e., attachments, waterproof, and finish).
Can you see how Wahl is confusing us with model numbers there? I hope I have helped clarify somewhat!
For this Review, we are using the SS2L Wahl Stainless Steel Lithium-Ion Beard Trimmer (Brushed Stainless Steel).
Outside of the USA, including the UK, this model is the Wahl 9818, also known as the Wahl Stainless Steel Stubble & Beard Trimmer. It’s the same trimmer I reviewed here, and it only differs with the name/title and what accessories it may come with (they may come with a stand).
Description and Features
- Multipurpose Attachments that allow you to trim your beard, trim your nose hair, trim your ear hair, or even maintain and clean up your haircut
- Quick Charging Lithium-Ion Battery (3.5 Hours of Battery Life for 1 hour of charge)
- Interchangeable Heads
- Self Sharpening Blades
- 9 different attachable combs: 8 preset combs ranging from 1/16th” to ½”, and an adjustable comb that ranges from 2mm-8mm
- Comes with: the Wahl Trimmer, the attachable combs, cutting attachments, charging cable, oil and brush for maintenance, beard comb, and canvas carrying case
- 12.8 oz or 362 g
Quality and Design
I am a big fan of the sleek design of the Wahl Stainless Steel trimmer. It is elegant and simple, without any extra buttons to push. It feels solid and all one piece. The heavy metal feeling means it feels solid and like it won’t break.
On the adjustable comb, the dial is on the comb itself rather than on the trimmer. This is a pretty novel idea, as it means the trimmer isn’t cluttered at all.
The adjustable comb has a rounded end on the comb section. This means that it can easily turn and move over your skin. If I had a nickel for every time I was trimming my mustache and attachment combs that went up my nose, I wouldn’t be writing this article.
The power button itself is tough to turn on and off, and it locks to keep you from turning it on while plugged in. I suppose that is meant to reduce the chance of shocking yourself. To turn the trimmer on and off, you have to place a great deal of pressure on the button. While this might annoy some people, I like it overall. This means I won’t accidentally turn the unit off mid-trim.
Ergonomics and Grip
While I like the feel and weight of the Wahl Trimmer in my hand, I will admit it has a major problem when it comes to the actual grip.
It is heavy, but also all smooth. There is no specific way to grip it or any kind of rubberized grip for comfort.
The heavy weight means that if you are taking your time with your beard trim, your wrist and grip might get tired. A tired wrist and grip means that it is more likely it is going to slip out of your hands and smash into the counter.
And with the heavy weight, you might smash your sink rather than the trimmer itself (maybe we should not be trimming over sinks anyway).
Cutting Power
This is where we have an actual letdown when it comes to the Wahl Trimmer.
I am somewhat surprised by the lack of cutting ability. I have had to go over my beard multiple times to get the beard trimmer to cut cleanly.
At times, I even felt the trimmer tug at my beard hair rather than pull it out.
I don’t know if this is an issue because of the “self-sharpening” blades, but it feels like I have to go over my face multiple times to get an even cut.
Ease of Use
Trimming my beard with this trimmer was pretty easy when it wasn’t plucking out my beard hair. Running it over my face was nice and easy overall.
A major issue I had with the trimmer was changing out the attachments and the comb heads.
For the attachments, they do not clip in easily to the trimmer. It can take about 5 minutes of working with them to make sure they don’t just pop off the moment you turn the unit on. That is also taking the time to make sure you do not break or bend the metal brackets meant to hold them in place.
Secondly, the comb attachments themselves are not very secure. They also tend to move or fall off the moment you turn on the trimmer.
Battery and Charging
Moving from a low point to an extremely high point!
I love how fast this battery charges. One hour of charging gives over three hours of run time. That is awesome. I don’t know anyone who would actually take three hours to trim their beard (I’m sure they are out there) but for me, I’m only running it for about 5 to 10 minutes.
This means one hour of charging is probably going to be all I need for a week.
That is great. It means I don’t need to clutter my counter by having it out, and I can travel with it easily.
Cleaning and Maintenance
Cleaning the trimmer is simple.
Anything that is still clinging to the trimmer can be brushed off with the included brush itself.
All you need to do is pop off the attachments and blade, then run them under running water to get rid of any stray whiskers. The blades and the cutting attachments are perfectly fine with water, and it is the best way to keep them hygienic (or you can use hygienic spray for added hygiene).
It should be noted that the unit itself is not waterproof or water-resistant, despite the look of it. The blade is fine to wash, but the inner section is not (as I found out).
I was rather cavalier (read: stupid) and decided to run the unit underwater as well. While you can do this with SOME trimmers, this one is not one of them.
Water leaked into the inner housing and caused an electrical short. It was nothing dangerous, but it made the trimmer turn on and off randomly until I fully unplugged it and let the battery run out.
After letting it dry out, the problem solved itself. It works fine now, but if I kept doing this it would cause serious long-term issues.
Let this be a lesson to me to make sure to read the fine print on the instruction manual.
Maintenance is simple as well. All one needs to do is place a few drops of oil on the cutting blades and reattach everything.
You only need to re-oil the blades once every few trims, so it should be easy to make sure that the trimmer is still running in top shape.
The blades themselves do not need to be sharpened either. They sharpen themselves while you are using them, so you don’t need to spend so much time making sure your blades can cut.
How well does the Wahl Stainless Steel Lithium Beard Trimmer Perform?
For this review, I have taken around three weeks’ worth of time to use the trimmer, clean it, and gather my thoughts on how close and even a trim it gave me.
Unlike with beard washes and beard oils, trimmers need more time to make sure they can hit all the points I need to cover.
Overall Trimming Experience
Overall, I found the trimming experience of using the Wahl Beard Trimmer to be about the middle of the road.
Nothing really blew me away, but nothing disappointed me either.
I am a big fan of the charge time, all the attachments, the ease of use, and the cleaning. However, the fact that it took me multiple passes to trim my beard made the whole process of cutting my beard feel tedious.
Cutting ability has a pretty large weight when it comes to comfort and overall experience. So when placed all together and judged holistically, it is nice but not great.
Rather bland, actually.
Experience with the Nose Hair Trimmer
The nose trimmer wasn’t bad at its job and was easy to attach, but it wasn’t stellar. About five minutes in each nostril did the job of cutting short hairs, but it kept missing the longer hairs that I needed to pluck.
If you trim regularly then it will keep things tamed. If you let it go too long, it really won’t help.
Experience with the Detail Trimmer
On the complete other side, the easy to attach detail trimmer is very nice.
I get a great deal of stray hairs no matter what happens. My facial hair is untameable, really. Having the detail blade makes a difference in making sure my beard is contained exactly where I want it. It also helps make sure there aren’t any stray ear hairs either.
Value for Money
As of the time of writing, you can find the Wahl Stainless Steel Beard Trimmer on Amazon for $75 USD.
While that isn’t the most expensive beard trimmer I have ever seen, it is around the middle of the road.
We have reviewed some trimmers that are more powerful and less expensive: the Panasonic ER-GB42 Beard Trimmer and the Remington Vacuum Beard and Stubble Trimmer 6000 for example. However, their use is limited because they don’t have as many attachments.
Then again, there are also more expensive options like the Philips Norelco Series 9000 Prestige Beard Trimmer and the Manscaped Beard Hedger Trimmer, which while very nice, also lack the same adaptability.
Overall, I believe the Wahl Stainless Steel is a good deal if you are looking for something that is going to cover all your bases in maintaining your facial hair.
If you want something more specialized, then there are better options for your money.
Final Thoughts – Who is the Wahl Stainless Steel Litium-Ion Beard Trimmer Really For?
The Wahl Litium-Ion Beard Trimmer is a solid and serviceable option when it comes to a beard trimmer. It has multiple attachments that make it generally work well for any user.
The long battery life and quick charge make it great for someone who needs to travel often.
However, its lack of cutting power makes use of it tedious and time-consuming and means you have more of a chance to mess up when you are going over a place over and over. Also that major design flaw and the loose comb attachments make it a hard sell.
My honest recommendation would be for something like the Panasonic ER-GB42 Beard Trimmer or the Remington Vacuum Beard and Stubble Trimmer 6000 if you are looking for an extremely good trimmer for less money.
If you aren’t worried about price and need adaptability, I would recommend the Philips Norelco Series 9000 Prestige Beard Trimmer over this trimmer.
