For some reason, my time shaving with cartridges gave me the worst acne of my life by far -- including one zit that somehow festered into a massive welt that continuously refilled with fluid and wouldn't go away for several years. (I still have the scar) I still think there was something wrong with the shaving cream because my dermatologist was just as perplexed as I was and he was clearly out of his element as he seemed to be blindly throwing whatever he could at the problem.

These were the inexpensive mail-order discount razors and the special shave butter they advertised, I forget the name of the company but it was the first one I was aware of that bypassed the Gilette racket by doing everything via mail. (edit- DollarShaveClub?)

Smooth or not, I'm sticking with my electric razor.

Smoothest shave I get from an electric shaver/razor is by shaving in the shower with some face wash as "shaving cream" and using a wet shaver e.g. from the Philips AquaTouch line. Quick, easy, everything is clean after etc.

I'd say it gets very very close to a manual razor in terms of smoothness.

+1 for a decent wet shave razor.