Head Total Joy (2018)

The Total Joy achieves an impressive strength-to-weight ratio—we women know what that’s all about—with Graphene, a material so thin (like, one atom thin) that its inventors won the Nobel Prize for creating the stuff. It carves cleanly but has a ferocious all-mountain appetite, and consequently is one of the more versatile offerings in the Groomed category. Because it’s solid and stable—never twitchy like some of the other knives in this drawer—the Total Joy is also the easiest to lay over, a great confidence-builder for lesser experts. “Super light underfoot, but it does not ski that way,” Humes said.

Strengths: Flotation, Forgiveness