In recent years, there has been a challenge: how to meet the requirements of cutting lubrication and use the least cutting fluid for environmental protection simultaneously. To resolve this problem, novel cutting tools with micro textures on the rake face for lubrication were proposed, which can directly transport the cutting fluid to the tool-chip contact interface by using a micro-pipe. Cutting tests were performed on AISI 1045 steel. Then, the cutting force, friction coefficient, tool-chip contact length as well as wear of tools were investigated. The results show that the novel tools with micro textures have better cutting performance than other tools, by using much less cutting fluid than traditional flood lubricating cutting. Especially for the TVT tool, it has the best comprehensive performance. The main lubricating mechanism is that the cutting fluids can be more widely distributed on the tool rake face by the micro textures. This leads to better lubrication and less adhesion of the rake face.