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Greetings
I am in the main a user of SE razors although I do still own several DE's and because of this I have become rather out of touch with the latest trends in DE razor blades. I deliberately choose the word trend because IMHO razor blades go in and out of fashion in the same manner as razors. A read of this section of the forum as little as five years ago will show that many of the blades popular then are little used today, there are of course some stalwarts that have stood the test of time and most of the blades used today were available then but they were not 'in vogue'. Popularity creates further popularity.
In 2011 I purchased a Muhle R41 and I hated it, I found it far too aggressive and it made my face sore, to this day I believe it was a design failure with the blade protruding too far thus allowing it to flex in use. I had great difficulty in giving it away!
Last year I was kindly loaned and then purchased the latest 2013 model R41 and I fell in love with it and it to some degree rekindled my interest in DE shaving which had dropped to almost nothing. I felt I should try the blades in this razor that are popular now according to the pages of this forum.
I will not bore you with a pretty pointless review of each blade especially as I achieved a perfect finish with every blade bar two, what did vary quite by quite some amount was the comfort and pleasure shaving with the different blades.
First the failures
The only blade that I can claim was awful was a Bluebird, it felt really rough, certainly not dull it cut well, but had an awful face feel, I binned it and put in another which I first corked, it felt exactly the same.
The second blade that was a failure was the Big Ben it cut on one side but not the other, the second side was dull, I thought I had a dud so tried two more from the packet and they were just the same, within two days I read on this forum that one of our members had the same experience so I have binned the rest of the packet as there is clearly an entire faulty batch out there.
Blades that gave a BBS shave but were not smooth/gentle/face friendly
Gillette 7 o'clock Sharp Edge
Feather
Rainbow Super Class
All three of these blades felt quite rough (none as bad as the Bluebird) but produced a super close shave, in the case of the Feather the regrowth was very prickly and uncomfortable.
Top blades for both closeness and comfort combined
I would be very hard pressed to differentiate between any of these:-
Voskhod
Gillette 7o'clock Super Stainless (Green Pkt.)
Personna Lab Blue
BIC Chrome Platinum
Sharp Star
All of the other blades on the list gave an excellent close and comfortable shave for me in this razor. I think that is the caveat 'for me' and 'in this razor' your views may vary considerably and of course I have not addressed the issue of longevity at all as each blade was used for a single shave only. I strongly suspect that the R41 (2013) is not a blade sensitive razor at all and I further suspect that the Bluebird blades would be awful in any razor.
Here is the list of blades I tried:-
Super Iridium
Polsilver Super Iridium
Treet Durasharp (carbon)
Treet 'Black Beauty' (carbon)
Wilkinson Sword
Shark Super Chrome
Shark Super Stainless
Rainbow Super Class
Racer Super Stainless
Big Ben Stainless
Racer Super Stainless
Rapira Super Stainless
Rapira Swedish Supersteel
Rapira Plat. Lux
Astra Superior Platinum
BIC Chrome Platinum
Supermax Blue Diamond Platinum
Derby Extra
Bluebird Stainless
Voskhod
Ladas
Gillette Nacet
Gillette 7 O'clock Sharp Edge
Gillette 7 O' Clock Super Platinum (Blacks)
Gillette Silver Blue
Gillette Platinum
Gillette Rubie Plat. Plus
Perma -Sharp
Gillette 7 O'clock Super Stainless
Bolzano
Personna Lab Blue
Personna Platinum Chrome
Feather
Regards
Dick.
I am in the main a user of SE razors although I do still own several DE's and because of this I have become rather out of touch with the latest trends in DE razor blades. I deliberately choose the word trend because IMHO razor blades go in and out of fashion in the same manner as razors. A read of this section of the forum as little as five years ago will show that many of the blades popular then are little used today, there are of course some stalwarts that have stood the test of time and most of the blades used today were available then but they were not 'in vogue'. Popularity creates further popularity.
In 2011 I purchased a Muhle R41 and I hated it, I found it far too aggressive and it made my face sore, to this day I believe it was a design failure with the blade protruding too far thus allowing it to flex in use. I had great difficulty in giving it away!
Last year I was kindly loaned and then purchased the latest 2013 model R41 and I fell in love with it and it to some degree rekindled my interest in DE shaving which had dropped to almost nothing. I felt I should try the blades in this razor that are popular now according to the pages of this forum.
I will not bore you with a pretty pointless review of each blade especially as I achieved a perfect finish with every blade bar two, what did vary quite by quite some amount was the comfort and pleasure shaving with the different blades.
First the failures
The only blade that I can claim was awful was a Bluebird, it felt really rough, certainly not dull it cut well, but had an awful face feel, I binned it and put in another which I first corked, it felt exactly the same.
The second blade that was a failure was the Big Ben it cut on one side but not the other, the second side was dull, I thought I had a dud so tried two more from the packet and they were just the same, within two days I read on this forum that one of our members had the same experience so I have binned the rest of the packet as there is clearly an entire faulty batch out there.
Blades that gave a BBS shave but were not smooth/gentle/face friendly
Gillette 7 o'clock Sharp Edge
Feather
Rainbow Super Class
All three of these blades felt quite rough (none as bad as the Bluebird) but produced a super close shave, in the case of the Feather the regrowth was very prickly and uncomfortable.
Top blades for both closeness and comfort combined
I would be very hard pressed to differentiate between any of these:-
Voskhod
Gillette 7o'clock Super Stainless (Green Pkt.)
Personna Lab Blue
BIC Chrome Platinum
Sharp Star
All of the other blades on the list gave an excellent close and comfortable shave for me in this razor. I think that is the caveat 'for me' and 'in this razor' your views may vary considerably and of course I have not addressed the issue of longevity at all as each blade was used for a single shave only. I strongly suspect that the R41 (2013) is not a blade sensitive razor at all and I further suspect that the Bluebird blades would be awful in any razor.
Here is the list of blades I tried:-
Super Iridium
Polsilver Super Iridium
Treet Durasharp (carbon)
Treet 'Black Beauty' (carbon)
Wilkinson Sword
Shark Super Chrome
Shark Super Stainless
Rainbow Super Class
Racer Super Stainless
Big Ben Stainless
Racer Super Stainless
Rapira Super Stainless
Rapira Swedish Supersteel
Rapira Plat. Lux
Astra Superior Platinum
BIC Chrome Platinum
Supermax Blue Diamond Platinum
Derby Extra
Bluebird Stainless
Voskhod
Ladas
Gillette Nacet
Gillette 7 O'clock Sharp Edge
Gillette 7 O' Clock Super Platinum (Blacks)
Gillette Silver Blue
Gillette Platinum
Gillette Rubie Plat. Plus
Perma -Sharp
Gillette 7 O'clock Super Stainless
Bolzano
Personna Lab Blue
Personna Platinum Chrome
Feather
Regards
Dick.
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