Brand ID

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wooster

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Hi folks. After using cartridges for many years, I'm returning to the ways of my youth and taking up DE shaving again. I've bought myself a Merkur 34C and a few blades to try.

I'm struggling a bit with blades ID though. Seems many go under different names ( ie Crystal are, if I have this right, Blue Personna's ?) and all the different locations and package colours of similarly named blades is more than a little hard understand.

I'm wondering if there is a chart or something anywhere that gives the various names of the same blade to help clear it up a bit. I have searched around the internet but haven't found one yet.

I don't recall there being such a choice of blades in the 70s when I was using them, but maybe in those days it was just a case of nipping down the local chemist and grabbing what they had available from the 5 or 6 brands they regularly stocked. I was just a lad then with no money and I'd no doubt stick to the cheapest I could find.

Anyway, good to be here and if anyone knows of a chart I'd be grateful if you could point me to it.

Wooster
 
I believe that he's asking if there's a list somewhere of what razors are sold as different products.

For example Boots own brand razors may be the same as a brand sold as xxxxx, while both FakeBrand Super Stainless and FakeBrand Super Platinum may be the same razor?

I don't think a list exists though. I happen to think that there must be a few cases where the same blade goes out in 3 or 4 different wrappers, but it's difficult to nail it down.
 
Sorry if I'm confusing everyone. I was asking if there was some sort of easy reference which showed which names the same razor blades go under. For example Crystal are if I'm right the same as Blue Persona and some blades which bear the same name - Wilkinson Sword - for example seem to be completely different depending on the colour of the packaging and the country of origin.

It seems no reference exists though

Wooster
 
Sorry for being slow on the uptake. I don't think such a list exists, and, even if it did, it would be difficult to define what we mean by "the same blade". Many different brands of blade come out of just a few factories - for example, the same company makes Crown, Lord, Shark and a couple of others, but both Shark and Lord blades come in different types (usually related to coatings). In addition, there may or may not be differences in the grind specifications between them - I've just shaved with a Lord Super Stainless, and found it worse than the Shark Super Stainless despite the fact that

a. They're both from the same company (almost certainly the same factory and maybe even the same production line)

and

b. They're both uncoated stainless steel.

Another example is that, as you pointed-out, there are at least two types of Wilkinsons currently being made - the Classic which you see in Boots, and the Gillette-Wilkinson Sword Saloon pack blades, which are Indian and, IMO, much better than their German counterparts. As far as I know, Crystals and Red Personnas (which now come with a blue card slip over the blades and which are also known as Red IPs, short for Israeli Personnas) are very similar, though, again, it's almost impossible to know whether they're the same.
 
I think Chris has to be correct. I do however suspect that there are far less different blades out there than we believe - but he's quite correct that we'll never be able to properly tell.

What would be nice is some kind of blade database wiki type thing where a couple of moderators, like NTS and many of the members here could add information on blades, relative cost, reviews, pictures, etc.
 
I mean moderating the wiki/database - rather than moderating these forums.

I dare say we could all take an hour and add the information we had on our blades onto the database, and over time it should grow in size and become very useful.
 
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