Hi Semi - I`m new today and don`t know my shaving tackle onions but I spotted those Chinese blades from Aliexpress and Alibaba - I think they`re great - The blue cheaper ones are fab but the dearer black ones are better - Swedish steel if I remember rightly and I love light weight resin / quality plastic / composite handles that grip in the wet.View attachment 126231
very close shave with this R41 clone but my skin felt a bit raw today, there were a few spots of blood during the shave and there was a fair bit of alum and aftershave sting. I need to work on not applying any pressure with it. it's surprising how it just wipes away the stubble and leaves the skin smooth even from the first pass. I've had great shaves with it before but I had to be really careful. is it worth the effort? maybe once in a while when I've got extra time but not one to use frequently for me.
tomorrow I'm going wth the third of my open combs, a double open comb, and it's the complete other end of the spectrum for me. might be too mild to keep around. this will be a good month to evaluate both with different blades. maybe by the end I'll have decided to get rid of one or both.
have you tried the suneko blades from AliExpress? I find those even better. smoother than the flydear to me. similar to nacet or silver star blades.Hi Semi - I`m new today and don`t know my shaving tackle onions but I spotted those Chinese blades from Aliexpress and Alibaba - I think they`re great - The blue cheaper ones are fab but the dearer black ones are better - Swedish steel if I remember rightly and I love light weight resin / quality plastic / composite handles that grip in the wet.
I am just recently being getting into open comb heads and I love them.
So glad I went back to DE - can`t beat the original fundamental design - even now IMHO.
OCtober
Friday 4th October
Coty Avocado (Vintage) Shaving Bowl & Muhle Silvertip Fibre (White) 23mm
Gillette 'Old' Type (c.1915) & Lion Super Stainless (1)
Jovan Musk Aftershave Cologne
Much thanks to @markamonaghan for the blade.
Lion is made by the same folks that manufacture Derby. I think there is some broad agreement that Derby make three actual blades: the Extra (comfortable), Premium (sharp but still comfortable) and the Usta (most definitely sharp, not so comfortable) and with that in mind Derby also make a number of alternative brands: Bluebird, Concord, Diamonds Excel, Lion, Lamix & (for) Parker ... and so our constant puzzle is always, which of the core blades are these alternative blades?
Well, straight out of the blocks the Lion defined itself as sharp. Comfortable? Not so much. With a few more strokes it was clear that this was mowing down my daily stubble and getting very close. Consider also that I've been using a GSB in the same razor all week with the same soap and brush, and so after the GSB almost anything is not going to feel quite so smooth ... but gosh, this was an effective blade. That is its character.
Versus other Derby blades, I thought it far more effective than the Premium (or Lamix, which I think is also the Premium) and could not bring myself to score the same level of comfort that I have recorded for the Premium. It's clearly not the regular Extra.
... so, er ... Usta?
Anyway, smashing shave which I am very much looking forward to repeating with a couple more shaves off this blade over the weekend.
Little lad wanted to check out what I was using ...