Bic Astor

Being Greek I don't have the best opinion about Greek manufacturing (although I don't suppose being foreign would change that opinion), so I avoided Astors, the only widely available blades in Greece and I was ordering my blades from a specialist shop at the other side of the city. I decided to give them a go after a recommendation by a friend. Now I rarely use Feathers and my daily choice is Astor. I have a really rough beard and I need a very sharp razor to go through it with no pull, Astra, Persona, Derby, Gillete 7, was no good for me, Feather was great but I had to be really careful with my angle, any slip-up and I would get razor burn. Astor blades on the other hand, I find give me an equally close shave and are very forgiving when my angle goes off in the awkward areas below the chin etc. They may not be as long lasting as feathers but they are much cheaper.

Did not liked those blades at all. First of all, the packaging. It looked good on the outside, but inside, i got 6 blades in a 5 blade pack, 5 of them wrapped and one without any wrapping, on top of the box.
The wrapping for other blades looks poorly done. From kinda stiff paper, all blades look like someone took them aside and gave them to a 2 yrs old kid to pack them up.

I took the "extra" blade, gave it a good alcohol cleaning and put it in my Wilkinson Classic razor, after two strokes i realized it is impossible to shave with that. The blade was pulling and ripping the hair, and had problems in cutting it. Replaced it with an Russian Gillette Platinum and the rest of the shave was great.

They are very cheap. But they don't worth any money. Might be good for scrapping paint or something like that. But not for shaving.

For some time, these were my only blades. They are produced here in Greece, are very cheap (compared to any multpli blade combos !) and are very correct in what they deliver. They last easily five shaves (one week i.e.) are sharp enough but not as smooth as the Feathers or the Gilette 7 o'clock Sharps.

Poor packaging, old fashioned style, but a truly honest solution which has kept me going for a long long time (before I dicovered the samplers !!