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 !!

These Astor blades are really very cheap. But you get what you pay for. They are definitely not the same as the Bic chrome platinum. You can tell at once they are uncoated, they feel a bit rough. The good thing is they are definitely sharper than the Bics, although as you could expect from a coated blade the Bics are smoother. But I can only get 2 shaves out of a Bic, whereas the Astor gives me 3. Still Astor isn't my favourite.

I`m using Astor blades from a few years (since i started wet shaving). They are locally available, near to me, and cheap, as well. They are made by Societe BiC (Greece), in same plant of Bic blades. The difference is, that Astor are stainless.
Personally, i prefer stainless steel blades. They last longer

I just picked some of these up while vacationing here in Greece -- the only brand they had at the Alpha-Beta Supermarket. They are not as thin as the Bic Chrome Platinums, so my guess is that they are a different beast. By the time you get to the blade wrapper, all Bic labeling is gone, and they are simply called "Astor Stainless." I'm in vacation mode, so I am shaving less, and at odd times of the day, so I had a pretty thick beard for the Astor to cut through -- it did quite well, leaving me with a smooth shave after only two passes. After only one use, though, I am not ready to review and rate. I'll bring some back to the U.S. to compare the the Bics in my drawer there.

How do these compare with the more common Bic Chrome Platinum? Are they the same blade? Different coating(s)?

These blades are cheap. At least where my father bought them for me. Since I live in Sweden, the only blades that I can get are Swedes, Feathers, Merkur and those unlabelled Personnas, so it was nice to try something different.

I didn't expect anything special but these blades are really good. They're made in Greece, probably not much different from Bic Chrome's (I haven't tried them).

At my first WTG pass, I felt a bit of tugging but then it went a lot smoother, and the end result was a close shave with just my usual small amount of nicks.

Each blade is single wrapped and in a slight glossy envelope and a pack consists of five blades.