Item Description
I saw these blades a few weeks ago and was put off from buying them because of the price - 'Surely something that cheap can't be very good' I thought. Well, I was visiting the same shop (Wilkinsons supermarket, UK) and saw them again. This time I was definately going home with a pack (and a spare pack to distribute to B&B members), and not letting my feeling rule my head. Besides, I had to be the 'guinea pig' to try them as noone else had yet reviewed them.
So, first glance, they look OK - the packaging is more or less the same as the Derby extra box when they're out of the cardboard. They are single wax paper wrapped in boxes of 5 blades for 0.39 UK pence a box (of 5).
The blades also have the 1 - 2 and 3 - 4 written on either side of the blade (I still don't know what this referrs to?).
The shave:
I thought that I'd better use a good lather for my debut shave with this blade, so I decided on the C&E Sweet Almond Oil cream to help me. I loaded up my Merkur Progress with the blade, and set it to #3.
First pass felt OK - No jumping or snagging, just the little 'popping' of the hairs being cut. I must say the first pass with it reminded me of the Merkur blades - For me, OK, but not as nice as the Derby's. Second pass was ATG and not too bad either, still feeling 'not so sharp', but OK. I finished off with a bit of buffing around the jaw line to catch the 'straglers' with no problems. Having only used this blade once I cannot really comment on the 'longevity', so have given it a middle-of-the-road 5 so far.
Summary:
Quite good packaging, Very cheap price tag, Fairly good shave (but the blade doesn't feel so sharp). Maybe 2nd shave will feel nicer as a lot of blades have felt for me. Lastly - probably not a blade that I would use frequently but pretty good for a last-minute buy.
Thanks for reading my review, hopefully we'll see more reviews on these blades shortly.
