100 Astra SP's Showed Up Today.

[Jeff_H]

...and other than the words Astra Superior Platinum Double Edge (and cartons of 5 at the bottom), not another word is in English. I can make out the "made in" is St. Petersberg, but I do not think this writing is Russian. It looks Middle Eastern to me, but I'd just be guessing if I picked a country. Turkey came to mind but I'm not sure why.

Is this normal for Astra Packaging? Even the 5 packs inside are the same.

 

[Mick]

where did you get them and can you post a pic?

 

[mblakele]

Maybe Astras from Best Shave, packaged for the Turkish market? Turkey does a lot of business with Russia, because of geographical proximity. Turkish uses the Roman alphabet like we do, but with a few extra letters and diacritic marks. For example this photo shows an Astra package with Turkish at the bottom: "çift traflı jilet". That seems to mean "double-edge blades", more or less. http://translate.google.com/#tr/en/çift taraflı jilet thinks it ought to be "çift taraflı jilet", but I do not know enough Turkish to say who is right.

 

[Jeff_H]

I need to get batteries for my digital camera, so here's a pic I found on Google. I bought them from Amazon. I can't remember who fulfilled the order. Hopefully this pic is big enough to see.

 

[Allegrabene]

This is normal. I got 200 blades out of 2 of the same carton. It's legit

 

[Mick]

Mine looks the same

 

[Jeff_H]

Oopps, yep. The pic of the 5 pack above is exactly what I have. I assume the quality is fine. I was just surprised to end up with packaging for another country.

 

[Jeff_H]

Thanks guys. I'm always learning something new...which is why I'm here.

 

[elverdiblanco]

It looks like "jilet" is Turkish for a razor blade. I'd imagine that it is probably the Turkish phonetic representation of Gillette that has taken the brand name as a generic word for the item, much the same as a vacuum cleaner is usually called a "hoover" (at least in the UK) regardless of who it is made by.

 

[mastershake]

i have a couple hundred and they look exactly the same. i was told by the seller its actually cheaper for them to bring the turkish market blades here to sell then to buy the in the us.. this is what the amazon seller told me when i asked about this same thing

 

[bryan1980]

Astra's are marketed in several different countries, hence the multi-lingual packaging.

 

[JazzyJ]

I just received the same packaging, ordered from West Coast Shave.

 

[SteveWY]

That's the standard Astra SP packaging. I order in 100-pack, 20 x 5. If you look on the side of a 5-pack it should say "Distributor: Proctor & Gamble Czech Republic..." and some other places. These are made in St. Petersburg, Russia.

 

[JimK]

That is the same packaging that the several hundred Astra SP blades I bought on Amazon over the past year or so arrived in. It's the real deal, and the blades are as fine as frog hair. I still buy 100 from time to time, as they don't go bad, I worry that production quality might go south over time, they are silly cheap, and even my favorite expensive blades are not so far ahead that I'd ever feel bad about shaving with an Astra SP...