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Astra Blades

AimlessWanderer

Remember to forget me!
Looking further at the 'what blade and how many shaves' thread, I see a LOT of 2 or 3 entries for SPs. Must be common. Still, a few people report them beyond that (@BigJ for example). I wonder if there a secret, or if I just have courser hair than those... Interesting.

At $7.5 a pack, it's fair... At full price ($10-12), 3 shaves make Astra a bad deal... Well, for me. As always, YMMV.

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Most blades give me 10-14 shaves before I have to swap. Some do struggle to go beyond 5 shaves on my beard, but an Astra SP gave me 26 shaves.
 
Most blades give me 10-14 shaves before I have to swap. Some do struggle to go beyond 5 shaves on my beard, but an Astra SP gave me 26 shaves.
Wow! After 3 it was pulling for me and post pass feel felt the same as before pass... Felt like it was struggling to cut. Is there a trick to get 26? Do you strop it or cork it? My understanding is stopping / corking won't work for DE blades, but I just can't figure it out. Maybe my wirey red hair is actual copper and it wore the blade down fast? Lol.

I'm going to try a second one ... Could very well be a blade made on a Friday. No big deal, anyway. I got 100 for 7.50, half the price of my 7 o'clock Blacks. Half cost for half life is still fair, imo. [emoji16]
 

AimlessWanderer

Remember to forget me!
Wow! After 3 it was pulling for me and post pass feel felt the same as before pass... Felt like it was struggling to cut. Is there a trick to get 26? Do you strop it or cork it? My understanding is stopping / corking won't work for DE blades, but I just can't figure it out. Maybe my wirey red hair is actual copper and it wore the blade down fast? Lol.

I'm going to try a second one ... Could very well be a blade made on a Friday. No big deal, anyway. I got 100 for 7.50, half the price of my 7 o'clock Blacks. Half cost for half life is still fair, imo. [emoji16]

The right technique, lather, and prep, will all help maximise blade life, but I don't do any kind of voodoo with it. I might flip a blade when it first starts to struggle, but that's it. 26 might sound a lot, but many people here can make a blade last several times longer than I can. A Feather blade gave me 34, which is my maximum, but there's a few Excalibur Club members that can get 100+ shaves from a blade.
 
Looking further at the 'what blade and how many shaves' thread, I see a LOT of 2 or 3 entries for SPs. Must be common. Still, a few people report them beyond that (@BigJ for example). I wonder if there a secret, or if I just have courser hair than those... Interesting.

At $7.5 a pack, it's fair... At full price ($10-12), 3 shaves make Astra a bad deal... Well, for me. As always, YMMV.

Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk

I find getting 20 shaves on an Astra SP to be easy. Here are my "secrets."
  1. Shave every day
  2. Be careful during the first five shaves. It's easier to get a nick.
  3. Get the lather right. I only use Williams Mug Soap. "Right" will be an individual choice.
  4. Ride a lot of the top cap so the blade barely touches the skin at a shallow angle.
  5. Carefully strive for a single pass DFS with few touchups.
  6. Rinse and flip the blade after every use.
  7. Keep the same blade until it stops cutting most of the whiskers.
  8. Become a minimalist.
 
Give a go BIC (try to avoid knock offs) or Gillette super platinum Black. Some of the finest blades out there.
I agree. The Super Platinums are my favorite. BICs were before them. I just picked up some Astra because they were on sale.

Nothing is going to dethrone my Gillette 7s. [emoji846]

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