TL;DR - very good blade, 5 shaves, similar to Russian Stainless blades, made in China
Background:
This is the 3rd of 3 blades that was PIF'd to me by [MENTION=106524]riverstyxxx[/MENTION] (excellent experience, thank you for making these available) and the best of the lot. riverstyxxx has had good luck with AliExpress and you can find the blades (Boyou, GFLV, YingJiLi) available there. Rumor has it that, at this writing, he may still have some available. Head of the
riverstyxxx's Testing Chinese and Korean blades thread for more details
The Blade:
My initial reaction was that the outer wrapper for this blade was the nicest I've seen, very well done. Other than the language, you couldn't tell that this was from China. The inner wrapper was a high quality wax paper with Ying JiLi printed in a nice pattern on it. Although the blade does feel thin (the patented flex between my thumb and forefinger test), it performed very much like a Russian Super Stainless with a good balance between smoothness and sharpness.
My Setup:
Razor: Merkur 20C (standard Merkur 3 piece - rated as mild, having a narrower blade gap)
Soaps: various soaps, blade worked well with all of them
The Results:
YMMV, but I was really surprised by this blade. I got 5 DFS 2-pass shaves from it, with the 5th shave being slightly less smooth than the others. I'm not going to push it for a 6th shave. The previous Chinese blade that I tried, GFLV, seemed to be effected by its thinness, but not so with the Ying JiLi, which to me says that this steel is of a higher quality than the GFLV. If someone loaded this for me and told me that it was Russian, I would have believed them.
I think this blade is definitely worth checking out.
Post Thoughts:
I'm very grateful to riverstyxxx for giving many of us the chance to try these Chinese and Korean blades. I'm still a little leary about AliExpress (only because I've limited my purchasing to the "major and well known" sites) but based on his experience, I may take a chance. I wish these blades were available at more outlets and some day they may be. Just for broadening the DE shaving experience, it's worth trying something different. You might well find a hidden gem among the lot - like these Boyou and Ying JiLi blades (GFLV not so much).
Background:
This is the 3rd of 3 blades that was PIF'd to me by [MENTION=106524]riverstyxxx[/MENTION] (excellent experience, thank you for making these available) and the best of the lot. riverstyxxx has had good luck with AliExpress and you can find the blades (Boyou, GFLV, YingJiLi) available there. Rumor has it that, at this writing, he may still have some available. Head of the
riverstyxxx's Testing Chinese and Korean blades thread for more details
The Blade:
My initial reaction was that the outer wrapper for this blade was the nicest I've seen, very well done. Other than the language, you couldn't tell that this was from China. The inner wrapper was a high quality wax paper with Ying JiLi printed in a nice pattern on it. Although the blade does feel thin (the patented flex between my thumb and forefinger test), it performed very much like a Russian Super Stainless with a good balance between smoothness and sharpness.
My Setup:
Razor: Merkur 20C (standard Merkur 3 piece - rated as mild, having a narrower blade gap)
Soaps: various soaps, blade worked well with all of them
The Results:
YMMV, but I was really surprised by this blade. I got 5 DFS 2-pass shaves from it, with the 5th shave being slightly less smooth than the others. I'm not going to push it for a 6th shave. The previous Chinese blade that I tried, GFLV, seemed to be effected by its thinness, but not so with the Ying JiLi, which to me says that this steel is of a higher quality than the GFLV. If someone loaded this for me and told me that it was Russian, I would have believed them.
I think this blade is definitely worth checking out.
Post Thoughts:
I'm very grateful to riverstyxxx for giving many of us the chance to try these Chinese and Korean blades. I'm still a little leary about AliExpress (only because I've limited my purchasing to the "major and well known" sites) but based on his experience, I may take a chance. I wish these blades were available at more outlets and some day they may be. Just for broadening the DE shaving experience, it's worth trying something different. You might well find a hidden gem among the lot - like these Boyou and Ying JiLi blades (GFLV not so much).