This is something I never really paid attention to before. But over the past few months I've been exploring Lord assortment of blades. I thought well basically there's platinum coating and there's the stainless version, a blade is more sharp or less sharp. While browsing the RBC site filling my next order of blades, I actually saw that Lord blades have a wider range of coatings. So I kind of summed up my experiences, I will share them here, would love to hear your opinions. For reference, I have hard whiskers, sensitive skin and use the R41
PTFE coated - as far as I understand, that is teflon. For example, Voskhod and Racer blades are coated with this. I found that they tend to 'bite'. I don't feel it, the blades are fairly smooth, but they do bite, especially on the neck area. Voskhod doesn't bite much, but it's also too dull for my whiskers.
Stainless - Silver Star, ASCO reds (not the same coating as the orange ones apparently) and Rainbow - incredibly smooth shave, it glides through the whiskers like through butter, even in the R41 there is no blade feel. But harsh on the skin, it causes irritation. Rainbow blades are in my experience slightly better. Astra SS is very similar to ASCO reds.
Platinum coating - Lord and Crown platinum (but even Gillette/BIC/Astra platinum had similar results) - I noticed that on 2nd and 3rd use they tend to be harsher and cause weepiness on the neck area. Lord Platinum is the best of the bunch in my experience, I could certainly use it as my primary blade.
Chrome coating - Big Ben - seems to be the best all around performer for me, basically perfect balance of sharpness and smoothness. A bit draggy on the first use but after that it is only smooth sailing. I am thoroughly impressed, I think this is the final answer in my search for truth.
So yeah, in my opinion, I think it's a good idea to play with different coatings, I don't think it should be an afterthought. Would love to hear your experiences. Thanks for reading my blog haha.
PTFE coated - as far as I understand, that is teflon. For example, Voskhod and Racer blades are coated with this. I found that they tend to 'bite'. I don't feel it, the blades are fairly smooth, but they do bite, especially on the neck area. Voskhod doesn't bite much, but it's also too dull for my whiskers.
Stainless - Silver Star, ASCO reds (not the same coating as the orange ones apparently) and Rainbow - incredibly smooth shave, it glides through the whiskers like through butter, even in the R41 there is no blade feel. But harsh on the skin, it causes irritation. Rainbow blades are in my experience slightly better. Astra SS is very similar to ASCO reds.
Platinum coating - Lord and Crown platinum (but even Gillette/BIC/Astra platinum had similar results) - I noticed that on 2nd and 3rd use they tend to be harsher and cause weepiness on the neck area. Lord Platinum is the best of the bunch in my experience, I could certainly use it as my primary blade.
Chrome coating - Big Ben - seems to be the best all around performer for me, basically perfect balance of sharpness and smoothness. A bit draggy on the first use but after that it is only smooth sailing. I am thoroughly impressed, I think this is the final answer in my search for truth.
So yeah, in my opinion, I think it's a good idea to play with different coatings, I don't think it should be an afterthought. Would love to hear your experiences. Thanks for reading my blog haha.
Last edited: