Gillette Platinum - Where Have You Been?
- Thread starter alishock
- Start date
Another blade that I need to revisit!! 
I think there is a difference between both these blades. The light blue ones on top are among the best.
Gillette does make some excellent blades, but so do most of the other manufacturers.
Since you can get a week's worth of shaves from a single blade and indicate that you like all the Gillette blades you have tried, I am guessing that you do not have a coarse beard and your skin is not super sensitive. As you grow older, you might find that some of the blades that work for you now may no longer work for you.
I do like the King C Gillette blades, but I do not like the Gillette Astra SP blades. The ASP blades are one of the most popular DE blades, but they are not sharp enough for my beard. They are one of the few platinum coated blades that do not work for me. The Gillette 7 O'Clock Sharpedge (yellow) are good blades in an aggressive razor, but they are too dull for me in a mild razor. On the other hand, I do like the Gillette Nacet, Permasharp Super, and Astra Superior Stainless blades, neither of which are platinum coated. I have found the sharpest Gillette platinum coated blade to be the 7 O'Clock Super Platinum (black) blades made in India.
In Spain and in Italy I have bought Gillette Platinum blades in an all white box with blue lettering. I like these better than either of the two pictured. There are old discussions (maybe even a few years back) talking about thise.
Gillette Platinum in the light blue box are among my favorite blades. They say these are the same as the “Swede” blades but I have never tried those.
I'm a big fan of any Gillette blade to be honest, I really like them all, and the price is spot on, I do like the blue's and the platinums.
My absolute favorite though to this day are the Nacet's or Gillette Kings, those are bloody sharp. Ask me how I know.
My absolute favorite though to this day are the Nacet's or Gillette Kings, those are bloody sharp. Ask me how I know.
Hmmm. Maybe different packaging for different countries perhaps. I've bought the white ones in Europe fairly recently and have bought the light blue ones a few years back from a retailer here in the US. So doesn't appear from my purchases that the white packaging has "turned" to light blue since I've bought the white boxes much more recently than the light blue boxes. Who knows what comes out of PPI! I've said for a long time that it seems highly likely that many blades coming out of there with different names and packaging are probably identical.
I suppose anything's possible but I very much doubt it. In the last couple years I've bought at corner stores a) Gillette blades discontinued in the 90's b) Gillette handle discontinued in 2001. Have a look on the side of the blade packet for the production date, I doubt it would be recent.
The change in colour from white to light blue coincided with Gillette redesignging the packaging on PPI DE blades (new Gillette logo, blade icon on packet). The Light Blue is found across large portions of Europe now, including in Western Europe - where the White Box was previously available.
The change in colour from white to light blue coincided with Gillette redesignging the packaging on PPI DE blades (new Gillette logo, blade icon on packet). The Light Blue is found across large portions of Europe now, including in Western Europe - where the White Box was previously available.
Then I believe that means they're as old as at least 2015. Can't recall exactly when Gillette PPI started printing the date code on their packets but I know they had done so by 2016.
Writing on the flaps was in Spanish and Italian, as it seems that these were the two countries where the blades were mainly distributed, and at quite a high cost - up to 5 USD per 5-pack. They were also available to some degree in Czech Republic, I bought some that had a sticker overlayed on the back, with information and distributor details in Czech. Can't recall the details precisely but I believe this was done by Gillette itself (had seen the same thing on Gillette cartridge blades that were only sold in CZ/SK but strangely had English on the packaging). If they were just grey market, I doubt any seller would bother taking the time to affix a sticker to each card. No writing on the flaps anymore, assumedly because they are now distributed in many more countries/language regions in Europe.
I recently discovered GP and am very pleased with it! The only platinum blade I haven't liked (or found the right razor for) is the Rapira Platinum LUX. This one just feels pure rough to me... Maybe it's a bad batch or bad few boxes.
I bought 100 a while back. Still grab one on occassion and pop it in. Good shaves! Solid blade.
I used my first Gillette Platinum this morning and it is another first rate blade! Some have speculated that Platinums are repackaged as King C. Gillette blades. Maybe that may be the case, but after going through 10 KCG blades, the Platinums felt different to me. The Platinums felt better.
My favourite blades. Bought 1000 of them, those with dark blue letters. They`re still available in Poland along with those with light blue pack which as far as I know are the same blades. They just changed packaging and the letters on blades are made using laser, same story like with newer Astras SP. Fantastic blades jut like all blades made in Petersburg.
I just had my first shave a little while ago using a Gillette Platinum (for the first time ever) and I'm stunned at how good the shave was. I'm not joking when I say I'm at a loss for words. It was so good I'm wondering if it was some kind of fluke, some magical alignment of factors never again to be duplicated. I hope that's not the case. If this blade consistently gives shaves this good, I'll give serious consideration to tossing out every other blade I own and stock up on these like I've never stocked up on blades before.
#gobsmacked
#gobsmacked
I would advise against doing that, there are at least three different versions for different markets. They are not the same blade inside, it has been checked with a microscope. Unless you can be sure you are getting the exact ones you enjoy, you might wind up with ones you enjoy less. Maybe buy a few packs here and there?
Good advice... Thanks! 
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