Graham Field DE Blades

[MisfitWy23]

Short story for those who just want the bottom line:

In case you run across blades sold by or made for Graham Field Health Products, be warned; they are terrible.



Longer story:

I found these on ebay. The seller who apparently specializes in medical supply had two lots of 500 for $20, and a lot of 750 of them for $30. They were originally listed for higher but the seller dropped the price when they didn't sell. I bought one of the lots of 500. As of now some other poor soul has bought the other lot of 500.

On the Graham Field website they were listed for about $50 for a box of 250, and the markings, with the arrows and "MADE IN USA" on the tab, they look exactly like Personna "Barber" blades, which I actually happen to like. I had a little hope that being from a health supply company for an originally fairly high price they might actually be sharper, as I thought of Personna "Med Preps", but I thought they would be at least no worse than the "barbers" as I thought Personnas must be making them for them. So for 4 cents a blade I didn't think I could go wrong, but I did. I tried one in my SC NEW, they were rough and I couldn't get a close shave. I still had a hard time believing they would be that much worse than the Personna Barbers they looked like, and as I hadn't tried one of the store branded US Personnas in a while I loaded one up for my next shave, and as I had remembered, it was a much better blade than the GF.

So no matter how low the price is on these blades, they're not worth it, unless you know of some other use for them other than shaving.

 

[BSAGuy]

Good tip. Thanks.

 

[Cal]

TBFH

Is this the thread where all the trouble started?

 

[TobyC]

I think so, it's been a lot of fun though!

 

[FatboyFan]

Anyway..."caveat emptor" and respect your face. Plenty of good blades out there for not a great deal of money. You only get one face so treat it nice. Life's too short to walk around looking like the victim of a shark attack.

 

[CigarSmoka]

Oh man, too bad you missed the PIF threads before you bought them. I bought 250 for around $32 I think and didn't even finish a shave. I don't see how these can legally be sold...it would've been better had I just plucked the whiskers with tweezers.

 

[macnutty]

Short story for those who just want the bottom line:

In case you run across blades sold by or made for Graham Field Health Products, be warned; they are terrible.



Longer story:

I found these on ebay. The seller who apparently specializes in medical supply had two lots of 500 for $20, and a lot of 750 of them for $30. They were originally listed for higher but the seller dropped the price when they didn't sell. I bought one of the lots of 500. As of now some other poor soul has bought the other lot of 500.

On the Graham Field website they were listed for about $50 for a box of 250, and the markings, with the arrows and "MADE IN USA" on the tab, they look exactly like Personna "Barber" blades, which I actually happen to like. I had a little hope that being from a health supply company for an originally fairly high price they might actually be sharper, as I thought of Personna "Med Preps", but I thought they would be at least no worse than the "barbers" as I thought Personnas must be making them for them. So for 4 cents a blade I didn't think I could go wrong, but I did. I tried one in my SC NEW, they were rough and I couldn't get a close shave. I still had a hard time believing they would be that much worse than the Personna Barbers they looked like, and as I hadn't tried one of the store branded US Personnas in a while I loaded one up for my next shave, and as I had remembered, it was a much better blade than the GF.

So no matter how low the price is on these blades, they're not worth it, unless you know of some other use for them other than shaving.

I do know of another application. French style bread dough slashers, called a lame, use DE blades. I would donate (tax write off) or sell them to a bakery or culinary school. Might not be good for a whisker, but probably fine for a baguette.

 

[pctech429]

LOL, I'm the poor soul that the OP referenced. I thought 500 medical quality blades for 20 bucks was a steal. Oh how wrong I was.

 

[MisfitWy23]

I do know of another application. French style bread dough slashers, called a lame, use DE blades. I would donate (tax write off) or sell them to a bakery or culinary school. Might not be good for a whisker, but probably fine for a baguette.

That's a good idea. They don't have to have blades that are certified not to be oiled or coated, or printed or anything? I don't know if the GFs are or not other than the printing, but I know the food service industry may have strict requirements.

I've wondered if maybe one reason the GFs are so rough is if maybe that they're not coated. I've heard that all usable blades seem to be coated whether they're advertised as such or not.

 

[MisfitWy23]

LOL, I'm the poor soul that the OP referenced. I thought 500 medical quality blades for 20 bucks was a steal.

You would think! Even so, I did search the forum looking for a review, and when I couldn't find one I took the plunge. Maybe there's a lesson for us, never be the first to try anything, if you can't find a review it's not worth the risk no matter how good the deal seems, or something?

 

[Grundi]

LOL, I'm the poor soul that the OP referenced. I thought 500 medical quality blades for 20 bucks was a steal. Oh how wrong I was.

No, no, it was a steal, but with an unexpected, who-done-it twist at the end. MisfitWy23 and pctech429, you got robbed!!

And because someone (or several someones) said that something is very bad, my morbid curiosity overpowered my reason, how bad could it really be? Having participated in the "tear your face apart" PIF, I can tell you, my face got mugged by these TBFH!!

 

[TobyC]

Class action lawsuit?

 

[macnutty]

That's a good idea. They don't have to have blades that are certified not to be oiled or coated, or printed or anything? I don't know if the GFs are or not other than the printing, but I know the food service industry may have strict requirements.

I've wondered if maybe one reason the GFs are so rough is if maybe that they're not coated. I've heard that all usable blades seem to be coated whether they're advertised as such or not.

It sounds like they would be fine for food service.

 

[Daveho]

My mum uses super max for bread slashing... Now that B&B is well supplied with Graham field is seems like a waste of supermax

 

[Jaidmaster]

Aw man, so sorry to hear this!
These are indeed terrible blades...
I had the impression they were rough shaving blades, but they seemed to only dig into a whisker just enough to pull on it. After one pass on 2 day growth, I only saw about 5 hairs in the removed lather. Removed only the lather on my goatee area with terrible tugging. Anything in my used blade bank would have been an upgrade, even the Voskhod from one blade February!
I even tried them on my arm and required lots of blade buffing there.
I don't like to throw away usable items, but I have not found a use for these, certainly not shaving!