Little analysis of the "What blade did you use today" thread for April 2024

[geneaut]

Inspired by @Luc and his thread on best-selling blades, I started data scraping from the "What blade did you use today" thread for April 2024. I'm basically collecting a spreadsheet of how many times and how many different blades the members who report there use.

This is not scientific. I have to make some guesses at times about what exact blade is being used, especially when you may have more than one option for a blade with similar or the same name. Gillette Permasharp vs. Gillete Perma-sharp, for example, or "Wilkinson Sword." Where I can make an absolute determination, I do, but where it's vague if I couldn't get clarification, I just made a spot decision.

I am only collecting information currently on DEs. No injectors, GEMs, Feather ACS, etc

Here are some initial results collected from April 1 thru April 22 at approximately 6PM.

Distinct blades: 67
Most used blade: Perma-Sharp ( red/gold box ) - and it wasn't very close (40)
Second most used blade: Gillette Silver Blue (28)
Third most used blade: Personna Lab Blue (22)
Least used: tie between 17 different blades at 1 use each
Random fact: I can't read Cyrillic
Total shave count: 418 reported shaves

It took about 45 minutes to compile the data. I am going to attempt to periodically update this information since I have the spreadsheet already created.

Top 10 (currently ):

Perma-Sharp

Gillette Silver Blue

Personna Lab Blue

Gillette 7OC Super Platinum

Gillette London Bridge

Nacet

Kai

Bic Chrome Platinum

Wilkinson Sword UK

Wilkinson Sword

** Note: Some of us are evaluating various Wilkinson Sword/London Bridge blades in another thread, which may explain their "popularity" this month. Also, with a short time period that I'm looking at just one user who uses the same blade for the entire time period covered can make a big swing in totals.

 

[Luc]

I find that metric interesting. For the record, the thread in question is: Best Selling/recommended razor blades (2024-Q1 edition) - https://www.badgerandblade.com/forum/threads/best-selling-recommended-razor-blades-2024-q1-edition.651376/

While most of us probably buy our blades in various places. Many of the above blades are not offered in the regular online shaving shops. I mean shaving shops where you buy a safety razor + shaving cream + aftershave + you get the idea. Those won't always stock the Nacet as an example. I saw the Nacet in a few online shops but it's not common. That's why it wasn't on my list. It's not common in many shops so it won't get a lot of "votes".

In this thread, you are getting exactly what's being used by the B&B community. I believe that if we want to create some kind of metric that's a bit more accurate, we would need to probably create a thread that we can use for a full month where users can post which blade they used. It would need to be a blade: Wilkinson Sword Saloon made in India. Personna (which one, from where?), Permasharp vs Perma Sharp (which one?), Astra SP Russia or India, etc.

That way, it would be a bit easier to centralize the data, compile it, and then have a clearer metric on what's rolling. The other side would be, is there enough interest to populate the information to compile the data without having the same 3 members posting about their same 3 blades?

I find that information very interesting as I do not use any of the top 10. I might by the end of 2025 but right now, I seem to be using New-old-stock (NOS)!

Thank you for compiling the information!

 

[geneaut]

I find that metric interesting. For the record, the thread in question is: Best Selling/recommended razor blades (2024-Q1 edition) - https://www.badgerandblade.com/forum/threads/best-selling-recommended-razor-blades-2024-q1-edition.651376/

While most of us probably buy our blades in various places. Many of the above blades are not offered in the regular online shaving shops. I mean shaving shops where you buy a safety razor + shaving cream + aftershave + you get the idea. Those won't always stock the Nacet as an example. I saw the Nacet in a few online shops but it's not common. That's why it wasn't on my list. It's not common in many shops so it won't get a lot of "votes".

In this thread, you are getting exactly what's being used by the B&B community. I believe that if we want to create some kind of metric that's a bit more accurate, we would need to probably create a thread that we can use for a full month where users can post which blade they used. It would need to be a blade: Wilkinson Sword Saloon made in India. Personna (which one, from where?), Permasharp vs Perma Sharp (which one?), Astra SP Russia or India, etc.

That way, it would be a bit easier to centralize the data, compile it, and then have a clearer metric on what's rolling. The other side would be, is there enough interest to populate the information to compile the data without having the same 3 members posting about their same 3 blades?

I find that information very interesting as I do not use any of the top 10. I might by the end of 2025 but right now, I seem to be using New-old-stock (NOS)!

Thank you for compiling the information!

I have most of the Top 10 in my collection, though I don't particularly like Nacets or Kais so rarely use them. That said I've been wetshaving since 2010 so my blade collection is vast and eccentric

I'm going to see how difficult it is to scrape the data daily now that I have a starter spreadsheet already created. Just typing 67 different blade names took a short minute. If it's easy I may keep collecting data.

 

[gpjoe]

In this thread, you are getting exactly what's being used by the B&B community. I believe that if we want to create some kind of metric that's a bit more accurate, we would need to probably create a thread that we can use for a full month where users can post which blade they used. It would need to be a blade: Wilkinson Sword Saloon made in India. Personna (which one, from where?), Permasharp vs Perma Sharp (which one?), Astra SP Russia or India, etc.

That way, it would be a bit easier to centralize the data, compile it, and then have a clearer metric on what's rolling. The other side would be, is there enough interest to populate the information to compile the data without having the same 3 members posting about their same 3 blades?

While this thread is interesting it (inherently) cannot be an accurate assessment of the most used blades by the membership. It is merely a snapshot of the data posted by those interested enough to participate in a single thread which is likely ignored by the majority of members.

The only way to gather accurate data would be to force all members to post in one thread ONLY, and make participation in the poll mandatory for all members.

Honestly not intending to rain on anybody's parade (and I would love to know the reality regarding THE most popular blade as determined by frequency of use), and it's fun to look at trends, but when I look at the top ten blades listed in the OP, I've only used four, and very infrequently. So either the data is bunk, or I'm a outlier.

Last point, which might help explain my post here:

I worked in QA Engineering and part of the job was counting/tracking manufacturing defects and noting trends (Statistical Process Control) to improve processes, eliminate rework, and lower manufacturing costs...so accurate and meaningful data was crucial to any conclusion and the corrective action taken.

Of course, this is razor blades, on a forum, for fun, and non-critical...so feel free to ignore my dumb concerns.

 

[Stikeyoda]

While this thread is interesting it (inherently) cannot be an accurate assessment of the most used blades by the membership. It is merely a snapshot of the data posted by those interested enough to participate in a single thread which is likely ignored by the majority of members.

The only way to gather accurate data would be to force all members to post in one thread ONLY, and make participation in the poll mandatory for all members.

Honestly not intending to rain on anybody's parade (and I would love to know the reality regarding THE most popular blade as determined by frequency of use), and it's fun to look at trends, but when I look at the top ten blades listed in the OP, I've only used four, and very infrequently. So either the data is bunk, or I'm a outlier.

Last point, which might help explain my post here:

I worked in QA Engineering and part of the job was counting/tracking manufacturing defects and noting trends (Statistical Process Control) to improve processes, eliminate rework, and lower manufacturing costs...so accurate and meaningful data was crucial to any conclusion and the corrective action taken.

Of course, this is razor blades, on a forum, for fun, and non-critical...so feel free to ignore my dumb concerns.

I suffer the same issue. I am working on a free online shave diary for quick reporting of razor, blade and result. I'll open it to everyone, but it will suffer from convenience, snowballing and self selection issues... however it's a start. I'm just finishing up dB design and will post something In the next weeks. If it grows popular enough it may start to approach random selection (within the hobbiest population)

 

[Luc]

While this thread is interesting it (inherently) cannot be an accurate assessment of the most used blades by the membership. It is merely a snapshot of the data posted by those interested enough to participate in a single thread which is likely ignored by the majority of members.

The only way to gather accurate data would be to force all members to post in one thread ONLY, and make participation in the poll mandatory for all members.

Honestly not intending to rain on anybody's parade (and I would love to know the reality regarding THE most popular blade as determined by frequency of use), and it's fun to look at trends, but when I look at the top ten blades listed in the OP, I've only used four, and very infrequently. So either the data is bunk, or I'm a outlier.

Last point, which might help explain my post here:

I worked in QA Engineering and part of the job was counting/tracking manufacturing defects and noting trends (Statistical Process Control) to improve processes, eliminate rework, and lower manufacturing costs...so accurate and meaningful data was crucial to any conclusion and the corrective action taken.

Of course, this is razor blades, on a forum, for fun, and non-critical...so feel free to ignore my dumb concerns.

I seriously doubt that any figure will be "accurate" in the sense of what it's representing. At the end of the day, the available data made the table in post 1.

Since this is shared voluntarily by the membership. This is accurate to those who posted about it.

 

[geneaut]

Yeah, I'm certainly not claiming anything about the data being reported here. I'm more interested in the fact that 60+ different blades have been used ( just counting DEs ) than I am about who is number one in what is currently just an arbitrary time frame. I'm just pulling data from one of the few publicly available sources I have

It's still fun to just review it all though so I'll probably still track it for a bit, and report back in.

 

[geneaut]

Good news: it took me about 5 minutes to scrape the data today ... if that. We had roughly 20 shaves reported since my last data tally.

We did add two 'new' blades to the list ( welcome Matgicol Platinum and Gillette 7OC Super Stainless ). We now have 18 one-use blades tied for last place.

Bic Astor	1
Bluebird	1
Derby Extra	1
Dorco Titan	1
Gentleman Super Platinum	1
Gillette 7OC Permasharp	1
Gillette 7OC Super Stainless	1
King C Gillette	1
Matgicol Platinum	1
Muhle	1
PAA Stranglelet	1
Personna Med Prep	1
Polsilver Stainless	1
Shark Super Stainless	1
Sharp 7AM Platinum	1
Suneko Amorphous Diamond Super Stainless	1
Treet Dura Sharp	1
Treet King	1

 

[Jens]

Interesting. I am surprised Kai blades came in among top 10 ...

 

[gpjoe]

Yeah, I'm certainly not claiming anything about the data being reported here. I'm more interested in the fact that 60+ different blades have been used ( just counting DEs ) than I am about who is number one in what is currently just an arbitrary time frame. I'm just pulling data from one of the few publicly available sources I have

It's still fun to just review it all though so I'll probably still track it for a bit, and report back in.

I understand the spirit of your endeavor and as I posted above, I would be VERY interested to know factually which blade is the most used and most preferred. Unfortunately we are limited to information (data) which is limited to only those who feel strongly enough to bother to post.

 

[geneaut]

Interesting. I am surprised Kai blades came in among top 10 ...

That one stood out to me a little, but in such a small sample size ( at this point ), it could just be that one or two people just happened to be using them for a week. There's a few blades in the Top 10 at this point that it's mostly one user just using those blades every single day of the month

 

[geneaut]

I understand the spirit of your endeavor and as I posted above, I would be VERY interested to know factually which blade is the most used and most preferred. Unfortunately we are limited to information (data) which is limited to only those who feel strongly enough to bother to post.

I'm hoping if we pull enough data points we might be able to discover some interesting things we weren't expecting. I'm also hoping this whole thing might encourage people to start posting in the original thread so we can get better data

Speaking of:

What razor blade did you use today? How many days?

Rapira (1)

www.badgerandblade.com

People pop in and start adding some data, please.

 

[abies]

That top 10 list isn't that surprising to me. Maybe the London Bridge and Kai are surprising to me (for different reasons) but not the rest of them.

I assume different threads would have slightly different rankings for various reasons, and different forums even more so.

 

[Phoenixkh]

I realize the date is incomplete as has been noted, because not everyone posts what blades they are using.. or even post about their shaves at all.

That being said, that is how I chose the DE blades to buy when I first started venturing into DE shaving. I had been using AC blades for over 5 months at that point and they are easy.... There are only a handful of AC blades available.

Based on a couple posts I read here, there are over 100 unique DE blades on the market right now and that doesn't even include the ones no longer being made. I had to start somewhere and I knew there was no way I was going to test over 100 blades. I ended up buying a few favorites used repeatedly by people here. I only have 9 different DE blades: I have over 100 of 6 of them, the rest I have in limited quantities. 6 seems to be enough for me. I can easily use any of them and get great shaves.

I haven't found much difference when using these 6 in any of my razors. Probably because I don't have enough experience yet. I shave 3 times a week instead of every day, so that makes these determinations a bit of a struggle. It takes a long time for me, but as long as I'm getting great shaves, perhaps it isn't as important for me in the long run.

Almost all of my razors fall into the upper mild to lower medium efficiency zones. That could also be a reason I don't see much difference if I'm using a good DE blade. I don't have to bump up lower mild razors or tame an aggressive one. I'm a bit boring. As long as the blade is sharp and smooth, I'm good to go.

 

[Umma2gumma]

I assume you are making sure that you don't count the same person using the same blade on consecutive days ? I.e. if someone reports shaving with a Kai on six consecutive days, this is still only one user and one blade.

One way around that is to randomly select posts from different time periods but not as far removed that the blade availability dictates choice.

 

[geneaut]

I assume you are making sure that you don't count the same person using the same blade on consecutive days ? I.e. if someone reports shaving with a Kai on six consecutive days, this is still only one user and one blade.

One way around that is to randomly select posts from different time periods but not as far removed that the blade availability dictates choice.

No. If you use it 6 days in a row it counts as 6. So my numbers will have to be looked at through that lens.

This will certainly not be extremely scientific

 

[geneaut]

I realize the date is incomplete as has been noted, because not everyone posts what blades they are using.. or even post about their shaves at all.

That being said, that is how I chose the DE blades to buy when I first started venturing into DE shaving. I had been using AC blades for over 5 months at that point and they are easy.... There are only a handful of AC blades available.

Based on a couple posts I read here, there are over 100 unique DE blades on the market right now and that doesn't even include the ones no longer being made. I had to start somewhere and I knew there was no way I was going to test over 100 blades. I ended up buying a few favorites used repeatedly by people here. I only have 9 different DE blades: I have over 100 of 6 of them, the rest I have in limited quantities. 6 seems to be enough for me. I can easily use any of them and get great shaves.

I haven't found much difference when using these 6 in any of my razors. Probably because I don't have enough experience yet. I shave 3 times a week instead of every day, so that makes these determinations a bit of a struggle. It takes a long time for me, but as long as I'm getting great shaves, perhaps it isn't as important for me in the long run.

Almost all of my razors fall into the upper mild to lower medium efficiency zones. That could also be a reason I don't see much difference if I'm using a good DE blade. I don't have to bump up lower mild razors or tame an aggressive one. I'm a bit boring. As long as the blade is sharp and smooth, I'm good to go.

I think I have 68 different blade types in my current spreadsheet of blades used this month, and even I can see some obvious blades missing from the list at this point, so 100+ is certainly reasonable.

 

[Umma2gumma]

No. If you use it 6 days in a row it counts as 6. So my numbers will have to be looked at through that lens.

This will certainly not be extremely scientific

Well, this means that if three people shaving twice a week all use Nacet, and one person shaving every day uses a Derby, going with total number of shaves would make Derby appear more popular, even though in reality it’s 3 Nacet users vs 1 Derby user.

 

[geneaut]

Well, this means that if three people shaving twice a week all use Nacet, and one person shaving every day uses a Derby, going with total number of shaves would make Derby appear more popular, even though in reality it’s 3 Nacet users vs 1 Derby user.

It is what it is. This is quick and dirty.

 

[BigJ]

Great thread! Always interesting to discuss data rather than just my impressions.