Thanks pdieten that was a real eye opener on these blades! I never cease to be amazed at the knowledge here at B&B. How did you find all this out? I scoured the internet to try and find some info but came up with little outside of their laboratory history.
It's all out there with a bit of judicious searching.
Aside from all that, US Personna still has a barber and beauty market. Meant to be sold in bulk to beauty supply shops, but they are absolutely meant for shaving and the comfort coated trademark applies. These are the ones you see on eBay and Amazon and Sally Beauty Supply. Now in theory you'd think they'd be the same blades as the lab blues, but some buyers swear they're worse. I don't know. I might pick up a pack at Sally and compare.
The "fun" story is why ASR went bankrupt. They used to supply Walmart. Then Walmart dropped them in favor of Energizer (Edgewell) because Edgewell would meet Walmart's demand for a lower cost product, as WalMart tends to do. Edgewell brought the Wilkinson Sword brand to the US for Walmart's low cost products. That's why you saw Wilkinson Sword products at WalMart in the early 2010s (that was when I switched away from my Mach 3 - the WS Tech3 was much cheaper. That cartridge razor was otherwise known elsewhere as the Schick Xtreme3.) ASR wasn't happy when Edgewell won the bidding for the company out of bankruptcy court, since they were now owned by the same company that had just killed them. Edgewell wanted the consumer facing private label business and let the US plant and the commercial business be spun off. That's how Accutec happened. The locals were pretty relieved because before that there was real concern that plant would close.
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