My Personna Lab Blue vs Astra SP Review

[Mark1977]

Hi Guys.

Wonderful site this is. I've learned a lot and I've found people whom I can speak to about shaving gear and stuff. Really enjoying my daily evening shave thanks to some great advise I received from members here.

I spent a few years and quite a bit of money trying out different razors and blades, just to find the perfect combination that suits my course beard type and sensitive skin around my neck area. I have been able to sell of those razors that don't work for me, so all is good.

My go to razor for a while has been the Edwin Jagger DE89. As for blades, the Personna Lab Blue and Astra SP have always worked best for me.
I recently bid some sort of a comparison between these 2 blades. And here is what I have to share, based on my personal experience with these blades.

Personna Lab Blue - First 3 shaves and these are sharp and very very smooth. I feel it starting to dull on my 4 shave, but the blade remains smooth. The blade only lasted 5 shaves. Not sharp. I had to go over a few areas multiple times. But still maintained it's smoothness throughout my 5th shave.

Astra SP - First 3 shaves, this blade was much sharper than the Personna. But slightly less smooth. During my 4th shave, the blade remained sharp but somehow it felt as smooth as the Personna. It was the same during my 5th shave. Still sharp and Personna smooth. Somehow it increased in smoothness. By the time I was finishing my 6th shave, I could feel the blade start to dull and I had to do some additional clean up in certain areas, but still had no real problems cutting. Very slight tugging. The blade remained very smooth. I could stretch it to 7 but decided that 6 was good enough.

I did this comparison no less than 4 times over the last couple of months and got the same results. Happy to say that Astra SP is my favourite and works best for me and they are a lot cheaper than Personna Lab Blue blades here in Malaysia. The Personna is a close 2nd.

Feel free to share some thoughts.

Have a good day!

Mark

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[ElefManos]

Thank you for the comparison! Astras are great blades. I use them regularly along with the Voskhods, which are excellent too. Personnas are pretty hard to find here in Greece, but I will give them a whirl if I find them in stock.

 

[BigJ]

First, congratulations on finding your ’destination’ razor!! Great when you figure out what just works.

Second, you picked two of my top-tier blades!! Tough for me to criticize either.

Enjoy!!

 

[Mark1977]

Yeah these are 2 very very good blades. Cheers.

 

[Bobby1979]

Try voskod,its excellent,and also astra ss.

 

[MrSpeedy]

Good review! It will help others who are trying to find the "right" blade. Neither of those work well for me, but blades are very YMMV. Glad you found yours.

 

[JCarr]

Going to have to stick an Astra SP into my Timeless one of these days and test it against the Personna Lab Blue. You've inspired me to make a comparison! Thanks, comrade!

 

[Bobby1979]

Astras are pretty good,and they work with any razor.ss is my favorite.Will try persona lab again...

 

[Mark1977]

Going to have to stick an Astra SP into my Timeless one of these days and test it against the Personna Lab Blue. You've inspired me to make a comparison! Thanks, comrade!

Please let us know how it goes.

 

[JCarr]

Please let us know how it goes.

Absolutely! Just loaded up a fresh Astra SP into the Timeless. Will know something tomorrow morning. Personna Lab Blue I use regularly...Astra SP I had dropped from my rotation, but still have some around. Will post more.

 

[JCarr]

Used a new Astra SP this morning in my Timeless. The shave was ok. I found the blade to be a slight bit on the tuggy side for me. I am keeping it in my Timeless for a shave tomorrow and the next day. It should lose some coating and get a little sharper with subsequent shaves. I think Astra SP is ok, but not quite sharp enough for me out of the wrapper. For the money, it could definitely be what many folks call a "Holy Grail" blade...not great, but definitely good enough to get the job done at a great price point.

My current "Holy Grail" blade is the Derby Usta. I purchased 100 of those for $7.49 on Amazon a few weeks back.

 

[Mark1977]

Thanks for sharing.

 

[Starsky]

I’ve always liked Astra SP but now I often reach for the SS type. Both excellent blades

 

[dmshaver]

Astra & Personna are both excellent blades. Personally, I prefer the Lab Blues.

 

[sscob1]

Astra is my fav.

 

[Beantin]

Great review.
I have just tried the Astra sp today in my futur. It is the best blade I have tried in my short time of de shaving. Nice and sharp and very smooth with no irritation for me, which is hard with my sensitive neck.
Found it slightly better than the parker premium platinum, and a country mile ahead of the merkur platinum for me.
Still got a few more blades to try, but Astra sp is my yard stick blade so far.

 

[Mark1977]

Hi guys. While the Astra SP and Personna Lab Blue are my go to blades, 2 other blades seem to perform extremely well too. These 2 are shown in my picture below. The Gillette 7 O'clock Super Stainless from Russia and the Gillette Wilkinson Sword from India.
They are sharp and very smooth. Kevy Shaves calls the Gillette Wilkinson Sword the Paul H blade as Paul uses this blade a lot on his YouTube videos.
Both these blades are easily available in Malaysia and pretty cheap too. The Gillette Wilkinson Sword costs about USD 8 for a pack of 200 blades and the 7 O'clock Super Stainless is around USD 10 for 100 blades. I get 5 good shaves out of each blade.
While I still love the Astra SP and Personna Lab Blue a lot, they're more on the expensive side, especially the Lab Blue which costs around USD 25 for 100 blades. It was out of curiosity that I bought them. Luckily they turned out to be awesome blades.
I get equally good shaves with all 4 blades when paired with my Merkur 34C. These blades don't work well on my Parker Variant Adjustable. They feel way too aggressive. For the Variant, I usually use a much less sharper blade. The Israeli Personna feels perfect in the Variant. Well that's me. Great to hear all your feedback.
Have a great day.

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[Mark1977]

Used a new Astra SP this morning in my Timeless. The shave was ok. I found the blade to be a slight bit on the tuggy side for me. I am keeping it in my Timeless for a shave tomorrow and the next day. It should lose some coating and get a little sharper with subsequent shaves. I think Astra SP is ok, but not quite sharp enough for me out of the wrapper. For the money, it could definitely be what many folks call a "Holy Grail" blade...not great, but definitely good enough to get the job done at a great price point.

My current "Holy Grail" blade is the Derby Usta. I purchased 100 of those for $7.49 on Amazon a few weeks back.

The new Derby Extra that were produced after 2016 are excellent blades. They somehow managed to make the blade even smoother than before. It's a couple of steps up in terms of sharpness too. Really liking this blade

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[JCarr]

The new Derby Extra that were produced after 2016 are excellent blades. They somehow managed to make the blade even smoother than before. It's a couple of steps up in terms of sharpness too. Really liking this blade

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Thanks for your post. I didn't realize they had made a change to this blade.

 

[Mark1977]

Thanks for your post. I didn't realize they had made a change to this blade.

Yeah they did. Post 2016. The blade is a lot sharper. Derby was always known for its smoothness but was always looked at as being a rather dull blade. But they are now pretty sharp. About the same as Personna Lab Blue and even smoother than before. I have no idea how they did it. I was extremely surprised when I tried it out. Do give it a try and let us know what you think. Many people have tried it and have started liking it a lot.

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