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Personna Medical Prep Sample

Does anyone know where I can pickup 1-2 of the Personna Medical DE blades to try out (the ones with Hospital Use Only stamped on them)?

I hear great things about them and want to give them a try.

thanks!!
 
Check leesrazors.com

i'll double check but one of the popular b&b vendors sent me a 5 pack in a sampler. They are amazing, IMO. And made in the US.
 

Toothpick

Needs milk and a bidet!
Staff member
Take a look at the Blade Exchange over in the blades sub-forum.

http://badgerandblade.com/vb/showthread.php/362918-The-Great-Blade-Exchange

I can't tell you for sure if the ones I have are stamped "for medical use only".
I believe, based on several threads here and one that has direct information from Personna, that the medical blades (meds) simply go through a sanitation bath before packaging. Thus in my opinion there is no difference between the meds and the labs in the blue wrapper. I don't believe an extra sanitation wash is going to make them shave better or worse.
Because of this I have lumped them both in one category in the exchange: Personna Blue Wrapper.
 
I believe, based on several threads here and one that has direct information from Personna, that the medical blades (meds) simply go through a sanitation bath before packaging. Thus in my opinion there is no difference between the meds and the labs in the blue wrapper. I don't believe an extra sanitation wash is going to make them shave better or worse.

Perennial question: are they really the same? I'm familiar with the party line from Personna (same exact blade except for the final wash), but this thread included photos of the two blades under magnification that showed a pretty dramatic difference. (Unfortunately, the photos are no longer there! :sad:) Then there's this thread from 2010, where ackvil reported on his conversation with a regional sales manager for the medical division of the Personna American Safety Razor Co., who said that the blades were identical. However, ackvil also says:

I asked why the two blades and the answer is that the same blade is made by two different divisions. The Robbins blade [Med Prep] is made by the Medical Division while the EMS blade [Lab] is made by the "industrial" division, which sells it to labs.

I've always wondered whether "two different divisions" means that the blades are made in two different factory locations, and whether possible differences in the machinery at the two locations account for a difference in the blades -- perceived by some to be a great difference and by others to be no difference at all. Unless someone has an inside line deep into Personna, we may never know for sure.
 
I believe this more than anything. I was just letting folks know as far as the blade exchange goes they are Personna Blue Wrapper :biggrin1:

Understood, and in that context it makes perfect sense. Maybe we should all adopt the "Blue Wrapper" moniker and save ourselves a lot of hand-wringing. But, hmmm, that wouldn't work outside of the blade exchange because of the price differential. In that respect, they are not the same blade. O Personna, where is your Deep Throat who will reveal all? :biggrin:
 
Well, I don't think Personna's going to give us shavers an exact answer to all of this... the mystery of it all is making them money..
Nobody would buy the Meds anymore (most likely) if we were told they are the same as the Labs.... I do find all of this rather amusing, games of commerce... but to be on the safe side, I stocked up a little on the Meds from Robbins... they are my favorite blade...

Someday I'll get some Labs just to try them out........

John H.
 
I believe Amazon only sells Personnas in the Blue Wrapper and Personnas in the Red Wrapper. They don't make any blades labeled "Labs" anymore.
 
The Personna Blues are the Labs. The do not say "Lab" on them.

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Med Preps

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"two different divisions" means that the blades are made in two different factory locations, and whether possible differences in the machinery at the two locations account for a difference in the blades -- perceived by some to be a great difference and by others to be no difference at all.

My take-away from their response was that it is two different machinery lines.

Now, having said that, it isn't the least bit unusual for manufacturers to have flexible production equipment that can produce multiple products, and to also produce the identical product in multiple manufacturing centers. A rubber gasket manufacturer like Federal Mogul will have a production floor with 40 injection molding presses all producing the same gasket product. It's the same part number going into the basket to GM, but it's 40 different sets of molds making the part. It's QA's job to make sure they all meet the spec.

I really believe it's more a case of individual faces and preferences than slacker production standards on the industrial line. Coke and Pepsi manage to survive and thrive. I know folks who will ask for a Coke, and if not available refuse Pepsi. I couldn't care less. Not that I can't taste the difference; I just can't find it in me to care about the difference. (I'm not saying there's a difference in the blades. IDK.)
 
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I think the Personna Blues are the same as the Labs and the Med Prep. I don't think you can buy new stock of either the Labs or Med Preps.

They are all Personna Plues.
 
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Hi,

I had said I wasn't going to chime in on any more Blues vs. Med threads. Yet, here I am! :p

The two lines are in the same plant in Verona, VA. Both run to the same specifications, with the same tolerances. Somewhere on this board, in one of the many threads, is an email from Personna Verona with this info in it. Depending on where in the tolerance range any two sample blades fall, you may see a microscopic difference. Or, not. I have done my own looking under a microscope of samples of Blues vs. Meds and failed to detect a noticeable difference, other than oil on the Blues and not on the Meds. But then, Meds are washed to clean off machine oil. Blues are not. The Blues *used* to say Laboratory Use Only on them, and came in a blue box with white writing, the mirror image of the medical prep ones. That hasn't been seen in at least 20 years. Meds are not sterilized, if they were, they would be wrapped quite differently, and say so on the wrapper. The hospital would autoclave anything stainless if it needs to be sterile anyway, so why bother during production?

I agree that we all should consider Blues and Meds to be the same for our use, and also drop the term Lab 20 years ago. ;)

Stan
 
Hi,

I had said I wasn't going to chime in on any more Blues vs. Med threads. Yet, here I am! :p

The two lines are in the same plant in Verona, VA. Both run to the same specifications, with the same tolerances. Somewhere on this board, in one of the many threads, is an email from Personna Verona with this info in it. Depending on where in the tolerance range any two sample blades fall, you may see a microscopic difference. Or, not. I have done my own looking under a microscope of samples of Blues vs. Meds and failed to detect a noticeable difference, other than oil on the Blues and not on the Meds. But then, Meds are washed to clean off machine oil. Blues are not. The Blues *used* to say Laboratory Use Only on them, and came in a blue box with white writing, the mirror image of the medical prep ones. That hasn't been seen in at least 20 years. Meds are not sterilized, if they were, they would be wrapped quite differently, and say so on the wrapper. The hospital would autoclave anything stainless if it needs to be sterile anyway, so why bother during production?

I agree that we all should consider Blues and Meds to be the same for our use, and also drop the term Lab 20 years ago. ;)

Stan

How very interesting! I suppose it really does make sense to take Personna at their word and accept that they are the same blade. The idea that the final wash of the Meds does nothing more than remove oil makes sense. Now the question becomes, can the presence of trace amounts of machine oil on the Labs make a difference in the shave? For myself, I can't detect the least bit of oiliness in my Labs, and any difference in the way they shave is minuscule. Or maybe it's all in my imagination.

As for chucking the "Lab" descriptor, that too makes total sense, but old linguistic habits die hard and I suspect that it will be used into the indefinite future, because it's so deeply engrained, and because most of the people who care about these things know what it means.
 
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