We interrupt your scheduled programming for a pointless deviation on the subject of a rarely discussed razor blade...
Over the last week I have received about 18 tucks of different Indian and Egyptian blades. For most of my shaving career I have used Feathers or Gillette PPI blades, but with the impending move of Gillette's Russian blade manufacturing to India I thought, "Hey, why not try some of the blades that are already being made in places other than Russia?"
I intend to work my way through most of the Lord and SuperMax ranges, plus a few others. Why not? If anything really stands out, I may pick up a couple 100 of my favourites.
I have to admit that in a lot of instances, the scattered information I have found online about many of these blades didn't bode well, and left me fearing a couple of months of uncomfortable, sub-standard shaves. In particular, few seemed to have anything nice to say about the SuperMax Platinum, so being the contrarian that I am, I decided to make it one of the first blades to be tested.
And I'll be damned if this isn't a very fine blade. It's deceptively sharp and smooth - the kind of blade that feels efficient yet sufficiently forgiving that it encourages you to hunt down every last straggler for a perfect finish. It has delivered a VERY close shave in my GC 0.84, far closer than I anticipated and absolutely on par with some of the better Russian Gillette offerings. If I had to say anything negative, I would note a tiny bit of prickliness, and after the application of aftershave I did notice a minute weeper on my jawline (I rarely get weepers), but that's no doubt down to user error and over-confidence on my part. The overall quality of the shave, combined with the almost complete lack of sting from the Old Spice, inclines me to view this blade very favourably. Longevity remains to be proven, but I usually swap out blades fairly quickly anyway, so provided it can do 2 or 3 comfortable shaves I am happy.
So, based on this initial outing I am really not sure what the nay-sayers have against this blade. The only other Indian blade I have used up to now is the Gillette Wilkinson Sword. That's another surprisingly good blade, and I would consder this one very close in performance. If this is an example of what the unpopular SuperMax blades are like, I am really looking forward to trying the popular ones.
I wonder, does this blade actually have ANY fans at all? Is anyone using it as one of their favourites?
Over the last week I have received about 18 tucks of different Indian and Egyptian blades. For most of my shaving career I have used Feathers or Gillette PPI blades, but with the impending move of Gillette's Russian blade manufacturing to India I thought, "Hey, why not try some of the blades that are already being made in places other than Russia?"
I intend to work my way through most of the Lord and SuperMax ranges, plus a few others. Why not? If anything really stands out, I may pick up a couple 100 of my favourites.
I have to admit that in a lot of instances, the scattered information I have found online about many of these blades didn't bode well, and left me fearing a couple of months of uncomfortable, sub-standard shaves. In particular, few seemed to have anything nice to say about the SuperMax Platinum, so being the contrarian that I am, I decided to make it one of the first blades to be tested.
And I'll be damned if this isn't a very fine blade. It's deceptively sharp and smooth - the kind of blade that feels efficient yet sufficiently forgiving that it encourages you to hunt down every last straggler for a perfect finish. It has delivered a VERY close shave in my GC 0.84, far closer than I anticipated and absolutely on par with some of the better Russian Gillette offerings. If I had to say anything negative, I would note a tiny bit of prickliness, and after the application of aftershave I did notice a minute weeper on my jawline (I rarely get weepers), but that's no doubt down to user error and over-confidence on my part. The overall quality of the shave, combined with the almost complete lack of sting from the Old Spice, inclines me to view this blade very favourably. Longevity remains to be proven, but I usually swap out blades fairly quickly anyway, so provided it can do 2 or 3 comfortable shaves I am happy.
So, based on this initial outing I am really not sure what the nay-sayers have against this blade. The only other Indian blade I have used up to now is the Gillette Wilkinson Sword. That's another surprisingly good blade, and I would consder this one very close in performance. If this is an example of what the unpopular SuperMax blades are like, I am really looking forward to trying the popular ones.
I wonder, does this blade actually have ANY fans at all? Is anyone using it as one of their favourites?
