The 2023: 1-Blade, 1-Week, Daily Shaving Adventure

[ShavingPrimate]

Bravo! Can you do a full week of quality shaves, that is the question? It looks like you are already past the halfway point!

One thing I am finding out is that there are cheep blades and there are inexpensive blades. Dorco blades tend to fall into the later category.

 

[ShavingPrimate]

Week 38 Ends: Blade is the Treet Platinum Super Stainless.

Excellent shaves this entire week, from the 1st shave on. Makes me downgrade my "C" rating on the Gillette London Bridge to a "D". I'm afraid my previous week with the London Bridge was a rather dreadful affair!

The Treet Platinum Super Stainless was both sharp and ever so smooth. I used this blade with the R41 head for two shaves. I used it with the classic Wilkinson Sword $14 TTO razor for the last two shaves. Noting that this razor is a bit more aggressive than the DE89.

Still plenty sharp enough for a few more shaves.

Note: the Wilkinson Sword razor has gone up $4 on Amazon and is currently selling for $17.99. This is still a good deal on this decent quality TTO razor.

Equally significant is the extremely low cost for these Treat DE blades.

These are selling for $11.95 on Amazon for 200 blades

A super nice blade for only 6-Cents each!

 

[coops]

I'm living in Thailand where the available range of DE blades is quite small... but Feathers are one of those easy to get hold of and around $10ish to $15 per 100 - so I did start DE shaving with those & a mild Henson. 3 or 4 days seemed enough for them... but then I found the great & wonderful

Gillette London Bridge - from Shopee, about $3.80 per 100 inc delivery (!) - bought hundreds once i'd found they'll give a fine 1 weeks worth of shaves without any drama.
Now use a Tatara Masamune, 2 pass daily shave - and every Saturday remove the blade after a weeks use and give the razor a scrub ready for Sunday am to start the next week.

Gillette London Bridge Blades

Thailand - online from Lazada or Shopee Also available on eBay, item No. 184676059433.

www.badgerandblade.com

 

[ShavingPrimate]

Gillette London Bridge - from Shopee, about $3.80 per 100 inc delivery (!) - bought hundreds once i'd found they'll give a fine 1 weeks worth of shaves without any drama.

Those in the Orange colored tucks were the blade that I was using the week before.

Not a good week. But, next year, I plan to revisit the few blades that definitely gave me sub-par shaves this year. With the realization that QC isn't perfect, I realize that a blade will need at least another chance. So be it.

While only two blades are still less than definitive, it is something that I will not harbor any particular concern over.

I have thirty blades in quantities of one hundred or more. With very few exceptions, almost every blade that I have shaved with so far this year, has yielded a full week of quality shaves. Those that fail to do so, after having been given a second chance, will be no longer be held among my top blades.

A full week of daily decent shaves is my quest. It is now obvious to me, that the majority of blades, by far, will be able to accomplish this.

Price, surprisingly enough, appears to have less to do with this than I would have otherwise thought.

In fact, it could be an incentive for those who change their blades more often.

 

[ShavingPrimate]

Week 39 Begins: Blade is the Personna Platinum Chrome.

These are the ones in a white plastic box with a blue cardboard insert. They appear to come from Isreal.

 

[blethenstrom]

Week 38 Ends: Blade is the Treet Platinum Super Stainless.

Excellent shaves this entire week, from the 1st shave on. Makes me downgrade my "C" rating on the Gillette London Bridge to a "D". I'm afraid my previous week with the London Bridge was a rather dreadful affair!

The Treet Platinum Super Stainless was both sharp and ever so smooth. I used this blade with the R41 head for two shaves. I used it with the classic Wilkinson Sword $14 TTO razor for the last two shaves. Noting that this razor is a bit more aggressive than the DE89.

Still plenty sharp enough for a few more shaves.

Note: the Wilkinson Sword razor has gone up $4 on Amazon and is currently selling for $17.99. This is still a good deal on this decent quality TTO razor.

Equally significant is the extremely low cost for these Treat DE blades.

These are selling for $11.95 on Amazon for 200 blades

A super nice blade for only 6-Cents each!

I find the Treet Platinums very nice myself. A great deal as well.

 

[blethenstrom]

Those in the Orange colored tucks were the blade that I was using the week before.

Not a good week. But, next year, I plan to revisit the few blades that definitely gave me sub-par shaves this year. With the realization that QC isn't perfect, I realize that a blade will need at least another chance. So be it.

While only two blades are still less than definitive, it is something that I will not harbor any particular concern over.

I have thirty blades in quantities of one hundred or more. With very few exceptions, almost every blade that I have shaved with so far this year, has yielded a full week of quality shaves. Those that fail to do so, after having been given a second chance, will be no longer be held among my top blades.

A full week of daily decent shaves is my quest. It is now obvious to me, that the majority of blades, by far, will be able to accomplish this.

Price, surprisingly enough, appears to have less to do with this than I would have otherwise thought.

In fact, it could be an incentive for those who change their blades more often.

I could have not said it better. I also find the great majority of the blades that I test to make it a full week without problems. Is there difference between them sure but nothing to get too excited about.

 

[lasta]

I could have not said it better. I also find the great majority of the blades that I test to make it a full week without problems. Is there difference between them sure but nothing to get too excited about.

I find those minute differences the most exciting thing about shaving gear!

 

[blethenstrom]

I find those minute differences the most exciting thing about shaving gear!

Absolutely

 

[ShavingPrimate]

I find those minute differences the most exciting thing about shaving gear!

Still, it gets down to a point that these minute differences are negated by the time of day I shave. Even a few hours differences in my days off can result in a noticeably different shaving experience.

Here we are at week 39 and only one bad shaving experience. That was with the Treet Carbon "Black Beauty".

All of the other, not overly inspiring, shaves were just average. All of these were with blades that were priced under $10 per-hundred. As such, they were "average" priced blades to begin with, no surprises here.

Still, other under $10/100 blades, like the Treat Platinum (above) yielded a quality shave, despite its very modest pricing. In fact, I find that many "average" price blades, do hit above what their price points would tend to suggest.

There are many of these $5 to $10 per-hundred blades that fall into this quality category.

I find the major difference to be the razor that I am using. I use my blades in different razors and each blade performs about the same as the others, when used in that particular razor.

We are now 3/4 of the way through the year. As this year concludes, I will attempt to draw some conclusions about the different blades.

Still noting, this thread is not about any specific razor blade reviews, only a few comments of note about how that particular blade fared for the week.

 

[blethenstrom]

Still, it gets down to a point that these minute differences are negated by the time of day I shave. Even a few hours differences in my days off can result in a noticeably different shaving experience.

Here we are at week 39 and only one bad shaving experience. That was with the Treet Carbon "Black Beauty".

All of the other, not overly inspiring, shaves were just average. All of these were with blades that were priced under $10 per-hundred. As such, they were "average" priced blades to begin with, no surprises here.

Still, other under $10/100 blades, like the Treat Platinum (above) yielded a quality shave, despite its very modest pricing. In fact, I find that many "average" price blades, do hit above what their price points would tend to suggest.

There are many of these $5 to $10 per-hundred blades that fall into this quality category.

I find the major difference to be the razor that I am using. I use my blades in different razors and each blade performs about the same as the others, when used in that particular razor.

We are now 3/4 of the way through the year. As this year concludes, I will attempt to draw some conclusions about the different blades.

Still noting, this thread is not about any specific razor blade reviews, only a few comments of note about how that particular blade fared for the week.

That is impressive to have that consistent shave results as you have over the year so far and with the wide variety blades you have used. Now I should not complain either. Once I started to shave one whole week with each blade and then also doing it tuck by tuck I have encountered very stable results as well. Sure I have an outlier bad shave day ones in a while, but for the great great majority of shaves it has been very good.

I am like you I rotate through my razors with each of the blades and that has also made me learn and shave better with the razors that I do own. I have not really encountered any of the blades that I have used unusable. Sure are there some differences yes, but nothing real earth shattering. It is been just a bunch of nice solid shaves.

 

[ShavingPrimate]

Week 39 Ends: Blade is the Personna Platinum Chrome.

Absolutely a fantastic week of quality shaves. Sharp and smooth from the first through the 7th day.

Have also used my Parker R89 type razor. It is slightly more efficient than the K.C.G. or the EJ Kelvin DE89. Still easy to shave with.

Had some close, quality shaves, this entire week. Next year, I might give the newer German blades a go?

Blade is still plenty sharp!

 

[ShavingPrimate]

Week 40 Begins: Blade is the Gillette 7-O'clock Super Stainless.

These are the 7-O'clock "Green's" that come from the PPI plant in Russia.

The other 7-O'clock "Greens" are the Permasharps which are manufactured by Gillette in India.

 

[ShavingPrimate]

Week 40 Ends: Blade is the Gillette 7-O'clock Super Stainless.

These are the 7-O'clock "Green's" that come from the PPI plant in Russia.

Week started out fine. Blade shaved smoothly.

On day 6, I started to shave with the R41 head, which has a lot of blade feel. At first contact, it was not slicing clean as the day before.

Realizing that this was not going to be a good idea, I changed to the Rocca R94. It went OK.

Earlier today, was shave #7, again with the R94 (no skipped days). Managed to shave without any real issues but the blade was tugging a bit. Definitely, no more shaves with this blade!

Have to say that this Super Stainless "Green" made it through the week, but just barely.

Overall, this would not make my list for a 7-day shave. This makes only the 2nd blade that was not given a passing grade. The other was the Treet Carbon "Black Beauty".

And so it goes...

 

[ShavingPrimate]

Week 41 Begins: Blade is the London Bridge. This is the original Made in England blade.

 

[APBinNCA]

I completely forgot to post that my Dorco Titan made it across the finish line! I did 8 shaves total, but 2 were half shaves. That still qualifies as 7 to me. This blade really impresses me with consistent comfortable shaves, but only in the medium sharpness range. These are one of those blades, which I look for, that are more effective than their sharpness would indicate. By this I mean that even if they have some resistance, they never start skipping and produce a patchy shave. These take this to a high level by delivering the same comfort from first to last shave, but if I am honest, the last two shaves aren't as close as I want and 6 shaves is plenty at this price! I already have over a hundred and will add more to pad orders.

 

[ShavingPrimate]

I completely forgot to post that my Dorco Titan made it across the finish line! I did 8 shaves total, but 2 were half shaves. That still qualifies as 7 to me.

That works! The core objective here is to determine if a blade can last 7-days worth of daily shaves.

It is really an arbitrary number of shaves. Modern blades are sharper than vintage blades. Being thinner overall, they don't last as long.

Nobody wants a sub-par shave that is uncomfortable or doesn't shave close or smooth.

It is for this reason, that it seems that the majority only use a blade a few days (shaves) before replacing it. I think that this is a bit short but I do understand the reasons behind doing so.

Having many blades, I would prefer not having to say, this blade goes five days and that blade goes eight. My preference is not to keep track but to use a fresh blade each week. That would apply only if the blade does successfully go the entire week and continues to deliver quality shaves...

Stressing that a four day blade is not necessarily a bad blade, it would not be my preference, having a short longevity.

As an example, the blade I used the week before, the Gillette 7-O'clock Super Stainless, "PPI Green". From a website that was reviewing this blade, refinedshave:

"After the second shave the sharpness dropped to 40. While there was not a significant decrease in sharpness I did personally find the smoothness decreasing. Although I would not use the Gillette 7 O’clock Super Stainless for another shave, it still performed through my second full head and face shave well. I can see someone just shaving their face every other day easily getting a week out of this blade."

Different criteria, that's all. Someone who uses a blade 3-4 days before changing it out, might find this blade to be perfect for their shaving needs.

We seem to be in complete agreement with regard to the Treet Black Beauty:

"I have now tested over 25 different DE razor blades to date, and the Treet Black Beauty is the first razor blade time that I actually had to use another blade to finish. There was no way I could go for dinner after the first shave or work after the second shave looking how the treet Black Beauty left me."

 

[blethenstrom]

The last Rapira Platinum Lux blade in my tuck was finished on Saturday Evening. It has been a great blade with many good shaves. It easily holds up for an entire week's worth of shaves for me without struggling. The last shave I got from this blade on Saturday was a very nice smooth BBS. I even starting using/learning a new razor with it in the Fatip Grande OC.

This week is the Astra SP blade.

 

[ShavingPrimate]

Week 41 Ends: Blade is the London Bridge. This is the original Made in England blade.

Have to say that this blade is better than the current not made in England version.

Didn't start off as anything spectacular. More sort of average, I wasn't expecting much.

But, as the week progressed, I began to like this blade more and more.

These observations are not really very important and don't mean much of anything. Just some observations that compare the original to the blade that is currently available.

A core part of my intention in starting this thread, was to see if currently available, off the shelf blades would yield a week's worth of quality shaves?

Because I have been gifted some additional blades, I decided to include them. This did allow me to complete the year in blade evaluations.

Having some original blades does give us a comparison to more current versions of the "same" blade.

I had been mostly using a DE89 razor or similar, because it represented more of an average shave. I did use the R41 head and the Rocca R94 head a few times this week to see how a close shave with this blade performed.

It preformed very well for the entire week and is still up for additional shaves.

 

[ShavingPrimate]

Week 42 Begins: Blade is the Gillette 7-O'clock Permasharp "Green". The blade made in India.