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The Golden Age of Blades

There are so many great double edge blades available today, this MUST be the Golden Age. It's hard to find a bad blade, and not that many mediocre.

I think I see more bad remarks on Merkur and Dorco. There's a lot of Derby detractors, but some defenders too.

Personnas are pretty much universally loved.

My favorites are Feathers, but lately, Rapiras (Lux and Super Swede, although the latter blade is marked Lada.) are performing incredibly.

Let's hear some blade love...and hate.

Am I wrong? I know the old Wilkies were terrific...but has there ever been a better time for blades, overall?
 
I must confess that I like most blades. I hate the Dorco and have never tried Merkur, but most everything else I've tried gives a shave better than carts.

My biggest complaint is the wax they use on Astra blades (and a few others) when they package them. When I use HOT water, the wax melts and gets all over the blade and even the razor after going through several in a row.
 
There are so many great double edge blades available today, this MUST be the Golden Age. It's hard to find a bad blade, and not that many mediocre.

I think I see more bad remarks on Merkur and Dorco. There's a lot of Derby detractors, but some defenders too.

Personnas are pretty much universally loved.

My favorites are Feathers, but lately, Rapiras (Lux and Super Swede, although the latter blade is marked Lada.) are performing incredibly.

Let's hear some blade love...and hate.

Am I wrong? I know the old Wilkies were terrific...but has there ever been a better time for blades, overall?

I pretty much agree with you. Polsilver SIs, Personna Med Preps, and numerous others are great blades. But I must admit that UK Wilkinson Light Brigade and Personna 74s are just as good and last much longer.
 
I didn't shaved with a modern blade in months, I used Gillette SS from the early 90'S, Gillette SS from the 60's, Personna SPC from the 80's. At the moment, I'm using a Gillette Super Stainless 1966 L-4 :D
 
The Golden Age of blades was at the beginning of the century, there were thousands of brands available.
 
I agree the 60s and 70s were the age. Stainless had replaced carbon and the makers were trying to build market share with quality.

I do think this is a golden age for soaps/creams, however. But that is another topic.
 
I've only been DE shaving for 6 months so I can't comment on what has been, but I can say that most blades that I have tried do their job pretty well. For me the stand outs are the Gillettes. I really really like 7:00 Yellow blades. The jury is still out on the Silver Blue blades. I am going to try the 7:00 Black later in the year. I'm trying out the PolSilver Si blades now and feel like they are pretty darn good and Astra SP blades have done a great job for me as well.

All in all I think it is a good time to be DE shaving. Wait, is there a bad time to be DE shaving?
 
I've read about some relatively recent iridium blades that are no longer made that were superior to anything on the market today (including the impostors labeled as iridiums). Thoughts?
 
There are so many great double edge blades available today, this MUST be the Golden Age...
I agree 100%.
There will always be those who are sentimental, a hankering for the past etc - that's a big part of what makes this forum tick.
The internet & forums like this, knowledge & review sites, easy & fast international shipping means that I think we have such a vast resource compared to what folk had in the 1970's/80's, this is in fact the Golden Age of DE blades!
 
I have vague memories of blades on store shelves and advertised on television in the 60s and 70s. There was variety. I expect the quality was more of less the same as now. I remember shaving with Wilkinson Sword blades, and they were pretty good once I figured out it was better to shower first and not shave against the grain on my neck.

The astronomical distance between then and now is the internet. Back in the day, it's true, there was a variety of DE shaving stuff on the shelves at your local drugstore and grocery store, but that variety is nothing compared to what we have available with online shopping. In that sense I would say this is the golden age, except only we lucky few are aware of it.
 
Disagree 70's/80's blades were the finest

I tend to agree; in those days the DE blade was still the main wetshaving system and all the big brands stuffed their blades with the latest and best technology to take their piece of the market. These days most production of DE blades in the west has gone forever.

I agree the 60s and 70s were the age. Stainless had replaced carbon and the makers were trying to build market share with quality.

I do think this is a golden age for soaps/creams, however. But that is another topic.

I doubt that very much. Ok the market of small artisanal soap makers is growing but the big brands are letting us down a little here. Just think of the old Williams, Colgate and others; even cheap shaving soap was really good back then compared with nowadays standard. My vintage Williams is every bit as good as D.R.Harris (in shaving properties, not scent), to name one of the best for me, and it was on the shelf everywhere in the US. I think we went pretty much downhill from the 60's and 70's.....
 
Never before the consumer had a such a huge array of DE blades to choose from, thanks to the Internet and its world wide shopping opportunities.

Also, today we can buy virtually every blade that ever has been made, and many of them will still be able to deliver some decent or even great shaves, including blades of every single decade of more than one century.

However I agree that for those who like to keep it simple we are now not living in the golden age of blades but rather in decision-demanding hell!
 
I think the Golden Age is yet to come. When DE was king the technology and metallurgy was not as advanced as today and distribution networks were more limited. Now we have advances in technology but the market is much smaller. Perhaps, some day, DE will rule all men's jowls and then a fierce competition will push the technical aspects of the blade to even greater heights. Well, it's a beautiful dream and 'a man's reach should exceed his grasp'.
 
+1 :thumbup1:

I think the Golden Age is yet to come. When DE was king the technology and metallurgy was not as advanced as today and distribution networks were more limited. Now we have advances in technology but the market is much smaller. Perhaps, some day, DE will rule all men's jowls and then a fierce competition will push the technical aspects of the blade to even greater heights. Well, it's a beautiful dream and 'a man's reach should exceed his grasp'.
 
From a consumer point of view, I really can't see how things could have been better 40 years ago.
Nowadays you get a sample pack of 30 different blades or whatever, find out that eg Gillette Blacks made exclusively in India are your faves, give you better results than anything else & a few days later you have a couple of hundred of them.
This would simply not have been possible in the 1970's!
 
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