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The Goodfellas’ Smile - Styletto Aluminium

I bought the aluminium Styletto DE razor from The Goodfellas’ Smile (rasoigoodfellas web store) in Italy and since there isn’t a thread about it here yet I thought I’d post a short review.

The razor cost €70 and it looks very nice to me. I think it is well-styled, well-made, and they offer it with a choice of coloured anodised base plates (blue, green, red and gold). I think there is also a black anodised ‘aggressive’ plate that you can buy separately, with a slightly larger gap. It is 100% made in Italy.

I don’t know why but for some reason the name Styletto makes words like Scaramouche and Fandango run through my mind while I am shaving with it. Very very fright-en-ing, but also magnifico-o-o.

I’ve seen this razor getting some very enthusiastic reviews in different places and I thought it looked very cool and worth a try for the price.

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First of all it does look and feel very nice in-hand. The handle is grippy and comfortable and the razor is well-balanced. Fit and finish are high quality. There are a couple of nice details worth mentioning. The handle has a nylon washer installed so that you don’t scratch the base plate, and you don’t have to worry about the washer falling into the sink and being lost (but note that a regular nylon washer is slightly too large diameter to fit the space in the base plate, so best not to unclip and pull out the pre-installed washer). The base plate has three curved holes for rinsing and the safety bar follows this design with three wide scallops - it is a nice look and functions well.

It weighs 36g, the blade gap is 0.55mm with slightly positive exposure. The handle length is 85mm and diameter 13mm. It comes in an enormous box which is unnecessary but would be nice if you were gifting the razor to someone.

Regarding the shave, it is a fairly mild razor but with a lot of feedback, and you can feel the blade cutting but it’s always gentle. Actually it is very noisy. I feel like there is some blade chatter which, for me, meant that it struggled to cut short stubble against-the-grain as efficiently as I like, and I had to buff the same area multiple times to get perfectly close. But it was light and mild enough for me to buff a lot and not get irritation, and using an alcohol splash after the shave was still extremely comfortable - zero stinging. I got a good, long-lasting shave from it, but it required more work than I would like. But my stubble seems to be stiffer than many people’s at the base and I sometimes get these chattering issues when others don’t (e.g. Bic Chrome Platinum blades become chattery and even very rough against-the-grain on my hair but for many others they cut smoothly). I found the aluminium Henson medium that I also bought recently to be more efficient against-the-grain for me - most likely a more rigid blade edge - but the Styletto has more charm.

Despite the light weight of aluminium (36g) the razor wasn’t prone to skipping like some other light razors can be for me, and it was very pleasant to use. In the scheme of things I think this razor is better than most for me, very attractive and nice to use, very well-priced, and will give me a perfectly close and extremely safe shave (but just needs a lot of buffing for me to get the closeness I prefer). I think a lot of people would like this razor and if your hair isn’t excessively tough to cut through against-the-grain then it could be a really good razor for you.

I think it’s a very nice razor, especially considering the price. Not ideal for me in efficiency against-the-grain, but it might be perfectly good for others in that respect, and it gives a remarkably gentle shave with tonnes of feedback - feel and sound. It’s nice to hold, comfortable to shave with, nimble, easy to control, great build quality, and it looks very cool.
 

Iridian

Cool and slimy
The 1.10 steel Styletto is also on the noisy side. The aluminum versions have different gaps than the three stainless ones, which have 0.5, 0.85 and 1.10. Geometry was initially based on the Game Changer, but seems to have deviated significantly, particularly regarding the clamping for some gaps. I am a bit surprised that the low gap aluminum version is also noisy. For the 1.10 I thought it is due to quite significant unsupported exposure of the blade.

To my mind came rather bloody murder than Scaramouche and Fandango! :)
 
I've seen some folks complaining that their aluminium versions have/had misalignment issues due to the top cap being uneven. I've been curious about this razor, but since there's a noticable blade chatter, then it's a pass for me.

Their latest stainless steel razor seems promesing enough and a friend of mine has recently bought it and I might ask him for a test drive in the forseable future to see whatever if it's worth buying it or not.
 
I've seen some folks complaining that their aluminium versions have/had misalignment issues due to the top cap being uneven. I've been curious about this razor, but since there's a noticable blade chatter, then it's a pass for me.

Their latest stainless steel razor seems promesing enough and a friend of mine has recently bought it and I might ask him for a test drive in the forseable future to see whatever if it's worth buying it or not.
I wonder if I could eliminate the ‘chatter’ and improve the efficiency against-the-grain if I added a bit of pressure. The new steel Syntesi looks like a very similar head to the Aluminium Styletto, with some tweaks to blade gap/exposure, but perhaps the added weight of steel would resolve this too.

I’m surprised there are reported alignment issues with the Aluminium Styletto - it appears very well made indeed. There are older Styletto models in steel which are a different design and I’ve heard some mixed reviews about those.
 

ERS4

My exploding razor knows secrets
They also sell a titanium alloy (AISI 316Ti) version at around $120
316Ti only adds 0.2-0.7% titanium alloy, which is mainly 316 stainless steel.
316Ti is a specification developed to overcome the intergranular corrosion of 316ss. At that time, due to technical reasons, the smelting could not reduce the carbon content. Later, the technological improvement could reduce the carbon content and overcome the intergranular corrosion of 316, and finally formed 316L.

Of course, 316Ti still has advantages. The extra trace amount of Ti makes the metal have better stability and corrosion resistance at a high temperature of 800 ° C, so it is suitable for welding. Other mechanical properties are similar to 316L.

For example, the composition of grade five titanium (Ti6Al4V):
90% titanium + 6% aluminum + 4% vanadium + 0.25% iron + 0.2% oxygen
Its Ti content will be more suitable to be called "titanium alloy".
 
They have released an aluminium black plate which is for "deep shave". 0.65 instead of 0.56mm gap. I bought it. My mistake. They have made the black plate thicker, and that leads to more bending, which leads to less exposure than the normal 0.56 plate. So with the same blade I get closer shaves with the regular plate. Deep shave my foot! Italian engineering at its best. And 35 EUR well spent. Be warned!
 
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