'Today's' Personna lab blues

[Southbound1]

Hello,

I am a bit confused with the different (three) varieties of Accuforge blades (Aka lab blues)or maybe they're not the same blade or maybe they are?? There's a blade that is wrapped individually in black wrapper and on the wrapper is says Accuforge and the blade has no markings of the brand name on the blade, its blank. Another blade is in a Personna box labeled comfort coated, the blades are also individually wrapped but in white paper also has no markings/etching of the brand on the blade. Then there's a third blade in a Personna box, and these are individually wrapped in white paper, and the blades are stamped with the name Personna. Are all these the same quality blade, or ground and sharpened under different specifications? I dont understand that there's some blades in boxes labeled Personna, but individually wrapped in white paper, but they share the unmarked blade as the Accuforge but the Accuforge blade is in a wrapper thats black and the wrapper says Accuforge.

So did Accutec/Accuforge just use up the remaining boxes, and white wrappers for the blades leftover by personna whenever they bought them out? Meaning whats on the shelf on these sellers websites are just the last remaining boxes of the Personna blade that has no stamps on the blade and are the same as the wrapped in black wrapper and says Accuforge?

 

[kirbyg]

So did Accutec/Accuforge just use up the remaining boxes, and white wrappers for the blades leftover by personna whenever they bought them out? Meaning whats on the shelf on these sellers websites are just the last remaining boxes of the Personna blade that has no stamps on the blade and are the same as the wrapped in black wrapper and says Accuforge?

I can't say for sure, but there is probably a good chance that is the case because I've used all three varieties over the past couple months, and as far as I can tell, they are all the same blade, the only difference being the packaging.

 

[reformedshavr]

I did a deep dive on this last winter, the thread is around here somewhere but TLDR:

AccuTech makes these two DE blades:

1) AccuThrive (old Personna Med Prep)

2) AccuForge (previously Personna Comfort Coated - aka 'Lab Blue' which was an unofficial name bestowed by the wet shaving community)

AccuTech has a factory in Verona VA .... this same facility produced the above (now defunct) Personna DE blades.
I have and use examples of all of the above and cannot discern between the previous and current leading me to believe they are the same blade specifications just branded differently.

 

[Southbound1]

I did a deep dive on this last winter, the thread is around here somewhere but TLDR:

AccuTech makes these two DE blades:

1) AccuThrive (old Personna Med Prep)

2) AccuForge (previously Personna Comfort Coated - aka 'Lab Blue' which was an unofficial name bestowed by the wet shaving community)

AccuTech has a factory in Verona VA .... this same facility produced the above (now defunct) Personna DE blades.
I have and use examples of all of the above and cannot discern between the previous and current leading me to believe they are the same blade specifications just branded differently.

The comfort coated in the Personna box, the ones that have white paper as a wrapper, but dont have anything etched on the blade, those are probably Accforce which is Personna labs?? Maybe whenever Accutec bought out Personna they had all those Personna branded boxes and white wrappers, they probably used those boxes and wrapper's first. The confusing thing for people is the box says Personna but the unmarked blade seems to resemble the unmarked Accuforge. Its probably just old stock still on the shelf on these different websites. Once that stock is gone we probably want see the Personna comfort coated anynore. Same blade just existing stock of comfort coated unmarked blades (which are probably made by Accforce) in Personna box. That's my guess.

 

[sm29]

My understanding is that at one time Edgewell (Israel and now Germany) and Accutech (Verona, VA) both produced Personna branded blades. I suspect that through various owners and divestitures of the Personna company, an agreement was reached where Edgewell would keep the Personna name and Accutech would be allowed to use the name for a specified period and need to rebrand the US blades at a predetermined date.

Since the Personna Lab Blues and Personna Med Preps were made in the same Verona, VA factory as the AccuForges and AccuThrives, it is difficult to imagine anything more than a name change.

 

[Tanuki]

The SE side of AccuTec rebranded and assigned new SKU numbers to the same products of old. In some cases there were intermediate steps (or missteps) along the way.

I doubt the DE products from Verona changed, although packaging and numbering changed greatly. If you poke around on the AccuTec website(s) you can sometimes find previous product numbers listed. Sometimes those previous product numbers are meaningful and correct.

 

[BigJ]

My understanding is that at one time Edgewell (Israel and now Germany) and Accutech (Verona, VA) both produced Personna branded blades. I suspect that through various owners and divestitures of the Personna company, an agreement was reached where Edgewell would keep the Personna name and Accutech would be allowed to use the name for a specified period and need to rebrand the US blades at a predetermined date.

Since the Personna Lab Blues and Personna Med Preps were made in the same Verona, VA factory as the AccuForges and AccuThrives, it is difficult to imagine anything more than a name change.

+1! This is my understanding based entirely on reading B&B threads.

Fortunately, I have a reasonable stock of the ‘old’ Labs and a larger stock of the Personna Israeli ‘reds!’

 

[profusion]

My understanding is that at one time Edgewell (Israel and now Germany) and Accutech (Verona, VA) both produced Personna branded blades. I suspect that through various owners and divestitures of the Personna company, an agreement was reached where Edgewell would keep the Personna name and Accutech would be allowed to use the name for a specified period and need to rebrand the US blades at a predetermined date.

Since the Personna Lab Blues and Personna Med Preps were made in the same Verona, VA factory as the AccuForges and AccuThrives, it is difficult to imagine anything more than a name change.

My understanding (and feel free to correct me!):

Personna was always just a brand name, AFAIK. The company was American Safety Razor Co., makers of the old GEM, Star and Ever Ready SE razors and blades. Personna blades go back to the pre-WWII period and may have been made by someone else originally. They eventually became ASRC's primary brand of DE blades.

At some point, ASRC was bought by Energizer(!), and then Edgewell eventually bought the blade-making business from Energizer. There may have been other owners in between, too.

Besides the Personna- and GEM-branded blades, Edgewell also made tons of generic store-branded blades of various types. Eventually, Edgewell moved the store-brand and consumer manufacturing over to Israel, and later to Germany. The Virginia plant moved its focus to the medical and specialty markets (industrial, scientific, barbershops, etc.). Edgewell then spun off the Virginia business as Accutec, which it remains today. There must have been some residual license for Accutec to keep using the Personna name for a period of time, even though Edgewell retains ownership of it. Both the Personna and GEM brands have largely been discontinued by Accutec recently.

I tend to think of Accutec as the true successor of ASRC and the GEM company.

 

[Ron R]

One of the fellow on site has done a great job of testing blades with a accurate method I believe. The Personna comfort coated are the lab blues is what I understand.

Blade Sharpness Research Project

The hook on the J in the J-shaped curves is short. I think it is there in all of them, but it is so small it sometimes hides between the first two bars. On the p9 and p12 bars, you are seeing the failure of the edge by medium chipping. This has an exponential component that grows to the right...

www.badgerandblade.com

Have some great shaves!