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What is considered 'expensive' when considering $/per blade?

JCinPA

The Lather Maestro
My Gillette 7 O'Clock blacks (India) at about $0.25 per blade and two per week is $0.50 per week. But my remaining 380 blades were purchased at $0.10 each :cool:

Lately, I discovered Kai blades last a week for me, so at $0.35 per week, less than the 7 O'Clock SP's.

I've also started stocking large numbers of NOS vintage blades, those also shave for a full week. They are going for $1.00 per blade lately, although I have over a hundred at 70 cents. But call that $1.00 per week.

Thinking about a per week cost is what made me loosen up on buying vintage blades. It's just silly to worry about the price at less than the cost of a cup of coffee per week. And I'm not talking FourBucks here, I'm talking McDonald's. :lol:


In keeping with the cost per shave (I'm a daily shaver) these translate into 7 cents for the SP's, a nickel per shave for the Kais, and 14 cents per shave for the vintage.
 
# Shark Super Chrome is a wild card blade, I have yet to purchase it in bulk but I'm looking for a good price for it.

It gave me 6 great shaves with Lupo 95 and smoothness was great, second only to Nacet blade.
Shark Super Chromes are incredible in the Lupo (in my case the 72) better than all other blades I used to use.
I just ordered 100 each of Shark Stainless and Lord Platinum from Jeff Bezos company at 7 cents a blade each. I get 4 or 5 good shaves from each of those.
Shark blades are incredible value indeed!
 
Shark Super Chromes are incredible in the Lupo (in my case the 72) better than all other blades I used to use.

Shark blades are incredible value indeed!
I just sold my Lupo 95 and I haven't purchased the Shark Super Chrome in bulk yet, I have one or two individuals of super chrome to test with the Game Changer 84 Open Comb and Wunderbar.

If it performs similarly smooth then it's definitely worth getting a 100.

Shark Super Chrome blade is definitely more smoother than Gillette Wilkinson Sword (India) and at half the price of Gillette 7 O'clock Super Platinum blades.
 
I just sold my Lupo 95 and I haven't purchased the Shark Super Chrome in bulk yet, I have one or two individuals of super chrome to test with the Game Changer 84 Open Comb and Wunderbar.

If it performs similarly smooth then it's definitely worth getting a 100.

Shark Super Chrome blade is definitely more smoother than Gillette Wilkinson Sword (India) and at half the price of Gillette 7 O'clock Super Platinum blades.

They work well in the Game Changer .84p, .68p and .68 Jaws. Don't have an open comb variant of the .84 however.
I will say that all the Razorock models that I own have no issues with them like the BBS OC etc.
 
For me to evaluate price I need to consider how many shaves I get from a blade. Feather, I get two shaves & toss. Feather is about .30 per blade. Some of my vintage blades are $1 & more per blade, but I can get 10 or more shaves from each blade. Either way, I'm spending .10 - .15 per shave for my "expensive" blades.

Another example, I really like Nacet blades. Those are about .15 per blade & I get 7 - 10 shaves per blade. So those cost me a couple of cents per shave.

Am I OK spending that on myself? Yes, whether it's .02 or .15 per shave.
 
I buy cheap and stay cheap.
Most expensive blades I had years ago were some Personna Med Preps that cost over 30 cents apiece. I don’t use them anymore as I’ve more or less been using Russian blades. I get great shaves from Nacets and 7 o’clock blades. They cost under 15 cents apiece. Astras we’re 8 bucks per 100 for me. 1 or 2 cents cost per shave is my standard. My favorite blades don’t cost more than 15 dollars per 100. Why pay more? Think of how much money the cartridge shavers are throwing away on their modern razors compared to the DE group, it’s insane. 🙀🙀🙀
 
Feather Artist Club Supers are pretty expensive. They go for $30 AUD for a 15 pack around here. That’s $1.50 per blade.

I’m normally a one and done kind of guy with DE blades but I stretch the SE blades to three shaves. It actually makes a razor like the Vector pretty expensive to run.
 
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Ditto on what everyone has said about vintage blades. But whatever floats your boat. I’m of the belief that unless you’re doing something very wrong, none of these blades are “that” expensive. Again though, “expensive” is relative.

The blade may be the most underrated part of our shaves - and people don’t give it enough credit. So I say find the right blade and forget about the price.

As long as the lather is there, it’s the blade that does the heavy lifting; assuming that you have it in any decent working razor.


I became disenchanted with all of my nice expensive badger brushes when I realized a good boar got the right kind of lather on my face just as well, albeit with a different facefeel - which is not even necessarily a bad thing. And now a synthetic will do the job even faster and dare I say better, or at least easier. So I sold off all my badgers but for one with sentimental value.

The money that was freed up funded some “blade research”, and I found out that NOS blades agreed with me. So now that’s what I get. And yes, of the blades available, those will certainly be the most expensive. But there’s a limited number of them left on this earth and I am willing to pay to have some for myself!

What really is expensive in the long run? For me it doesn’t matter because this is my hobby. If I were trying to shave as cheaply as possible then I would be doing the calculations you guys are all doing. But among hobbies, this still has got to be one of the cheaper ones (you won’t find me starting a watch collection anytime soon)!
 

BradWorld

Dances with Wolfs
Personna 74’s are going for about $5 a blade now. But if you can get 50 plus shaves from one blade, that amortizes out to 10 cents a shave. Not too bad to shave with a piece of unobtanium that may be the best blade ever made. I’m happy i bought a bunch under a dollar a blade long ago.

I also noticed Astra SP has almost doubled in price lately. They were selling around $7 per hundred not to long ago. Now they are over $12 on Amazon and the bay, which is too expensive.

So it’s basically all relative. I think for a super premium modern blade a max of 20 to 25 cents a blade isn’t bad. Regular modern blades can go as low as 7 cents a blade if you shop around. Vintages … I don’t feel bad paying up to a buck a blade.
 
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