Derby Extra 2: Electric Boogaloo

Just a quick note on returning to a blade you've tried before:

I hated my first time with Derby Extra blades. Hated them. They mauled my face and left me in pain. Horrible things. Pish. 

But that was months and months ago when I was just learning to wet shave and I was no doubt wielding my Mühle around like a cartridge razor. Surely I must have perfected my technique by now eh? Look at the results I've had lately with those Wilkies. That can't be all down to the blade, I must be learning. 

I stuck another Derby blade in my R89 and set about a two day growth. FFS. More pain, more tugging, more rash. I abandoned the shave after the first WTG pass. My face was chewed up so badly that I couldn't even finish my shave with another blade. Night ruined, might as well just go to bed. 

So my second attempt at a Derby blade went much the same as my first. I hated my second time with Derby Extra blades. Hated them. They mauled my face and left me in pain. Horrible things. Pish. 

I may be learning how to shave, but sometimes I never learn...

The New Standard - Wilkinson Sword Classic

* I wrote this post about 6 weeks ago but on the notes app on my phone. So here we are, posted in its entirety even if my opinions have changed slightly since.*

Hello again folks, it's been a long time since I've written a post for this blog but there has been good reason. I think I've found 'my' blade! Well, I've found a blade in very happy with and I decided to stick with it for a few months.

That blade was the German made Wilkinson Sword Classic. The one in the black plastic dispenser. I bought some from the local village pharmacy one day (50p for 10 blades incidentally - think they had stickered them wrong but whatever) and had planned on just taking them offshore with me the next time I was in the North Sea. 

That was what, March or something? Yeah, must've been March. I didn't look back. From the first use these blades performed just as well as my favoured Israeli Personnas, but with less tugging on a 3 day growth. 

I need a three pass shave with the Wilkies though, as after my XTG pass I do notice a little bit of roughness around the edge of my chin that I hadn't noticed before. This turned out to be a common trait even through half a dozen blades and over 30 shaves. I put this down to how mild the blades seem in my R89 - itself known to be a mild razor. This is evident in the fact that not once while using the Wilkies did I ever have any sort of razor burn or even the smallest of cuts. Just a comfortable shave time and again. Towards the end there I barely noticed any tingle from my alum block, such was the silkiness of my shave. 

This is the kind of result I would have expected from a 'fancy' blade. You know, a feather or kai or something exotic. Not your run of the mill village shop kinda blade. And not at 5p per blade... a whopping 1.75p per shave. That's right, once again I'm averaging 4 shaves per blade. I think that's just what my hair does to blades. The second shave is usually the smoothest for me. 

So, onto the overview I guess, but you can tell I have a new favourite and a new go-to blade. I'll stock up on these bad boys when I'm next in the village. 

• Wilkinson Sword Classic
• Cost per blade: 5p
• Cost per shave: 1.75p
• Place of manufacture: Germany
• Material: 
• Average Shaves/Blade: 4
• Aggressiveness: Minimal. Smooth as you like. 
• Safety Razor Used: Muhle R89 Closed Comb
• Soap Used: Palmolive Classic Shave Stick. 

Sainsbury's Dorco ST301 Double Edged Blades

After my unexpected success with the Tesco Israeli Personna blades I've been keen to find out what other rebranded things are available on the British high street. Our local Asda don't seem to sell anything other than carts and canned goo, while the Morrisons stock even less than that. I noticed that Boots sell the exact same Personnas as Tesco, albeit in their own brand packaging and at a 25% markup over the supermarket. Still, they sell their own very well regarded shave creams and sticks (resplendent in their very 80s packaging) so I'll let them off.

And that leaves us with the other big supermarket: Sainsburys. The 'orange shop' as my 3 year old calls it, had a nice surprise in store when I noticed a very similarly priced pack of 10 blades with a slightly different cover card and which is marked "Produced and packed in Vietnam"

Sainsbury's Packaging and Vietnam origin claim.

Mapping my own growth direction

Good afternoon gents, a bit of a different direction with today's post as I'm not yet ready to write up the next blade review.

There has been something bothering me since I started wet shaving again and I see it come up regularly on forums such as badgerandblade and Reddit's own r/wicked_edge. The direction of hair growth in my beard is something which I've always assumed was very straight forward. In fact, I remember my dad telling me " you shave with the grain, so downwards on your face and upwards on your neck" when I started shaving in the mid 90s. Maybe that's how his growth comes in, but as I've recently found out... that trait was not passed down to me.

Tesco (Israeli Personna) DE Blades.

Hello again and welcome to a surprising blade review. Well, I was surprised anyway - these blades were much better than their humble origins would suggest.

Tesco's re-branded Personna DE blades.

These are Tesco own branded DE blades and are a very reasonable £2.00 for 10 blades. Not the best when you consider the Derby blades in my last review can be had for 6p each when bought in bulk... but more than acceptable for small packs in a supermarket.

I was walking around Tesco with my wife and spotted them down the bottom of all the blingy cartridge refills, unloved along with a rather dusty looking Wilkinson Sword shaving brush. Needless to say, a pack of the blades soon found its way into our shopping trolley.

The Israeli Giveaway! 

I found it interesting to note that the pack had "Produced and packed in Israel" written on the back which seemed odd, even for a multinational chain like Tesco. Some internet sleuthing later and it was apparent that these blades are simply rebranded Personna blades and this fact seems well known in the wet shaving world. I can't for the life of me figure out which particular Personna blade these are, but some have suggested they're Personna Tomy. I'll be sure to test as many Personnas as I possibly can in the future.

Delighted with my new discovery I set about have a shave after around 4 days of growth since my final Derby Debacle The pack of 10 blades comes in a simple blister pack and is your usual white plastic dispenser type with the handy slot on the back for used blades. Each completely unmarked blade is wrapped in plain white paper feels of reassuring quality.

The first of many Tesco blades to be fitted to my R89

The first blade I used didn't quite centre in my Muhle R89 perfectly so some slight adjustment was required to even it out. I must state, however, that each subsequent blade I've used has been perfectly centred right away.

So onto the shave itself - as usual with a face lather from the Palmolive stick and trusty boar brush.
First impressions with the first strokes of the first pass were amazing. These things were NOTHING like the horrible Derbys before. Smooth, clean, mild... they just glided through my stubble with zero effort. I found this to be the case through the whole of my first pass even with the extra few days growth. Even better than my favoured Muhle Raserkulturs.
Pass two and three went by much the same and I was left with a closeness I've yet to better - I would say this is the closest to BBS I could manage with my R89 and I am delighted. My alum block wipe only proved to me what I already knew - this was the best shave I've had since, well... since ever!

I'd love to have a caveat at the bottom here to end on but performance wise there really is nothing to complain about for me. Sure, at 20p each they could be expensive to buy in bulk (I need to dig more into which Personna these are... maybe the originals could be ordered online in packs off 100?) but even that issue is negated by my next point. I got 6 full shaves out of this first blade and it did not seem to be dulling at all. Phenomenal. The only reason I changed out was to compare this blade with its buddy out the packet to determine consistency. That and the fact that I have a growing collection of other blades to try out & I'm keen to get onto them!

So in conclusion I've found my go to blade. It's mild enough for daily use, whilst effective enough to give the closest shaves I've ever experienced. Top dog so far.

• Blade: Tesco Double Edged Blade (Israeli Personna Tomy)
• Cost per blade: 20p
• Cost per shave: 3.3p
• Place of manufacture: Israel
• Material: Platinum Coated Chrome
• Average Shaves/Blade: 6
• Aggressiveness: Perfect for me, smooth and mild.

• Safety Razor Used: Muhle R89 Closed Comb
• Soap Used: Palmolive Classic Shave Stick. 

Chris

Derby Extra Double Edged Blades

I was really looking forward to trying a derby blade as they're what my dad uses daily and has done for many years. He loves that he can get 100 of them for £6.73 on eBay (a figure he quotes every time we talk about shaving) and that he gets a week out of each blade. Using his figures, that works out at a phenomenal 6.7p per blade and less than 1p per shave. Ideal! You know how much I love a bargain and that's the sort of price I can get behind. Along with my trusty Palmolive stick, I could be shaving as much as I like for £3.50 per year!

A Derby Extra (before the bloodshed)

So It was with delight that I unwrapped the fresh Derby blade and inserted it into my R89, all the while inspecting the odd markings. It has some Turkish writing and each face and edge is numbered. Is this usual? Have I been missing something up until now? I can kind of understand both edges of the Double Edged blade being numbered, but each face too? Are you expected to flip this bugger over halfway through the week and keep going with the other side? If that's what you do then please let me know in the comments. The fit in the razor was great mind you. The blade centred easily and the short edges overhung by a little more than I was used to but not too far by any means.

All that proved to be academic once I started my shave. The tugging, pulling, and overall roughness of this first pass completely shocked me. I persevered and carried out pass two and three which were slightly better. I nicked myself twice on my right cheek in the process though and could feel stinging when rinsing my face with water between passes. It was awful. This was confirmed when I passed my alum block over my face and felt like I had been slapped with 1000 pins and dowsed in chilli powder. Not very nice. Over the course of the next few hours in noticed a huge patch of razor burn just below my chin, worse than I ever had even with the dullest of cartridge razors. It was truly a woeful shave, and had I not had plenty of successful, smooth shaves with the Muhle blades previously, I would have thrown my whole kit in the cupboard and gone back to carts.
Given the nod of approval from my dad for these blades I thought I should give them the benefit of the doubt and have another go. Maybe that was just a dud. Maybe my Derby had come from a bad batch or had been dropped in the factory or something. My next shave was two days later and I nervously opened a fresh Derby blade and started my first pass with great trepidation. It was exactly the same. Draggy, tuggy, rough, miserable. The only blades in my cabinet at this point were more bloody Derby efforts so I grudgingly finished my shave and made a note to order some different blades. Any blades. Except Derby ones. Because no amount of pain is worth saving a few pence each week.

So there you go. One man's meat is another man's poison. The blades my old man has sworn by for years and years managed to maul my face to bits with minimal effort. I couldn't quite believe the difference between the Muhle blades I'd learnt with and these ones. The skeptic in me had always believed that "all blades must be the same, they're just sharp bits of steel" while the engineer in me thought about material properties and machining tolerances affecting performance. Just shows you, you must always, and without question, trust the engineer.

• Blade: Derby Extra Super Stainless Double Edge Safety Blade
• Cost per blade: 6p
• Cost per shave: <1p
• Place of manufacture: Turkey
• Material: Stainless Steel
• Average Shaves/Blade: 0
• Aggressiveness: Not aggressive, just uncomfortable for me. 

• Safety Razor Used: Muhle R89 Closed Comb
• Soap Used: Palmolive Classic Shave Stick. 

Chris

Muhle Double Edged Blades

This blade was the one which came with my Muhle R89 safety razor and was the first blade I used. Ever. That may sound odd in a review as I have nothing to compare it to, but hear me out. Maybe this blade is harsh? Maybe it works out too expensive per blade? At the point of testing I had zero frame of reference. Unperturbed, I jumped right in.

A Muhle "RASURKULTUR" DE Blade

My single blade didn't come in such a nice little plastic box as shown above. Mine was in a plain little wrapper, in amongst the instruction book for the R89. It would actually have been very easy to throw away with the bumf.

The blade itself centres very well in the holder and seems of decent enough quality. Edge exposure is good and even on both sides and the short edges protrude enough on the R89 to make any minor centring adjustments easy during tightening. The markings on the blade are subtle with just the Muhle branding and "Shaving Culture" written on it in native German.

With hindsight I can look back on the shave experience of this blade and comment a little better than I may have done first hand. At the time, especially on shave #1, I was extremely nervous of cutting myself with all the new apparatus laid out in front of me. I took it slow and easy over the course of my first ever three pass shave and walked out the other side intact with no nicks, cuts, or weepers. Success!!
The shave was good. No WOW! moments yet, but that would come. There was minimal drag and no real tugging even after 3 full days of growth. The blade was smooth and not the slightest bit aggressive. I found the finish on my neck and cheeks to be excellent, and around the goatee area to be good, but not "Baby Butt Smooth" as the septics like to say. This was normal for me, I assumed this was how close a shave you could ever hope to achieve. Afterwards I observed no razor burn or irritation - overall a glowing report!

I managed 4 full shaves (12 passes) before I noticed the edge to be dulling. Hell, I was happy with this after my years on cartridge razors: getting around 6-7 shaves but for a considerably higher price per shave. I would certainly be interested in buying another pack of these blades given my current experience level and confidence in DE shaving. I do believe that Muhle made an excellent decision to bundle this blade with their entry level razor. It certainly didn't put me off DE shaving which happened to one of my close friends, prompting him to give away the remainder of his blade stash.

So the facts:

• Blade: Muhle Double Edge Safety Blade
• Cost per blade: Unknown - bundled with safety razor
• Cost per shave: Unknown - see above
• Place of manufacture: Germany (I think)
• Material: Stainless Steel
• Average Shaves/Blade: 4
• Aggressiveness: Not even remotely aggressive.

Smooth Operator - Team Muhle

• Safety Razor Used: Muhle R89 Closed Comb
• Soap Used: Palmolive Classic Shave Stick. 

Thanks for reading if you made it this far down. Next time I'll be reviewing a blade which splits popular opinion online but which Auld Bob deems "awright" - the Derby Extra Super Stainless.

Chris