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.

Ten seconds of googling in the shaving aisle (what did we do before smart phones by the way?) showed me that these were actually re-branded Dorco ST301 blades. True enough, once you remove the purple Sainbury's card from the usual dispenser pack, each blade is wrapped in Dorco papers with the prominent ST301 markings and some Korean writing. 

Re-branding at its laziest. But do we care? 

The blades themselves are completely devoid of any markings however, and really could be from anywhere. One thing I did find very odd though was each individual blade has a slight orange hue to it. It's not visible in any of the pictures I've taken, but in real life they are every so slightly coloured, most visibly so around the bevel. At first I thought this was a dodgy blade but the rest of my pack is the same. I dunno. I didn't let it bother me.

A Dorco blade (not looking too orange) as fitted to my R89

My first shave with the fresh blade started off very pleasantly indeed. I had a good three days worth of growth and the WTG pass was absolutely fine. No tugging anywhere but along the leading edge of my chin which is pretty usual for me (my beard is like a wire brush right here) and everywhere else was nice and smooth. I gathered that these blades are not too aggressive, in fact I was very pleased with the comfort of pass number 1. Upon rinsing and lathering for my XTG pass, I did notice that the areas of heavier growth did't feel as close as normal - but given the 3 pass shave I was going for, I didn't worry too much. After all, wet shaving is about beard reduction and I still had two full passes to go.

I did get a little concerned after my second pass however. The shave itself was comfortable but afterwards there was a considerable difference in closeness to normal after two passes. I felt like WTG, XTG with the Dorco was like a single WTG with my favoured Personnas. Does that make sense? 

I decided to have a second XTG pass but this time in the other direction. This helped a whole lot and I felt like I had achieved an acceptable closeness this time. The downside to this was I could feel my skin getting irritated and there was no way I could continue with a ATG 4th pass without risking serious irritation. I left it there and carried on with my post shave routine, mumbling to myself about a slightly disappointing shave. 

The next day and my concerns were confimed. I felt like I needed another shave and this is very unusual for me and my every-other-day routine. I think I just didn't get close enough the day before.

Shave #2 was actually much the same as #1 but with added WTG tugging and roughness. Again, I carried out a WTG, XTG/XTG shave and left it there with some minor razor burn to show for it. And to be fair I really mean minor - I'm being very picky here. 

I changed blade for the next few shaves and found a common pattern to these blades. Shave #1 is very smooth but not very close, shave two is rougher and still not so close. For me they are 1 shave blades. If this was the very first blade I'd ever tried I'm sure I would be very happy with the comfort and finish, but they do seem to be lacking in both counts. Combine this with the poor shaves/blade ratio and I find myself coming to the conclusion that these blades will be fine if that's all I can get, but I won't drive past Tesco to get to Sainsbury's just for these Dorco fellas. 

• Blade: Sainsburys Double Edged Blade (Dorco ST301)
• Cost per blade: 20p
• Cost per shave: 20p
• Place of manufacture: Vietnam (South Korea maybe?)
• Material: Platinum Coated 
• Average Shaves/Blade: 1
• Aggressiveness: I'd say average, but poor for multiple passes. 

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

Chris