Counterfeit Gillettes

My favorites blades currently are Gillette Stainless in the red pack, which tend to be harder to find (although still in production). I purchased a couple hundred from a supplier in eastern Europe, and everything looked fairly good until I opened a pack. Follow the photos below to see.




From the outside, everything looks almost identical. The text is slightly different but unless you're looking for it, you could easily miss it.






This is where I first noticed something was off. The real Gillette Stainless blades only have a wax wrapper, no paper wrapper. For a second I thought Gillette may have just changed their packaging, but it was a pretty terrible wrap job. The paper was uneven, and looked cheap.



I opened up the paper layer from the "fake" pack, and the wax paper was a really strange consistency. Thicker, yellow, and VERY waxy. Plus, the blade was already rusting.



I opened a few more just to make sure, and sure enough they were all wrapped in this really thick waxy paper. The paper itself was cut uneven and folded strangely.



Finally, the printing on the blade was of poorer quality compared to the genuine stainless blades I'm used to.


I went as far as to load one in my razor to see if the quality matched it's presentation. It was awful. It literally would not cut hair. I took the blade out of my razor and tried cutting the hair on my hand and no luck. I tried cutting paper.... it was a struggle. These were the most god awful blades.
I reached out to the supplier to inform him of his error-
His response was these were from the Czech Republic Gillette factory, not the St. Petersburg plant in Russia. I noticed that stamp on the box, but personally find it hard to believe that these would be receiving the stamp of approval from Gillette when they literally wont cut anything. Especially, with the same packaging and name as another blade that performs lightyears better. I'm really trying not to exaggerate their dullness, but they legitimately had a hard time cutting a piece of paper and absolutely would not cut even the fine hairs on my hand.  
Can anyone else confirm that Gillette does have a blade manufacturing plant in the Czech Republic?

That is what we call "alternative blades".

Jokes aside, I havent seen counterfeits that dont have at least a few spelling errors and misplaced insignias. Most are close fakes but still recognizable on close inspection. These are almost identical down to the bar code numbers. Leads me to believe there may be some credence to your vendor's story. But that doesnt make them any less crappy. I would ask for a refund or an exchange for St Pete blades. I never had a bad blade from the St Pete factory. Hopefully they dont turn out like Personnas/Accutech and have to demand from the vendor the confirmation of the place of origin and chain of custody to get the exact blades we want.

Look at this post I did on the Personna confusion thread regarding what I think are fake Kai blades. Talk about low,

https://damnfineshave.com/thread-more-pe...ion?page=5

That seems very odd, Gareth. It seems like a lot of trouble for counterfeit blades. I mean, a second wrap? Even if poor, why would they go to the trouble? I'll be watching to see if anyone else has more info. I'm very curious about this case.

Sorry you ended up with this sorry batch!

Real blades but very old (90's). They look like they have been stored badly. This is how the Czech plant wrapped blades & so did PP until recently. The new stainless blades seem to be better quality, so not the same spec as the Czech era ones.

These blades were sold in US stores years a go, genuine but still bad/unpopular:
[Image: s-l300.jpg]

So perhaps they really are Czech blades? Either way, I did get my money back as they were advertised as the Russian version. My reliable source for these blades is unresponsive so I was checking out a new source... alas with no luck. The search is on.

Blades that came packaged with my Gillette Super Click purchased in Cambodia. I don't have other blades of this type to compare but they sure look dodgy to me.


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jmudrick, I have a few of those Gillette Super Thins. Nothing spectacular, but not horrible either. I don't think they are "counterfeit" though.

jmudrick, I have a few of those Gillette Super Thins. Nothing spectacular, but not horrible either. I don't think they are "counterfeit" though.

Perhaps yours are "fine". Perhaps it's just a quality control issue. On mine the Gillette logo in the upper right looks like it was drawn by a Kindergartener with a Sharpie. Compare the printing to this one where the Gillette is actually legible. Of course I shaved with it anyway.


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jmudrick, I have a few of those Gillette Super Thins. Nothing spectacular, but not horrible either. I don't think they are "counterfeit" though.

Perhaps yours are "fine". Perhaps it's just a quality control issue. On mine the Gillette logo in the upper right looks like it was drawn by a Kindergartener with a Sharpie. Compare the printing to this one where the Gillette is actually legible. Of course I shaved with it anyway.


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Yeah, I noticed the poor quality printing. These things are most likely screen printed. All types of stuff can go wrong in that process (I know from experience, it's part of what I do at work). For something like a razor blade, it's highly unlikely that an individual blade would be rejected due to a bad print so it slipped through the QC.

So anyway, how was the shave?