Feather blades just don't cut it???

i found the site where you can mix and match samples. It's tryablade.com

Hello all,

 I'm a little confused about all the hipe on feather blades. A lot of people say they are the sharpest on the market, but for me I disagree. People say they are very sharp, but not smooth. That doesn't make since to me. The more refined/polished the bevel is the smoother the blade, and under a microscope the feathers  look terrible  That goes for any cutting tool. Feather blades seem overly harsh, and seem to cut me out of nowhere.

For me it's not the lack of experience, technique or prep. I think the Russian blades rival the feather, because they glide effertly through tuff stubble and don't cut me. I mean don't get me wrong all de blades are surgical sharp, but some are more refined and polished than others. I've seen images of a feather under a microscope and they look terrible. Infact the Derby blade looks much better under magnification. Feather blades cut me up like a bic disposable razor. In fact some were on the net I seen images of a bic disposable blade under magnification, and they actually look better than a feather. Any thoughts and opinions on the so called scary sharp feather blade?

Have you not realized that ymmv exists in every aspect of wet-shaving, and probably more so in blades than anything else. It is strange but true. One blade may be the sharpest for one person and another finds it dull. I know people who love Derby blades, but I have tried them in multiple razors and they are the worst blade I have ever used. Most agree though that Feather are the sharpest, or one of the sharpest. I think it's a tie between Feather and Kai in my experience, but Kai is much smother in other razors for me, except the AS-D2 which oddly enough the Feather is slightly smoother than the Kai. It's all a matter of personal preference based on skin and hair type, razor choice, etc.

One of the hardest things for me to get my head around when I started out a few years back is that a product that worked really well for me might not be so good for someone else and vice versa. I was just so used to seeing things through a quality lens - a good steak is a good steak no matter who you are and a bad steak is just bad. You may like a different cut or seasoning or prep but there won't be much argument over whether or not a steak is of good quality or not. Not so with shaving especially blades. I happen to love the feather blade in the feather razor, the razor not surprisingly has an affinity for that blade. I found I could get about 3 or 4 shaves with it. I also found that the feather blade, for me, was a little too scary in my DE89 razor. I recently had a surprise when I took a feather out of my AS-D2 that I had used 3 times and put it in the ikon 102 - it went on to do a wonderful job for 3 more shaves giving me 6 shaves on a feather blade albeit in 2 different razors. It must be the different angles of the two razors that allowed me to get 3 more BBS shaves out of a feather that was losing its edge in the AS-D2. Weird but I'm good with it. Yes I do really like Feather blades

Kai blades are another story, very sharp in whatever razor I use them in, I like them in the 102. I went and bought 50 blades from Amazon and they arrived loosely, i.e., not in the little blue boxes. I don't know if its my imagination but those "Kai" blades seem a little harsher. Given that Kais have no marking of any kind on the blade or the wrapper, once you separate them from their blue box its hard to tell if they're the genuine item or not. I suspect these blades to be knock offs. My lesson on this is that I should continue to deal with Jason of TryABlade He provides great service and you can be sure you're buying the real deal. Especially when it comes to expensive blades like Kai.


Thats my two bits.
Mark

One of the hardest things for me to get my head around when I started out a few years back is that a product that worked really well for me might not be so good for someone else and vice versa. I was just so used to seeing things through a quality lens - a good steak is a good steak no matter who you are and a bad steak is just bad.  You may like a different cut or seasoning or prep but there won't be much argument over whether or not a steak is of good quality or not.  Not so with shaving especially blades.  I happen to love the feather blade in the feather razor, the razor not surprisingly has an affinity for that blade.  I found I could get about 3 or 4 shaves with it.  I also found that the feather blade, for me, was a little too scary in my DE89 razor.  I recently had a surprise when I took a feather out of my AS-D2 that I had used 3 times and put it in the ikon 102 - it went on to do a wonderful job for 3 more shaves giving me 6 shaves on a feather blade albeit in 2 different razors.  It must be the different angles of the two razors that allowed me to get 3 more BBS shaves out of a feather that was losing its edge in the AS-D2.  Weird but I'm good with it.  Yes I do really like Feather blades

Kai blades are another story, very sharp in whatever razor I use them in, I like them in the 102.  I went and bought 50 blades from Amazon and they arrived loosely, i.e., not in the little blue boxes.  I don't know if its my imagination but those "Kai" blades seem a little harsher.  Given that Kais have no marking of any kind on the blade or the wrapper, once you separate them from their blue box its hard to tell if they're the genuine item or not.  I suspect these blades to be knock offs.  My lesson on this is that I should continue to deal with Jason of TryABlade He provides great service and you can be sure you're buying the real deal.  Especially when it comes to expensive blades like Kai.


Thats my two bits.
Mark

I bought my Kai 50 pack from Amazon and received 10 boxes of 5 blades each. Each blade is individually wrapped in white paper and there are no glue dots on the blades.

My education continues.

I've been thinking that the Feather double edge is the blade for me.

Last night a shave with a Super-Max in my Gillette Flair tip. I recognized that the first blade wasn't good after two or three strokes and replaced it. The next Super-Max wasn't comfortable like the Feather, but I got the best shave yet.

It may be that the Flair Tip w/ a Feather will be excellent with a light touch. The Flair Tip with the same pressure as the Super-Max yielded a bunch of weepers.

So, I hit up tryablade and ordered three of a bunch of them.

I like Maggards option as well since you can buy a tuck. I would have to look but I think you can put together your own list of 5,7, or 10 tucks from their list and you get a discount over buying just a single tuck. That gives you a few more blades to try later or to try in a new razor.

In addition to what grim provided there was a member on B&B who had access to a scanning electron microscope and took some of his blades to work and provided the images. He ended up doing quite a few. I don't belong to B&B and I don't know if linking to another forum is okay but you can find it with a Google search. Pretty interesting.

In addition to what grim provided there was a member on B&B who had access to a scanning electron microscope and took some of his blades to work and provided the images. He ended up doing quite a few. I don't belong to B&B and I don't know if linking to another forum is okay but you can find it with a Google search. Pretty interesting.

Link away. I'm curious to see them.

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I've been wet shaving for a year now and still haven't decided upon a blade I have never bought a pack of 100 I am still going through my sampler pack a year later a couple that have impressed me though are rapira, Gillette yellows, and a blade called racer. Since I never use the same razor twice and I'm constantly changing blades I just haven't had the patience to nail down one or two favorite blades what I'd like to do is on eBay you can buy a mini microscope that attaches to your phone camera and you can take pictures of the blades edge. Nick Shaves has a video where he uses one.

I've been wet shaving for a year now and still haven't decided upon a blade I have never bought a pack of 100 I am still going through my sampler pack a year later a couple that have impressed me though are rapira, Gillette yellows, and a blade called racer. Since I never use the same razor twice and I'm constantly changing blades I just haven't had the patience to nail down one or two favorite blades what I'd like to do is on eBay you can buy a mini microscope that attaches to your phone camera and you can take pictures of the blades edge. Nick Shaves has a video where he uses one.

I find it helpful to keep a note pad and pencil handy to write down what blade / razor combinations work or don't - there are just too many to keep track of otherwise. I've also noticed that things change over time, blades I didn't like seem to be better. I believe that as my technique improves and evolves it changes how I may experience different blades.