RayClem's Blade Evaluations

Update on the Silver Star Super Stainless blade.

My prediction were correct, sort of. As expected, the blade did become sharper. It glided through my two-day beard with minimal resistance. However, the decline in smoothness was minimal. I got only a tiny bit of feedback when I applied the witch hazel after my shave. I got another excellent shave, near BBS with minimal irritation. The sharpness definitely moves up from 4 to 4.5. I debated whether to drop the smoothness from the original 4.5, but since the post-shave feedback was so minimal, I decided to leave it at 4.5. This elevated this blade sharpness to the same level as King C Gillette, Wizamet Super Iridium, and Minora Stainless, but the smoothness might not be quite as good. However, the Silver Star blades are priced at a very attractive 8 cents per blade when purchased in bulk packs of 100 blades. Thus, these blades are a great value. Even though I have enough blades to last me the rest of my natural life, I plan to purchase a 100 pack.

The next blade to be tried beginning Saturday will be the Personna Platinum from Germany. I have used it previously and found it to be similar to the Israeli Reds, but I want to confirm it in the current evaluation. If my recollection is correct, this will be quite similar to the blades mentioned in the paragraph above. Thus, trying the Personna Platinum immediately after the Silver Star blade will provide for a great comparison.

I also have some Asco blades to evaluate, also made by Lord. There are some who say that Lord makes only three basic blades and packages them for sale in different market. If the Asco blades are similar to the Silver Star blades, I won't complain. The Asco blade I have are in the red package. There are also blades in an orange package that are slightly less expensive. Some say the red and orange blades are the same blades. If any of you have tried both, please provide feedback.

Question for readers- Is there anyone who has tried Filoso blades?

These blades are advertised as blades for barbers, I guess this hearkens back to the vintage FBU straight razors. The blades are made in China, supposedly of Swedish steel with platinum coated edges.

They sell for $15 per 100 blades which is mid-range these days. There are only 58 reviews with an average rating of 4.3. Since most razor blades are rated 4.5 or higher, even some I cannot use, this does not give me any confidence in trying them. Some reviews say they are wonderful, others say they are terrible...YMMV.

Update on the Silver Start Super Stainless blade.

My prediction were correct, sort of. As expected, the blade did become sharper. It glided through my two-day beard with minimal resistance. However, the decline in smoothness was minimal. I got only a tiny bit of feedback when I applied the witch hazel after my shave. I got another excellent shave, near BBS with minimal irritation. The sharpness definitely moves up from 4 to 4.5. I debated whether to drop the smoothness from the original 4.5, but since the post-shave feedback was so minimal, I decided to leave it at 4.5. This elevated this blade sharpness to the same level as King C Gillette, Wizamet Super Iridium, and Minora Stainless, but the smoothness might not be quite as good. However, the Silver Star blades are priced at a very attractive 8 cents per blade when purchased in bulk packs of 100 blades. Thus, these blades are a great value. Even though I have enough blades to last me the rest of my natural life, I plan to purchase a 100 pack.

The next blade to be tried beginning Saturday will be the Personna Platinum from Germany. I have used it previously and found it to be similar to the Israeli Reds, but I want to confirm it in the current evaluation. If my recollection is correct, this will be quite similar to the blades mentioned in the paragraph above. Thus, trying the Personna Platinum immediately after the Silver Star blade will provide for a great comparison.

I also have some Asco blades to evaluate, also made by Lord. There are some who say that Lord makes only three basic blades and packages them for sale in different market. If the Asco blades are similar to the Silver Star blades, I won't complain. The Asco blade I have are in the red package. There are also blades in an orange package that are slightly less expensive. Some say the red and orange blades are the same blades. If any of you have tried both, please provide feedback.

I absolutely love the Silver Star blades. I just bought them on a whim quite honestly because I'm a big fan of silver, so that's the logic I went with when I purchased them. They are one of my favorites and they're in my regular rotation.

Like straight razors made of Sheffield "Silver steel", I doubt that Silver Star by Lord and Silver Blue by Gillette have any silver. Unlike platinum, iridium, and titanium that are used for coatings to make the edges more resistant to wear, silver is a very soft metal that won't help with durability of a blade. But calling a blade "silver" is good for marketing. BTW: I love straight razors made from Sheffield Silver steel, even if the blade contains no silver content. However, someone did experiment using silver in a steel alloy. Today, silver steel, is a tool steel that takes a high polish.

This morning I shaved with the Personna Platinum Chrome blade made in Germany and shipped with the blue and gold packaging. I will call them Personna golds.

Personna Platinum blades produced in Germany also ship in red packaging similar to the Israeli reds, presumably to take advantage of the reputation of those storied blades. I do not know if the red packaged blades differ from the gold packaged blades.

I had great expectations for this blade based on my previous experience with the Personna Platinum blades made in Israel (Israeli Reds). I had even used one of the early Personna Platinum blades that game out of the German plant and found it to be similar to the Israeli blades. Unfortunately, the blade I used this time did not compare favorably with the Israeli reds. I was most disappointed. At the beginning of my shave, I made a couple of strokes using the Lord Silver Star blades used in the previous evaluation. The Silver Star blades were sharper and smoother than the German Personna Platinums. With the Personna blades I was not able to achieve a near BBS shave as the blades were not smooth enough to use for buffing strokes. I even got a weeper, something that I have not had in many months. When I applied witch hazel after the shave, I got moderate irritation.

If the German Personnas had performed like expected, I should have gotten a near BBS shave with zero irritation, but that did not happen. I will try these blades again to see if the performance improves. Consider me disappointed in these results. I will also follow up with one of my authentic Israeli reds for comparison.

I would be quite interested in feedback from other who have used the German Personnas made recently (mine were dated 2022). I am hoping my results are not typical.

Update Sunday October 1:

Since I did not get a great shave on Saturday morning, I needed to shave again this morning. Since my results yesterday were not what I was expecting, I figured that I might have done something wrong during the shave. For example, I know that I loaded my brush without squeezing and shaking out all the water first, so perhaps my lather was not up to standard. It is also possible that I damaged the edge of the blade when I installed it in the razor. I was trying to smoke a chuck roast and a couple of steaks on my pellet grill, so my mind was not focused on the shave.

This morning, I made sure I got a great lather. I also flipped the blade upside down in the razor to see if that helped. The blade appeared to be significantly sharper, but that might have been due to having a single day's growth rather than two. While I was able to get a near-BBS shave, I did experience minor irritation when I applied witch hazel.

Due to the irregularities in this evaluation, I am not going to assign a rating to the Personna gold blades at this time. I am going to repeat this evaluation on Tuesday using another Personna gold. I will insure that conditions are comparable to those during evaluation of other blades.

The moral of this story is to keep your head "screwed on straight" during every shave. I rarely get a lousy shave, but it does happen. I will blame yesterday's poor shave on me rather than the blade, at least for now.

Ray,
You have a PM.

Persona Platinum Chrome (gold) -Germany - Take Two!

Apparently, I was correct in the revision to my last post when I blamed my initial experience with these blades on poor technique. I just did not have my head in the game.

This morning, I installed a new Personna Platinum blade in my Karve SB C-plate razor and went to work on my two-day beard. I made sure my pre-shave prep was right and that I prepared a great lather. I did my usual four-pass shave: WTG, XTG, ATG, and cleanup pass with buffing strokes. I got a near BBS shave. When I splashed witch hazel on my face, I got very slight feedback, but nowhere near what I had experienced previously.

I will go on and use this blade again for my shave on Thursday morning. Based on previous experience, it should be just a tad sharper. I am going to rate the Personna Platinum blades 4.5 on sharpness and 4.5 on smoothness. That ranks them similar to the Lord Silver Star blades. However, because the Silver Star blades can be purchased for $8 per 100 blades vs at least double that for the Personna blades, the Silver Star blades are a better value. I just added a 100 blade bulk pack of Silver Star blades to my stash,

If you do decide to purchase Personna Platinum blades, please be aware that the Israeli reds have not been manufactured since 2019. Even if you can find Israeli blades for sale, the price is going to be elevated. Personna Germany sell the Platinum blades both in the blue and gold packaging, in a blue package with 200 blades (which can easily be confused with Personna lab blue blades), and also in red packaging that mimics the packaging of Israeli reds. Personna also sells stainless blades (not Platinum) in a similar red packaging. Identification of Personna blades has always been confusing and it still remains that way. Thus, before placing an order, be sure you know which blade you are getting. Although I like the Personna Platinum blades a lot, other blades that are as good or better can be purchased for less.

Update- Personna Platinum Chrome - Germany (gold packaging)

This morning I got another excellent shave with the Personna Platinum blades from Germany. The blades might have been slightly sharper and slightly less smooth, but not enough to be significant. I got a near-BBS shave with only very minor irritation when I applied witch hazel. Thus, my previous rating of 4.5 sharpness and 4.5 smoothness still stands.

I was initially planning on comparing the blades to the Personna Platinum Chrome Israeli reds. However, I know from prior experience that these blades would give essentially the same result as the German version. The Israeli blades have not been manufactured since 2019 and vendor supplies of those blades have all but dried up. If you try purchasing Personna Platinum blades in red packaging, you will likely get blades from Germany. I do not consider that to be a bad thing as the German blades are essentially identical to the former Israeli blades. The two blades are so close in performance that the only way I could distinguish them would be to do a "face off" using the two versions in identical razors with each razor shaving opposite sides of my face. However, the only two razors I have with the same head design are a Edwin Jager DE89 and a Muhle R89. However, I have not used either of these razors in many months. I have been using a Karve SB C-plate for the blade evaluations, so I do not want to confuse the evaluations by adding another razor design.

After completing the razor blade evaluations several weeks from now, I will do the face off between a new Personna Platinum from Germany and one of my stash of Israeli blades for the sake of those who might appreciate that comparison.

Since I already have a stash of the Israeli reds, I do not plan on making a bulk purchase of the Personna Platinum- German version.

For Saturday's shave, I will use the Asco Super Stainless blade (red wrapper) produced by Lord in Egypt. I have seen some reviews that seem to indicate that the performance is similar to the Silver Star blades. Since the Silver Star blades performed quite well, I am hoping the Asco blades will as well.

Next up - Lord Asco Super Stainless (red wrapper)

Today, I was up early and wanted to get the day started with my shave. After lathering my two-day beard, I took a couple of swipes with the Personna Platinum blades still in the Karve razor. The Personna blade was still both sharp and smooth. Then I installed the Asco blade (red wrapper) in the razor. The blades were sharp enough to cut through my beard without tugging, but they were no where near as sharp or as smooth as the Silver Star blades. I also got moderate feedback when I splashed on the witch hazel.

I am going to give these blades a rating of 3.5 on sharpness and 3.5 on smoothness. Since the Silver Star blades made by the same company are both sharper and smoother and are priced similarly, I am not planning to evaluate the Asco blades on their 2nd shave. I might go back and try the blades again later, but for now I would suggest people who like sharper blades consider Silver Star.

I realize that not every one needs a blade that is a sharp and smooth as I require for my shaves. Astra SP blades are one of the most popular of all DE razor blades. Those who like Astra SP blades might find the Asco blades to be a similarly priced alternative. For those who can use Asco blades, they would be a good value.

Member BJP has graciously provided me with a few Derby Premium blades. I will try using one of them for Monday's shave. I am not quite sure what to expect. Derby Extra blades are among the very worst blades I have ever tried. Although they are smooth, they tug painfully at my beard, especially on the 1st shave. The Derby Extra are great for new shavers with fine beards. That is why many they are included with many entry level razors.

On the other hand, I have used Parker Premium Platinum blades. Like Derby, these blades are made in Turkey. They both have a rather complex Platinum, Chromium, Ceramic, Tungsten and Polymer coating. Although the list is slightly different than the Derby Premium blades it is similar enough that I suspect the Parker blades are made by Derby. The Parker blades are sharp enough and smooth enough for me to purchase a bulk pack for my stash. The Parker blades are more expensive in the USA than the Derby Premium blades, so I do not know if they are the same as the Derby Premiums or if Derby is making an upgraded blade for Parker. I hope to find that out during Monday's shave.

Although I was not particularly pleased with the way the Asco blades handled my two-day beard, I wondered how it might deal with a one-day beard. I realize that many shavers perform daily shaves. The reason I elected to do shaves every two days was to provide a significant challenge to the blades to allow me to better distinguish blade sharpness.
While that rewards sharper blades, it can be unfair to less sharp blades that might not work for me, but might work for some others.

To test this hypothesis, I lathered up a portion of one cheek and performed a few strokes using the Asco blade used for yesterday's shave. The blade might have become slight sharper as the coating wore off, but it was able to handle a one-day beard growth without issue, at least on the part of my cheek I tested. Although, the improvement was not such that I feel compelled to change my overall rating of the blade, I did want to note that the blades might be suitable for those with finer beards or those who shave daily.

Does anyone have experience with the Asco blades in the orange packaging? I have seen conflicting reports on these blades. Some say that the orange-wrapped blades are nearly as sharp as Silver Star. Some say that the orange and red blades are the same blade with different number of blades per tuck. However, I have seen both the red and orange blades with 5 blades per tuck. If the blades were sharper, I might purchase some of the orange-wrapped blades for testing, but I am assuming they are the same blade shipped to different regions. This is similar to the situation with Personna Platinum Chrome blades from Israel being shipped in red packaging or in the UK blue package. From everything I have heard, they were the same blades.