Quote Originally Posted by PonderingTurtle View Post
As for proper double blind experiment it would be pretty hard to do. You would need identical razors, and randomly assign each razor to any given shave, and make sure no one involved with gathering the data knew which one was which.
We have purchased 8 new and identical "Double Arrow" Razors. I have removed the smiles on all 8 of them, because honing a smiling blade is more likely to suffer from slight honing inconsistencies.
Then we divided those 8 in two groups of 4. We choose 4 different honing paradigms. I randomize the first group, hone them, and hand them to Chris, together with the used hones. He then hones the group of razors that I will test-shave with. We compare, without knowing which razor was honed with which paradigm, 2 razors per test shave: n°1 with n°2, next n°3 with n°4, n°1 with n°3, n°2 with n°4, n°2 with n°3, n°1 with n°4. And then again. Over a period of 12 shaves, each razor is used 6 times. We use a standardized assessment sheet, judging several performance points. Only after finishing the complete test run, we reveal to each other the used honing paradigms.
Does that sound blind enough to you?
Our findings on the two first experiment runs have been surprisingly consistent. (the third experiment is still going on)