Thread: Back to my Fatboy. Just for nostalgia.

Originally Posted by Obie

Gentlemen, ...
My blades of choice are: Feather, Gillette 7 O'Clock SharpEdge, Iridium Super, Astra and Israeli Personna Reds.

I only use my DE, a 34C, when I travel, and only with Personna Reds. Even when out of practice, the results rival my straight shaves.

Very interesting Maryland. I use a DE most of the time since I don't have a shave den. Only used Merkur, Shark, Feather, and some I bought from WM. Look forward to seeing how they compare.

Originally Posted by cau

I only use my DE, a 34C, when I travel, and only with Personna Reds. Even when out of practice, the results rival my straight shaves.

The Merkur 34C is one of the best safety razors made. Every shave den should have one. Mine does. I must agree with you about the Personna Reds. They may not be the sharpest blades, especially matched against, say, Feather, but I think they are the smoothest blades made. I like Personna Reds a lot.

I think DE blades can be like soaps or aftershaves. In that one persons favorite, may very well be someone else's least favorite.
Shaved yesterday with a Gillette Silver Blue. First shave on setting 4. It was a good shave.
Equal to or maybe slightly sharper than the Voskhod. Of course this is just my opinion. Usually I end up finding that if you see large groups of people that rate a soap, blade etc. high. That I am not disappointed.
This is no different.
Ken

The 34C was the first DE I bought. It's one of those razors that is an old standard like a classic song.

We used to hear a lot about the Derby blades. As I recall they are made in Turkey and are some of the smoothest and mildest blades out there. They seem to have dropped off folks radar.

Originally Posted by thebigspendur

The 34C was the first DE I bought. It's one of those razors that is an old standard like a classic song.

We used to hear a lot about the Derby blades. As I recall they are made in Turkey and are some of the smoothest and mildest blades out there. They seem to have dropped off folks radar.

Spendur,
If I recall, Derby blades were inconsistent in their quality and some shavers complained. I used them, along with others, some years ago and then retired them.

I believe the sampler I have. Does have the derby’s in it. Might take a while to get through all of them and see which one I like best.
Ken.

I use Derby blades quite regularly, I really like them. They are sharp enough but not too sharp as to make hamburger out of your face.

As some have noted, DE blades are a widely personal preference .. in my case Derbys were at the bottom of the heap until they introduced a new "model", the Derby Premium, recently .. those are very very effective on my steel wool whiskers and priced well when I got them last spring (half the price of Feathers per 100 and almost as sharp).

Originally Posted by BobH

Yes, nothing improved my DE/SE shaving more than learning to shave decently well with a straight razor. Too bad that came 40 years into my shaving experience but better late than never. There are a few DEs/SEs out there that can rival a straight razor shave if used properly.

Bob

Precisely my experience, I could not have put it better.
I suspect that by applying lessons from straight shaving a shaver might even get excellent results (although little enjoyment) from some cartridge razors.
What is often overlooked is how much difference proper preparation and technique make.
Each time someone writes about his “steel wire” beard that eats razors and makes the shave so difficult I ask myself how his prep might look like and whether that might be the root cause for his troubles.

I use mostly Feather blades in my safety razors, but Astra SP blades come close second.
It seems that Astra has now taken the mantle of economical, readily available quality blades that Derby once wore. At their current price, Astras are hard to beat.

With respect to Derby, I searched the Internet a few months ago to see what had become of these once so popular blades and found that the positive comments started to dry up a several years ago and were eventually replaced by more and more critical comments. Can’t say whether the hype had worn off or whether their quality started dropping, but they are hardly talked about anymore and nobody seems to miss them.



B