Thread: DE Blade ranking

I'm a beginner with DE blades, I'm working on a 14 sample pack. By far, the Feather has been my best blade so far.

I like the Feathers after a couple shaves. I have a Fatboy so when I put on a new Feather I set it at 1 and do a few very light passes.
The Merkur and Shark blades seem about equal to me in sharpness but the Merkurs are smoother. Both last me quite a few shaves.
The Wilkinson Sword blades they self around here are horrible. Functional but scratchy and I am lucky to get six decent shaves out of a blade.
I like all the varieties of the Gillette 7 o'clock blades I've tried. Super smooth and quite sharp (not as sharp as the Feathers).
The Personna platinum blades rank a bit higher than the Wilkinson blades I've used but I don't go out of my way for them. Red box or blue, they both shave pretty well and are smooth but not amazing.
I have a box if Astras but I haven't tried them yet.

When I started, I was (quite graciously) given an assortment of blades from Obie. I bought one of his extra Edwin Jagger DE razors and he threw in a nice array of differing blades. MY experience has shown me that Derby's are quite mild, but dont leave me with much irritation. Astra's and Gilette's (7 O'Clock blue, I believe) are extremely nice and leave me nice and smooth.

But none of that matters. He gave me a box of Feather blades and I haven't been able to bring myself to use anything else since then. At The Great Shave event in Chicago last year I purchased a dozen boxes and I'm still making my way through them. Yes, they're extremely sharp, but coming from a straight razor, my skin welcomes it. I love the smooth feeling I get from Feather's. This may also be due to the tone of the Edwin Jagger, so I must preface it with "YMMV".

Isn't trying out new blades one of the best parts of shaving? If you don't like the blade, just wait a day and try another. It's beautiful!