Folks,
Well I know its a very common blade but I'd never actually used one of these until last evening (thanks to RM for the opportunity to try
As everyone knows this sits in Gillette's 7 O'Clock family of blades (yellow, black, dark blue & green) which seem to generally hail from Russia but some also come by way of India (some mixed reports regarding this).
All these blades tend to be reasonably well regarded and sit towards the mid-top of current production blades in terms of cost per blade, so how did they perform for me:
Sharpness of Blade/Closeness of shave: 9/10, ok the sharpness of this blade was immediately noticeable. Clearly a step up in this regard than anything I'd used recently. I did this review in a Merkur 37c (slant) and it just ate the hairs up like they weren't there. Sharpness is clearly the blades forte.
Smoothness of Shave/Comfort of Shave: 7.5/10, when you're very sharp its always going to be a lil tricky to come across as super smooth and easy on the skin. Alas I had a bit of a poor lather going on this shave & my missus jostling to use the bathroom as well to do her legs (it's like she KNOWS when I am planning a big in depth shave!). So I'd think there's upside for the blade in this regard.
Post-shave irritation/cuts: Absolutely nothing except a lil prickliness around my lips and mouth where perhaps my ATG pass with the slant was optomisitic in light of the sub-par lather (MNS Bayrum - I'm sure it was a bad batch! As the others are fine).
Overall score for blade 8+/10, again a plus score as I think this blade has upside in the smooth side of things, plus I don't know at this point what it's longevity is going to be like. IME some of these really sharp blades can really drop off badly in performance suddenly after 2 shaves, so further use alone will establish this. BUT I was genuinely impressed by this blade and feel that its a very good piece of kit.
Comments: This blade definitely strikes me as a great buy, I think this review by the well regarded user, Squire over on SMF sums it up quite well. He scored it as the 2nd best blade overall (onpar with the original Super Iridium).
It definitely bring great results out in an aggressive razor, I don't think I've had a better single pass result from my slant ever (have not used a Feather in it yet). Will try it in my Slim next to see if something a tad more demure extracts the same excellent results.
Well I know its a very common blade but I'd never actually used one of these until last evening (thanks to RM for the opportunity to try
As everyone knows this sits in Gillette's 7 O'Clock family of blades (yellow, black, dark blue & green) which seem to generally hail from Russia but some also come by way of India (some mixed reports regarding this).
All these blades tend to be reasonably well regarded and sit towards the mid-top of current production blades in terms of cost per blade, so how did they perform for me:
Sharpness of Blade/Closeness of shave: 9/10, ok the sharpness of this blade was immediately noticeable. Clearly a step up in this regard than anything I'd used recently. I did this review in a Merkur 37c (slant) and it just ate the hairs up like they weren't there. Sharpness is clearly the blades forte.
Smoothness of Shave/Comfort of Shave: 7.5/10, when you're very sharp its always going to be a lil tricky to come across as super smooth and easy on the skin. Alas I had a bit of a poor lather going on this shave & my missus jostling to use the bathroom as well to do her legs (it's like she KNOWS when I am planning a big in depth shave!). So I'd think there's upside for the blade in this regard.
Post-shave irritation/cuts: Absolutely nothing except a lil prickliness around my lips and mouth where perhaps my ATG pass with the slant was optomisitic in light of the sub-par lather (MNS Bayrum - I'm sure it was a bad batch! As the others are fine).
Overall score for blade 8+/10, again a plus score as I think this blade has upside in the smooth side of things, plus I don't know at this point what it's longevity is going to be like. IME some of these really sharp blades can really drop off badly in performance suddenly after 2 shaves, so further use alone will establish this. BUT I was genuinely impressed by this blade and feel that its a very good piece of kit.
Comments: This blade definitely strikes me as a great buy, I think this review by the well regarded user, Squire over on SMF sums it up quite well. He scored it as the 2nd best blade overall (onpar with the original Super Iridium).
It definitely bring great results out in an aggressive razor, I don't think I've had a better single pass result from my slant ever (have not used a Feather in it yet). Will try it in my Slim next to see if something a tad more demure extracts the same excellent results.
