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Blade Survey Results

todras

todras

est Français pour après-rasage
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I came across this thread on /r/wicked_edge and thought immediately that I would save a copy of the survey results as it sampled n=250 responses which while not statistically sound (people entered of their own volition online and were not randomly questioned as to their preferences) it is none the less interesting.

A couple of comments in the thread indicate that in many ways it accords with the try-a-blade results which is again interesting.

There is a reasonable selection of blades represented, I am guessing many of the participants were from the US however I thought it would be an interesting discussion point, and a reference source.

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Mark1966 said:
Reinforces my view that Astra SP should be the go to starter blade ...
Click to expand...
That's the exact advise I got when i started and I find them very Meh.. I actually find the Astra stainless to be much nicer
 
If I started on Astra SP I may not have stuck with it, I had no luck initially with those blades.
Nowadays I can get a decent shave from them but my preference is Astra ss.
Nacet is best though
 
I methodically tested a bunch of different blades and found my top 3 to be
1. Polsilver
2. Gillette Silver Blue
3. Personna Reds
 
Starting out the Personna reds are my recommendation. Great middle of the road blade, not to share, will give feedback, smooth shave experience.

Astra's would be stage two, along with 7OC Yellows and Voskhods. Depending on which blade works best would then direct me where to recommend next.

I'm surprised that the PermaSharp Super did not rate a mention. Again a great sharp and smooth blade which can be had cheaply.
 
Monsta_AU said:
Starting out the Personna reds are my recommendation. Great middle of the road blade, not to share, will give feedback, smooth shave experience.

Astra's would be stage two, along with 7OC Yellows and Voskhods. Depending on which blade works best would then direct me where to recommend next.

I'm surprised that the PermaSharp Super did not rate a mention. Again a great sharp and smooth blade which can be had cheaply.
Click to expand...

Well... I have not yet tried Personna reds... but my three favourites are Astras SP, 7OC and Voskhods! Sound a lot like your second-string! I pretty much only use Russian blades now, except for SE razors. My biggest disappointments were Polsilvers! They just don't work for me... and I've tried then in a few razors... Slim was probably the best with them... Parker 97R Razorock Mission and Maggard V3A the worst.
 
Top 3

Permasharp Super (between $25-30/100)
Vintage PolAg (still available from shaving.ie - $48 Euro pre delivery for 200. Not a fan of the standard polsilver)
Rapira Chrome or Platinum Lux
 
I cracked open a pack of Rubies th8is week that were kindly PIF'd to me by Ferret and I have to say so far I think they are my favorites. They shave nice and close with no weepers using my Rockwell 6C. Second choice would be Gillette 7 O'click's (yellow) and third would be the The Gillette silver/blue (I'm sensing a pattern here). :) Have also tried Feathers (lots of weepers), Astras and a couple of others that I forget.
 
Mark1966 said:
Reinforces my view that Astra SP should be the go to starter blade ...
Click to expand...

I presume this to be the very reason why the Astra greens are top of the list.

Since i started DE shaving back in 2007, the Astra greens has been the most highly recommended blade. I used them, liked them, hoarded about 3,000 of them and then found other blades better suited (tried nearly everything available out there over a period of many years then settled on Polsilvers in 2014).

i would say there is a "forum bias" in the results. Before a couple of years, Polsilvers were barely discussed and had i not got one in a sample pack, i doubt i would have discovered it as my favourite blade.
 
I buy my blades by the hundred so thy have to do the job till thy are finished ,tried feather and some others when i first started out and was happy if i did not cut my self,
but i did buy 100 Voskhods and thought thy were good blade, but some one on here told me to try Asco orange, and in my razor, the make the Voskhods feel like lumps of blunt metal
 
I use Polsilvers and everything else is a compromise in some way.

I'd suggest Astra or Reds for beginners simply because they're easily available and a decent gauge of what a DE blade is about.

The survey is a fair representation of the market. The easily available and popular blades, are popular. Your bargain bucket stuff like Bolzano, Rapira and Treets are unpopular for a reason.
 
Astra green was my first blade too. I think as already mentioned, its a very reccomended blade for starters, and that make most people having tried it (then the probability of being ranked as the best is higher than for the less known brands). It is good, of course, but ranking it the best against other blades not tried is a strong source of bias. For example, crystal, a brand I never heard before (like others on the plot), has very few votes and that's either because is not that good, or because is sheldomly used, or with limited availability, and we cannot properly separate this confounding processes. Simply plotting a survey outcome without a sensible way of censoring each individual sample from the universe of blades is confounding. I mean, a given individual may choose the best being Astra, but there is a need to know how many of the others he has tried too as a blade cannot be ranked above any other blade if it has not been tried. That has to be incorporated into a model to get an unbiased rank, which is not a simple issue.
Of course, it is nice to do what those guys did, and still informative, and probably very funny, as i reckon it came from another shaving forum xD. I just spent too many hours 6-7 days a week in front of a computer writing code for doing some sort of weird seals analysis (I am sort kind of quantitative ecologist), so better let it be and ignore what i wrote :p :banhappy: :panda:
 
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