Safety Razor Blades: What the Group Recommends
John asked the group what blade to run in his new safety razor, and mentioned he didn’t want to spend much. Rune answered before anyone else could pile on.
Even at the premium end, DE blades are cheap. A hundred of the most expensive options you can buy won’t set you back much. Budget isn’t the variable here. Fit is.
Start with a sampler
The group lines up fast on this. John said he’d get a sample pack. Dave’s entire reply was two words. Chris laid out the method: write down which blades work, then buy more of those. With patience, you’ll find five or six that suit you.
A blade that’s perfect in one razor can be wrong in another. Chris runs Feather and Kai in his Merkur 34C without issues, but those same blades are too much in a Rex Ambassador, so he switches to Personna Platinum there instead. Same person, different razor geometry, completely different result. Steve and Curtis both make the same broader point: your skin type, hair coarseness, and technique all factor in too. A sampler tells you what works for your actual setup, not just what performs well for someone else’s face with someone else’s razor.
The group’s picks
Once the sampler is done, you get opinions. The thread turned up a solid range.
Feather and Kai are the Japanese options. Both come up consistently when the group talks quality blades. Sharp, consistent, and still inexpensive by any standard.
Gillette Nacet got two separate calls from James and Jasper. Jasper initially struggled with it early in his wet-shaving life, before coming back to it later and finding it a strong match in vintage Gillette hardware. He also pointed to the Gillette Ruby from St. Petersburg as worth a look among Russian-made blades.
Rapira Platinum Lux was independently named by Mike and Diego as a personal go-to. If you want to explore Russian blades beyond the Nacet, this is where the thread points.
Voskhod has been Andy’s choice for years. He notes they’re getting harder to find in the UK lately.
Gillette 7 o’clock is on Jeff’s list at around $10 for 100. Multiple variants exist under this name. The one people typically mean when they recommend it is the Russian-made SharpEdge, yellow package. Other variants, the green and black packages, are Indian production and a different blade.
Tatra Platinum (blue package) is Craig’s pick for value: $10 for 100. Craig calls it the best bang-for-the-buck in the thread.
BiC Platinum is what Ignacio runs, at about $4.50 for 100. Worth adding to any sampler order at that price.
Euromax is Barry’s choice if he had to pick one. Not the most-mentioned blade in the thread, but earns repeat users.
A few others came up as well: Diego listed Gillette Blues alongside Rapira as a personal favorite. Mani flagged STARMAXX as a strong performer in US markets, available in New York. Ross has used Flydear from AliExpress and Temu as a budget option.
Jeff and Steven both mentioned Personna Gem blades. Worth knowing: these are GEM-format single-edge blades, not standard DE. They won’t fit a double-edge razor. But if you pick up a GEM-style single-edge razor down the line, that’s the recommendation to remember.
Curtis put it cleanest.
Blade selection is the most personal call in wet shaving. More so than soap, more so than the razor. What the group has listed here is a strong starting shortlist. A sampler validates which parts of it actually apply to your setup.
Happy shaving.