Derby is no doubt an excellent blade as you can see from other reviews here. The main point of this review is if you are new and you are looking and might be thinking about buying a 100 pack off the bat, just be careful. They work well for many, but might not be right for your face/beard type. They did not cut well for me and I am glad I had a sampler pack. I couldn't wait till I got to the Derby's with all the positive reviews, but I had to move on rather fast. Who knows, maybe six months or a year from now I will come back to them.
Howlwolf gives sound advice - do not buy any blade in bulk until you know it is a blade that will work for you and you like; buy a sample pack. Support the Den. Buy from TSD. Nope - I don't like Derby, either.
Derby is actually my favorite blade out of all that I've used. I'm planning on buying them in bulk when my supply runs low. Just boils down to personal preference.
That is the first blade I bought and made the mistake of buying in bulk. I can't use them, and I plan to give them away in the grab box pass.
Exactly. Then when you find your blade, you kind of look forward to using up all the rest of the sample brands so you can load up on that kind.
I know now and understand exactly what you mean!! After just getting done with the Shark Stainless Steel and having the best so far, clean, sharp, two pass, some touch up needed, but very nice and easy. Lasting easy 5 days changed to a Lord and not as happy. Still a good blade. I still have the respected Feather, Kai, and others to get through, but I was so happy with the Shark, well you know what I'm saying...
The Sharks did pretty good, I could get a solid 4-5 shaves form them consistently. They gave me 3-4 shaves in my merkur. I got 100 black beauties & 100 derby, The logic being the black beauties are sharper & do well in my merkur & the derbys will do good in my EJ. I've yet to try astra yet, but I hear a lot of good things about them.
For me, and of course YMMV, Astra = good, Derby = bad. The Derby's just tend to tug and just don't give me a comfortable shave. I'm glad I bought a sample pack that had them in it so I could learn that the easy way.
It's funny.. they're a strange blade for me. The first shave sucks, but then the next half dozen rock. I think they need corking. They're also hella cheap, so that's good!
I'm about through with my samplepacks so I decided to buy a blade in bulk. I looked through my notes (I keep a notebook detailing every shave) and itappeared that the derby blade seemed to perform the best. Astrablades performed well too but the derby blades performed well across most of my razors. Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk
Used a Derby Extra blade for the first time today in my EJ. AWESOME shave. Very close & I'm BBS. Awesome blade. Glad I got a 100 pack, I love it when my gut feelings are correct. Next blade to try is Astra. Derby is an excellent blade though. 1st shave is in the books. Now I'll see how many shaves I can squeeze out of one blade. =D
Just some food for though, Jason... When I used an SE for the first time, I thought it was the best shave ever. Then after the third day in a row with the SE I found I was getting razor burn. I set it aside for a week and came back later. Same thing, three shaves = burn. I limited my SE shave to Sundays only, until just recently I experimented with a full week of SE shaves - NO BURN! My technique had improved vastly. :happy088 Long story short, don't be too quick to judge any product on a one-time use. I do hope the Derby proves to be a good blade for you. If they don't work out now, put 'em on the back shelf and come back to 'em in a few months and try again.
That is what i am diong. I tried a bunch of blades in my Red tip until i find one that works well. Use up a ton of those blades then go back and find what else works. Or do the same with a diffrent razor. All of the diffrent combinations no two shaves have to be the same.
My only negative on Derbys is the ridiculously excessive packaging, compared to other good cheap brands (Astra and Shark come to mind), whose packaging is not only recylable, but compostable! There is a reason that so many people recommend trying different blades - it's simply a good idea, because YM will V.
