This has been adjudicated, urban legend. The manufacturer has indicated at least twice in recent years that the blades are made to the same specification by different divisions. This from the B&B forum in 2010: "As I previously posted, I wrote to both EMS and Personna concerning the Robbins blade and the EMS blade. Today, I received an e-mail from a regional sales manager for the medical division of the Personna American Safety Razor Co. and also had a follow up telephone conversation with a a representative from the medical division. In brief, the two blades in question (the Robbins and EMS blade) are identical except that the Robbins blade goes through an additional "cleaning up" process that is required for hospital use. The cleaning up process does not change the way the blade shaves. I asked why the two blades and the answer is that the same blade is made by two different divisions. The Robbins blade is made by the Medical Division while the EMS blade is made by the "industrial" division, which sells it to labs. However, the process for making the two blades is the same and the blades for all practical purposes are identical. Supposedly, someone from the industrial division will contact me within the next two days. I was very pleasantly surprised by the prompt answer I received from Personna. The representative was surprised that many of us like to shave with these blades and I said that Personna is missing out on some sales to the public since they sell their regular products from their website but not the medical blades. She said the medical blades are sold to distributors in lots of 1,000 or more. " This information was reaffirmed by the manufacturer within the last couple years. Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk
Sounds good to me................... The cleaning up thing sounds plausible and I think it's because of the oil on the blades, correct me if I am wrong. I was researching this back a while.
Had another great shave with my Lab Blues tonight. Curious about trying the Med Preps now. Where does one buy them?
I don't know what makes the Med Prep blades better for but I get 4 or 5 shaves off of the Lab Blue blades and I get at least 7 off of the Med Prep blades. Dave
I get the same out of the Lab Blues, don't have any Med Preps.I also use Israeli Personnas, and for me at least, about as sharp as a Lab Blue, but smoother.
Med preps are more than twice the price of labs. Razorbladesandmore sells them in either 10 or 100, West Coast Shaving and Amazon sells 100 pack as well. Robbins Instruments was the first place to carry them & still has a good price 250 for $55 if you like them and want to buy in bulk.
I didn't have such great luck with the regular Personna blues but it was a decent performer on the first shave. I have heard that Med Preps are similar to Kais, which I absolutely love. They are also priced similarly so I wonder if they are worth checking out for me. It seems a bit hard to get a hold of Kai blades.
From what I understand, they are the exact same blade, except for the fact that the Med Preps go through an additional sanitizing process that makes them for medical use. Both are great blades and perform the same for me, except the Lab Blues are cheaper.
These blades are performing wonderfully for me. I can't believe I never got around to them before. I've tried many, many different blades before settling on my Astra SPs, but these Lab Blues seem to match my skin/facial hair type perfectly. I've never had my neck chin and so smooth and irritation free. And - I'm actually able to shave everyday! This is amazing. I can actually enjoy my shaves even more now. I've wet shaved for 6+ years and have always had to shave every other day or even every two days otherwise there would be razor burn and irritation. No matter the matter what I did, I had to wait. These blades for me are a game changer and they're so cheap. I do believe I have found my new go-to DE blade!
Something I've noticed. For my face, I've found that the Personnas last about 5 or 6 shaves before they start to tug. My other all-time favorite blade, the Astra SP usually got me 8-12 with ease. Yet, the Personnas are easily the smoothest blade I've tried. Way smoother than the Astras. I get zero irritation and I'm able to go against the grain on my neck finally achieve a true BBS on the crease of the right side of my neck. I've never had that before. It was my "white whale" of the area of my face I couldn't get smooth no matter what. I still love my Astras, but I ordered and extra 200 of the Personnas. I now have 400. I've never had that many blades of any brand before, lol.
Those are the only 2 blades I have back ups on. They are actually the only two blades I have in my den now. They're perfect, cheap, and I have enough to last a few years with proper care. My face has never felt better.
I was looking to purchase a few Lab Blues to try them and it looked like what some call Lab Blues others call Med Prep. Some are in blue wrappers and others are in white wrappers. Then there are theSuper Blues where do they fit in?
The white wrappers are the lab blades. They used to come in a blue wrapper that said Super on them. I think the blue wrapper could either be the med preps or the lab blades in the old packaging.