Be afraid! Be very afraid! This blade has Jekyl and Hyde personality. It's sharp and dull at the same time. It felt like I was pulling the whiskers and yet when the shave was finally over, felt like an eternity, my face was a bloody mess. My technique may not be the best but it's good enough to get decent or,most of the time, BBS shaves with all the other blades I've used out of my sample pack from Razor and Brush. It's by far the worst blade I've ever tried and there have been some bad ones!
Not really for me at all-I kept thinking any second I was going to get cut or nicked. The price of these blades is pretty fair, however. I'd still rather stick to my Sharps, or 7 am's. These are not the worst blades I ever had, but they're far from being the best.
These are sharp and fairly smooth. But I agree with the Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde personality. You're going along thinking what a nice shave the bam they nick the heck out of you. Worst nicks I've gotten yet. I'm using a 1947 SS that's known to be mild. With the Feather you know they can bite you but they give you ample notice. This split personality reminds me of what one WWII Luftwaffe ace said about the Messerschmidt 109- It was a nice flying plane once you got over the feeling that it was waiting to kill you. The Treet Platinums are just waiting to nick without the slightest provocation or notice but they don't give a satisfactory enough shave to warrant admiration.
When my technique and preparation gets sloppy I pop one of these blades in my Gillette NEW. It will break you of bad habits at a fraction of the cost of a Feather blade. Probably less forgiving than a Feather blade which is saying a lot. It is a sharp blade which will punish you for bad behavior.
I have only used one of these blades, but had a very positive experience. I got three shaves out of it I have also pif'ed a sample of 17 different blades to a colleague, and he also commented on how good these blades were. However, we are both newbies, and he is one of the few I know of who prefers Derby over Astra. As always our metric mileage may vary
I thought that I could make any blade work until I tried these. I really wanted to like them, but after having my face torn up for a week I just had to admit that these blades are not for me.
I totally agree with the above posts. You can, to a small degree, make them less ghastly if you palm strop them.