I'm curious what everyone finds to be the worst blades you've tried. I know for me it's not even close, I absolutely cannot take Tiger blades. These are the only blade I've found that I simply cannot get a comfortable shave from, even a single pass WTG tears me up. I imagine being mauled by a tiger would feel very similar to shaving with this blade. I also want to state up front that I'm just asking what is each person's worst blade. That doesn't mean that any of those blades are going to be bad for everyone. I'll expect to hear Merkur and Feather a few times, but I also know these are go-to blades for some people. So what is the worst blade for you?
Without a doubt for me Derby's but I've noticed that any blade that is platinum coated usually is rough on my face, Derby's, BlueBirds, and Astras.
I hardly ever met a DE blade I didn't like, but I never was too fussy on anything marked Supermax. goshawk
I've tried only 4 kinds of blades so far, and didn't think any of them were bad. The ones I got from Dollar General don't seem to shave as close as the other 3 (red Personna, Wal-Mart Personna and Merkur are the other 3), but the D. G. feels good on the face.
I tried a Shark once that didn't agree with me. I'd like to retry that one day to make sure it wasn't my technique as I've heard good things about them.
7AMs. I once found some blades called Nelson in a African market. Two strokes and it went in the garbage can. The Sharps were a little better than the 7aMs but not much.
Hmmm... worst blades, in order of performance: 1. Sharp Stainless- tried these early on. Got horrible results. I'd kind of like to retry them now that my technique's improved. At the time I couldn't get even one good shave out of these blades. 2. Zorrik- dulled quickly. I could get one decent shave out of a fresh blade but even that was pushing it. 3. Merkur- these were my most hated blades until I found a razor that they worked with. So I've promoted them from worst to third worst. In the right razor they can give a good shave. In the wrong razor, though... you'd do better to shave with a paint scraper.
I feel like I should preface my previous statement with YMMV, and also point out that blades I don't like in some razors work better in some of my others. My Shark test was only in my Tech clone. Derbies in my Tech are not very fun, but work fine in my Slim. Iridiums in my Tech work better than they do in the Slim.
For DE, I haven't run across any tears-my-face-to-shreds awful blades, but there were a couple that were fairly bad. Gillette 7 O'clock Yellow were about the worst for me, a very rough shave. I know that a lot of people like these, so I gave them a fair chance. After two shaves with the first blade in the pack, I took a couple of shaves with each of the next two, on the theory that maybe I'd gotten one dud blade. Same thing. Maybe I got the one dud five pack. Not enough variety in SE and injector blades to have a best and worst, but haven't tried a bad blade yet.
I find that basically every blade except Feathers or Crystals have varying degree of negative aspects about them, the main one being that they don't have a smooth cutting action. I guess I can point out Derby as one of the worst ones I have used. It always feels like I am shaving with a dull razor blade.
I've had bad luck with Derbys and Merkurs. The worst by far was the misshapened Zorrik blade that protruded more on one side than the other. I think it was a manufacturing defect.
Several of you have stated Dorco blades without mentioning which one. I'm assuming most of you are talking about ST-300's. While I don't find them the worst, they are inconsistant for me and I can understand them being mentioned. The ST-301 OTOH is a much better blade for me and I'd be surprised to hear it on this thread with any frequency.
When I make my next order from the TSD store I'm grabbing some 301s to test. I've heard enough good things about them here, and the price looks great.
