Being a newbie, I went to Walgreens to pick up some DE razor blades to put in my newly acquired Super Speed. I was shocked by their $7.92 price for 10 blades for their proprietary brand! I remembered the thread here about WalMart selling Wilkinson Sword blades and went to there. They are selling for $1.79 for 10 blades. So I picked up a few packages of Wilkinson Swords. Are Walgreens blades any good justifying their price? Being a former retailer, it makes no sense that Walgreens is selling their brand blades for so much especially in comparison to WalMart's price for a name brand.
Every now and then you'll see reports like this of some mainstream retailer charging ridiculous amounts for a 5 or 10 pack of DE blades. Maybe they get enough clueless customers who are willing to pay that. Or maybe, after the blades sit around long enough without any takers, they'll conclude that nobody uses these any more and pull them off the shelf. Oh, but you can get their blades for "only" $6.99 online.
You must remember that they are a Pharmacy and accustomed to obscene profits. I suppose it rolls down to even the chepo blades as well.
I think the Walgreens and CVS blades are rebadged Personnas from American Safety Razor. I believe the Walgreen blades also are produced with Personna's 'comfort coating' system which some people like. They are over-priced compared to what you can get better blades for on the interwebs, but I guess convenience plays into it, and I doubt they are big sellers for them regardless of the price they offer them at. I have a pack, they cut whiskers, don't bloody me up, and I know 'In A Pinch' I can lay hands on a pack of decent performing DE blades with a half-mile drive if need be. Finally, at least to my face, they are better blades than the Wally-World Wilkinsons that I can also score locally.
I imagine most people can. Heck, Bullgoose sells a 10 count of red pack Personnas for $1.70. Even with shipping they are far cheaper than Walgreens. At the end of the day I wouldn't buy many even if they were $1 a pack at the drugstore as Astras and Iridiums blow them out of the water for performance on my face, and Phil at Bullgoose can get them to me in a couple of days at a great price. However, compare even the Walgreens price to (10) Mach3 carts and we are still coming out far ahead LOL.
I recently went to Kmart (a rare occurrence) & happened to notice they had some no name DE blades. They were certainly over priced - close to $8. The funny thing was that they were marked as 'reduced'!!!
The Walgreens blades are re-branded Personnas. They are not the best blades in the world, but usable if you had absolutely nothing else. They are not a very smooth blade. There is no way they are worth the high dollar Walgreens asks for them. The 10 pack of Wilkinson Sword from Wal-Mart are far far better blades, and for way less money.
I think Kmart may have Dorcos in a metal dispenser. My local grocer has Personna DEs and Dorco SEs !!!
those walgreens blades are the same ASR personnas you can get direct from personna for $1.99+tax and free shipping just with the walgreens name on the package i personally like the wal-mart wilkinsons better but YMMV
5 or 6 years ago, before I got back into wet shaving, I bought up all the DE blades at a local Walgreens and sent them to my Dad in CT because he was having fifficulty find any DE blades. I don't think I paid more than $1.50 per pack. What happened - $6 - $7+ ?!!! It wasn't that long ago. And they're almost certainly the same blades. H
yep. they're the exact same blade Walmart used to stock. The CVS (competing pharmacy) across the street from my local Walgreens sells its DE blades at a similar price ($6 and change for a ten pack) but they also stock GEM SEs for a very reasonable price ($4 for a ten pack). Go figure. Oh, and that CVS is one of the only places I can find that stocks SE blades.
