Hi! Has anyone made an attempt to index users favourite blades by their skin and hair type? This might (or might not) prove a reliable guide to what blades we should each try. We could possibly classify skin as/by - sensitivity - grease level - bumpiness and hair as - fine, regular, thick - grows straight or flat - ingrowing hairs or not So, for example, I have sensitive, moderately greasy skin, with thick, flat growing hair, but no ingrowings. So far the best blade for me has been a Feather. (But I've only tried Feathers and Merkur's - until I got here I didn't know there were others.) What do you think? Too anal retentive, obsessive compulsive?
Too subjective. Even with the same person, there may be variables that change every so often that call for a different brand of blade. With so many varieties of sampler packs available (DE blades) at good prices, it's best to get a pack or two and have at it. You'll probably end up with 2 or 3 blades you prefer for different situations. Example: I use this blade daily but if I haven't been able to shave for a few days, I go to brand XYZ.
Or then again, there may not be. At the moment we have reviews saying what people think of blades, but they're not really meaningful - because we typically don't know ***at all*** how the blade is being judged. Take golf as an analogy: people may validly prefer different, ummm putters (I don't really know much about golf) - but that isn't a reason for lumping all reviews of clubs together, without saying what sort of shots the reviewer used the club for. Or do people who have tried more blades than I have really think that there isn't a relationship between skin and hair type and blade choice? So that eg there's no such thing as a good heavy beard blade? I'm willing to believe it if people say so, but it would surprise me. (If skin and hair type differences don't explain different blade preferences, it's hard to think what might do so...) People should certainly try different blades... but isn't intelligently narrowing down one's choices a good thing? Trying a blade probably takes several days. Why waste a month of time (and possibly blood..) trying 10 blades, 6 of which were no-hopers for your skin type, when you could have tried 10 blades which stand a better chance of working? Again, if people DON'T believe that skin and hair type relate to blade choice, the idea is worthless, of course.
I may be off base a little here from what you want to do but I thought you might like to look at this from our resident DE expert, Leisureguy. http://www.theshaveden.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2346&highlight=leisureguy I'm not saying don't pursue your line of thinking, just responding to your idea of intelligently narrowing down blade choices. At any rate, keep going with this. It will be interesting to see what results.
I kinda would have to agree with Reformation on this one. There are to many variables to say..... this goes with that....
Yes, I've seen it - it's an excellent resource. But my comments above still apply, tentatively at least. All I'm proposing is that people say "My skin is X, my hair is Y, I've tried abcde, and like c best". If there's no pattern, there's no pattern. But there might be, which would be soooo useful for people starting out, or for people who haven't tried every blade under the sun. It's not like we're being charged for the bandwidth. People here review blades, and if we say that blades are subject to a lot of variables, then trying to match blades to key variables makes a LOT more sense than simple good-or-bad.
You asked what we thought and I gave you my thought. I also said to continue to pursue the idea and that the results might prove interesting. I've never asked for justification for the idea and I hope you aren't getting the idea that I'm trying to stop it. I am sorry if that's the impression I've given you.
