Another vote for tryablade.com here. I like having control of my samples. Id suggest getting at least two of each, just in case you get a dud.
I am going to sound like a broken record here but, yes, Astra is a great benchmark blade for noobs. I have yet to have a bad shave from them though perhaps not the absolute sharpest per se. If you have a 99 cent only store or similar check there. You can usually get 5 packs of blades there. Check the package to see where they are manufactured. If it says "Korea" on the package, you can generally be assured those are Dorkos. If the package says made in "Israel", you are most likely getting Personna/Energizer brand. Lastly, I have had two different sample packs that I bought from an online shaving supply vendors and NONE of the blades were factory rejects or tainted in any way.
I mostly use Astra SP, as they are the best value and shave really good. I also like Nacets, and Gillette superior platinum. Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk
Interesting. I guess it's regional. I haven't seen any Vietnamese made ones here in my neck of the woods. Only Korea and Israel. (Well, a few China here and there)
I'm mistaken. It's Dorco from Dollar General/Family Dollar that's Vietnam. Personna still claims to be energizer. Here are four photos. The first two are from one that I bought recently. Notice the copyright on the back. The second two are from two or three years ago (or more), and there's a difference in the copyright tag.
My favorites are probably Gillette silver blues, but I have several I like (Gillette 7 o'clock yellows, Rapira, voskhod, feather, Astra SP), but I usually get whatever I can find at the best value when I need to buy. There are too many great blades out there at .10 cents each for me to pay 1.00 each
Another vote here for Astra SP - until a couple months ago I'd been using Gillette Silver Blue's almost all the time, only occasionally trying other blades, just one at a time before switching back. I knew a lot of people like the Astra's so I stuck with them for a whole month thinking I'd still eventually go back... but now I actually like the Astra SP better. Sent from my SM-N910W8 using Tapatalk
Per PaceShaving.com, those are the Dorco STD-301 (not to be confused with the more common ST-301 or the Dorco Prime Platinum STP-301). There's a couple of people here who swear by this blade. Personally, I hate it, but... YMMV. It's probably in the same camp as, say, the Derby Extra in terms of polarized reactions.
I have one customer (black man) who has been having really good luck with the Dorco/dollar store blades.
There is no objective "best blade" for everyone. For every person who swears by a particular blade, there is probably another who swears at it. The only way to be sure of what is best for you is to try a bunch of different ones.
Being a noob I'm definitely finding this. I did kind of a survery of must try blades and the answers were all over the place to be honest. A few kept showing up and they are the ones I tried first from my sample pack. So far loved 2 liked 1 hated another... As many say technique means a lot as well. If you were to truely pick/classify a "best" blade it would be one that the majority of people seem to get a good shave out of. Maybe not everyones favorite but also probably doesn't have a ton of haters either. The 2 that stand out to me in my limited time so far are Personna Blue Lab and Astra SP. Again maybe not the best for everyone but for the most part I would say most people get an acceptable shave from them. Sent from my SM-G930P using Tapatalk
So I got all the blades I orderd and have had a chance to try one of each, so far I really like the derbys, the Astras I orderd did not preform overly well, not bad but not great. The voskhods cut me from stem to stern and the gillettes were just a bad shave. I will try a few more of each before making a desision.
Wow! This is really interesting... Basically, you've pretty much managed to have the opposite experience of many on this (and other) forums. I'm not criticizing; I'm actually somewhat curious. I almost wish I was a Shave Scientist just so we could quantify what it is about your skin and beard that is so special.