My path, has been in some ways the opposite from that of the OP. It appears he had mastered the use of, perhaps the most difficult shaving tool, then moved into an arena of variables leading to self inflicted injury. I began my journey working on technique but did not find the coveted BBS until I found a tool touted by the US vendor as the next best thing to "nailing it with a straight", (and he makes a living in the straight razor business). While this tool requires its own technique parameters, it is really easy to get that injury free BBS day after day. Now that I have a greater understanding of just how good results can be (cotton ball good), my goal is matching this result regardless of the combination of hardware I choose. Had I first mastered the open blade tool that us used by barbers all over the world, I'm pretty convinced most DE's would be just fine with most blades. You might even find me shaving with sticks and coat hangers.
If we just tweak the semantics a bit, maybe we can all lower our hackles a bit. My position would be that: With proper technique any quality blade, in any quality razor will deliver a close, comfortable shave. Can you feel a difference between some? Sure. Are some indistinguishable? Sure. And yes, some stuff just sucks. But not that much of it. I fall back on two often used sayings here. “Technique Trumps Tools” “If you can’t drive a standard, don’t blame the clutch.”
Once I “mastered” open blade shaving, I have not found a blade or a razor in my den that I couldn’t get a good shave with.
Anyone who can't get a great shave with sticks and coat hangers isn't using proper technique. To claim otherwise is total bs. With good technique all sticks and coathangers can deliver a good shave, and all their variations deliver an equally good shave. Your statement is utter nonsense. @Michael_W and I were noting what we had experienced. That holds true whether you agree with it or not. Thousands of guys on the forums report some blades working well and some quite poorly over the past 15 years, and they are all full of it? That's a pretty big stretch. "Technique trumps tools" and "Empirical observations trump theory" are equally true. With all of the clear, concise instructions available online, learning proper technique is not terribly difficult. Also, "doesn't cut" does not necessarily mean "gives comfortable, close shaves". If it did, there would be no need for blade sampler packs and they wouldn't be widely sold or recommended. As I noted before, "does not cut" and "gives good shaves" are not necessarily the same thing. I have only received five cuts from safety razors in the last ten years. Three cuts were in the first two months when I was just starting out. The last two were about eight years later when I was in a rush and shaving way too fast. So yeah, lack of attention, too.
