I bought 60 of these blades as part of an eBay sampler of lots of Russian blades. Why 60? I don't have any idea. it's just what the seller included for some reason. I used them occasionally for a while and earlier this year decided I'd use them as my primary DE blade and do a little long-term review. I've used 50 of them now and have some pretty detailed records of how the shaves went with each of them, using a wide variety of razors from mild to aggressive. I also occasionally shaved with some other blades to try to make good comparisons if that helps. So here goes... First off, is there anything magical about these blades? Nope. They're really good but if you can't find them around the same cost as other good St Petersburg blades like GSBs or 7 o'Clock yellows, I'd just get those other ones instead. In head-to-head comparisons, I'm not sure I could tell the 3 of these apart. Sharpness - Excellent. Seems very similar to GSB and other PPI blades. I judge sharpness first by tugginess. These don't tug at all on my beard (which is pretty dense with thick diameter whiskers). After a blade passes the "no tug" test, I like to see how much stubble gets left behind after each pass. These blades leave very little stubble behind so they are very efficient whether in a mild or aggressive razor. Smoothness - Also excellent. I judge smoothness by whether I have any irritation after the shave. These blades are great right out of the gate on the first shave. Some blades take a shave to smooth out and feel smoother on subsequent shaves. These were not like that. Often the smoothest shave from these was the first with a slow graceful degradation happening with each shave after that. Longevity - I got 3 shaves with almost all the blades and the quality of the shave tended to drop very slightly but I was still getting completely acceptable shaves. I tried a 4th shave quite a few times and each of those times the shave left me with a little more alum feedback than I like so I mostly was content to toss blades after the 3rd shave. This is exactly in line with the results I get from other good PPI blades. Overall - I gave each of my 158 shaves a 0-4 star score for closeness and 0-4 stars for comfort. 4 stars for closeness is BBS, and 3 would be a little stubble detectable on my chin or neck but BBS on the cheeks. 4 stars for comfort would be no alum feedback after the shave, while 3 stars would be a little alum tingle but no stinging. Very often, say with an extremely mild razor like the Star DE, this blade will get 4-stars for comfort but only 3-stars for closeness. Or with an R-41, 4-stars for closeness but sometimes only 3 for comfort. In my rating system 3-stars is a perfectly acceptable shave and I never gave it less than 3 stars for comfort or closeness so this is a great blade. Like I said at the beginning though, it doesn't out perform my other favorite PPI blades like the GSB or 7 o'clock yellow. So if you find those cheaper, buy them and don't worry that you're missing out. But if you find these at a decent price, I recommend them.
i have and use all the st.pete's blades listed below,and love them.ones i haven't tried are the rubies,365 and thin blades. 7 oclock blue,green,yellow,,indian 7 oclock black and green.goal,winner,gillette/wilkinson,gsb nacet,platinum and kcg..all fine blades..and spoilers of course..
