By far the best blade I've ever used. My beard does not grow fast, but my whiskers are hard on blades. I've tried numerous brands and to date the best I'd found was the Gillette 7'o black pack which yield me exactly three shaves per blade with the third one being fairly rough. Recently fellow TSD'er Neandertal gave me a Med Prep to try and wowser...what a shave and what blade life! I finally stopped at shave seven which still provided a weeper-free, close shave but was just a bit too rough. So call it six shaves per blade. Double what I'm getting now and 100 of them are cheaper than the blacks. Better than that is the smooth shave it offers every time. I kept waiting for it to be uncomfortable and drag but it just kept on going. We already ordered a box. If your whiskers are hard on blades or you're still searching for a good brand I highly recommend giving these a try. West Coast Shaving has them and other than that Google shopping takes you to a medical supply place that over charges for them. I am duly impressed.
There are some excellent blades that fly under the radar and this is one of them. Medical preparation needs inexpensive but highly reliable blades. They translate well into the wet shaving world.
They are one of my goto DE blades. The others are Gillette Yellows. Both give me 7+ shaves, but I toss them after a week.
The "hospital use" Personna blades are the same exact blades as the "lab use" Personna blades, except the "hospital use" blades get an extra washing step in manufacturing and are stamped "for hospital use". The "lab use" blades are stamped "Super". So you can get the "lab use" blades here for 250 blades for $44.00 plus shipping, item number 72000. Or if you just have to have the ones marked "hospital use", you can get them here at 100 for $25.00 plus shipping versus West Coast Shaving's $34.00 plus shipping.
There are / were a large number of these blades in the grab bag. If there are any left when it comes back to me I will try a few.
Personna Medical Prep blades are the exact same blade as the Personna Lab blades. Made at the same facility. Only difference is that being a Med product, there's a final extra sterilization procedure at the end. But the markings and wrapping of each blade is slightly different, even though it's exactly the same product in terms of shave and performance. The BIG difference is in price. The Lab blades are about half the price of the Med blades. For the exact same blade. I just paid about $45 for 250 Lab blades from razorbladesandmore.com
Ok, so I was all set to reply last night, but fell asleep with my laptop on my lap. Woke up this morning and wrote and posted the above without refreshing the page first. But after it refreshed, I see that Jody had already posted essentially the same post! So there ya go. Two independent people telling you essentially the same thing about the product.
The med preps are excellent. For me, Personna meds, labs, and barbers are the best blades. And they're made in the U.S.A., which is pretty cool.
I've tried the Personna barber blades. They were a sample from RazorBladesAndMore when I bought something else. The barber blades are very generic, no brand name on the blade, in plain white wrappers. It is a sharp blade, but smoother and less irritation than I get from a Feather, which I just can't use. Does anyone have experience with the barber and the medical or lab blades? Are they all essentially the same, or is there a difference?
Wish I'd have known about the lab blade being the same product for cheaper. Anyway I'm still satisfied w/ the purchase. Such a good shave and blade life and cheaper than blacks. Once it comes time for a reorder I'll look into the labs. Thanks for the info.
Lab blades are indistinguishable from med preps as far as the shave goes. I have barber blades in the test lineup, but I haven't tried them yet.
OK, so today I was going to start testing a blade I loaded yesterday, but I'm taking a hit for the team, and I took that blade out and rewrapped it. I put a barber blade in the Tech and used it instead. It's a pretty good blade. If it gives me a good shave out of the Tech, it's a good sharp blade. Todays shave was possibly just a curly hairs thickness away from a BBS. Tomorrow, it'll be tried in a black handle SS. After that it's in the Slim set at 9 until it runs out of gas.
Today the Barber blade was in the Black handle SS. So far it's indistinguishable from a Med Prep or Lab blade for me. Tomorrow it'll be used in the Slim set to 9. I won't refresh this until the blade is spent. Hopefully in 5 more days. BTW, I remember pricing them quite some tima ago, and they were considerably more expensive than either the MPs or labs. So if a barber blade is the equivalent of those 2 I'll opt for the lesser priced blades.
i used my lab for the second time today. i threw that bad boy on 6 in my merkur futur. first two passes were great, but i knew it was a little too aggressive for my un skilled hands. so i knocked it back to 3 to finish up. BBS shave. setting it back to three was amazing, you really notice how gentle it is after having it wide open on 6.
I just finished the 7th BBS from a personna barber blade this AM. The last 5 shaves with it were with Slim Adj set to 9. I probably could have gotten more shaves from the blade, but I always quit at 7 shaves no matter how good the blade still feels. If they're different from the med preps or lab blades I couldn't detect it. So of the 3 blades, I'd go with best price.
Going to hijack my own thread here just because I don't want to start a new one. I'm still very impressed w/ the med preps but I have to throw down some props for the Gillette 7'oclock blues made in St. Petersburg, Russia I believe. Before buying the preps I picked up a sample pack of blues on the advice of PanChango (thanks bud). I just finished shave #3 with one today and it's ready to keep going. Don't know if I'll hit 6 or 7 shaves like w/ the preps, but whenever I can get past three shaves on a blade I'm impressed. 100 blues are cheaper than the 7'o blacks and the Preps so these are worth trying out too if you're still experimenting. I'll update the thread with a number count when I finally toss it. Two very good blades I've discovered for myself now. Very happy.
