Top critical review
2.0 out of 5 starsNot good at all for me
Reviewed in the United States on April 8, 2022
To avoid the "worked great for me, don't know what your problem is!!" responses, I will begin by noting that razor blade experience certainly is very dependent on a number of factors including your facial shape, skin texture, skin sensitivity, hair growth pattern, hair coarseness, etc. I am well aware that a razor which is terrible for one person is the best razor ever for the next guy. That said, I will do what everybody should do in reviews, that is, writing it to reflect MY experience. I don't intend to try to guess at what "most people" might experience and write for that viewpoint. The following is therefore MY experience.
This blade is really not a good experience for my skin/face/whisker profile. It was the second blade I bought after having tried a pack of Derby blades (similarly unsatisfactory outcome), and then I went through several sampler bundles and found a few blades that are *AWESOME* for me, some that are "very good", and then the range down to "pretty bad experience", which is where this one falls for me.
After having used it for a few months with multiple nicks every time I shave, a lot of irritation, and the blade getting even worse after each shave so that even by the 3rd shave it's really unbearable, I went through the sampler packs, used a couple of the other blades that were amazing for me (the Voskhod and the Indian made Gillette branded Wilkinson Sword) for a couple of years with great satisfaction, I got these Astra Superior Platinum blades back out of the bottom drawer to try again, thinking maybe having gotten much better at DE wet shaving might have made a difference in how I would experience these blades.
So with the two best for me, I get a baby-smooth shave with pretty much no irritation almost every time, and nicks/cuts are not something that happens in 4 or 5 places on my face every single time I shave -- in fact, I rarely have any at all unless I just got careless somewhere. Somehow I can pass over some places very carefully with this blade and still end up with a couple of blood spots popping up from it. Anyway, getting these blades back out recently and then trying to use a blade just once before discarding sometimes, or maybe 2 or 3 times for others (thinking maybe the coating wearing off might help the sharpness, but it didn't matter) and using these in rotation with the others I prefer for a couple of months was not very different from my earlier experience. So now I'm still left with a bunch of these blades which I will either throw away or give away. Anyway, I'd use a Wilkinson Sword or Voskhod one day and get a good shave then an Astra SP the next and get a miserable outcome. Very consistent, too.
I will be clear that your mileage could vary, and clearly this blade is rated 4.5 stars because for every unfortunate one like me who gets a terrible shave out of these, there are enough to maintain a very high average who have either truly had a great experience with the same blade or it's the only thing they've ever used and they just assume that's as good as it gets. I'll charitably assume the former.
At least they're very inexpensive, just $8 and some change for 100 of them, so you're not really out much money to try them and it will probably work far better for you than it did for me, but take this review as a heads up that it also might not be a good experience and if you try them and your face is burning and bleeding and you still have rough patches, you're one of the 5% who aren't compatible with these blades, and so move on. Even better, if you're new at this or deciding to go try some things, search Amazon for some of the DE blade sampler packs and get some packs that have a couple of each of a bunch of different blades. Even different offerings from the same company can be quite different. Gillette has some blades that were pretty rough on me and others that were amazing.
Just be clear that I don't have a vendetta against this particular brand, which even happens to be a Russian subsidiary of Gillette, the maker of the Wilkinson Swords I love, and it's not that it's Russian either because my absolute FAVORITE blade is the Voskhod, also a Russian blade. And even for Astra, there is another variation called the "Superior Stainless" which is an uncoated blade which feels like it's quite a bit sharper and maybe has some other features that are different, because while that blade isn't as good for me as my two go-to choices, it's still "very good" and I do get a satisfying shave out of it -- just slightly more irritation, but not excessive. I do really like THAT blade.
