

As I have mentioned previously (links at the bottom of this article), I have been trying different brands of razor blades in an attempt to find a suitable replacement(s) for the blade I had been using and had been discontinued. Here are my comments on the Astra blade (green box).



Astra Green

I am making a distinction here between the blades that come in a green box vs. the blades that come in a blue box. I found these “green” blades did not work very well for me. Using three different Astra blades in three different razors (a Merkur Progress, a Parker 92R, and a Merkur HD) yielded the same results: numerious small nicks on the skin and a relatively short blade life. Here is the edge of a new Astra blade as seen through a scanning electron microscope (SEM), with the blade edge at the top of the picture:

And here is a blade after four shaves (again, with the edge at the top of the image):



You can see the edge degradation quite clearly. But out of curiousity I cranked up the magnification of the SEM for a closer look (blade edge at top of image):



This particular blade is just not for me.

Thanks to John at West Coast Shaving for his help with this series of articles.

Related Posts:

Mantic59’s Blade Search Begins

Blade Search: Crystal

