Poll: Shaves with Feather Where Performance Doesn't Degrade

I'm curious what y'all have experienced.

Thanks for your input

It's not only their low productivity, but that bloody wax! Not the only wax sinners; loaded a 'new to me' Gillette Stainless this morning and UGH... More of the same!

The wax doesn't bother me.  I believe the reason for having it is to prevent the blades from dulling in the wrapper by movement during shipping.  The wax keeps them put.

Feather is one of my favorites, I get seven easy shaves. I've pushed it beyond that many times, one of the best modern day blades imo.

2 for me. Sometimes I can get 3 depending on the razor, but I usually don't take a chance and just change blades after 2 uses if it is a Feather. My skin seems to be more sensitive to blade dullness, so I may the exception here

(10-03-2016, 08:22 PM)desafetyrazor Wrote: The wax doesn't bother me.  I believe the reason for having it is to prevent the blades from dulling in the wrapper by movement during shipping.  The wax keeps them put.

I'm sure you're correct. Granted, they have that extra measure of sharpness that they wish to protect and maybe the anchored paper does that, but other quite sharp blades without wax perform as well, for me, with better longevity and lower price. Guess it has to be said again, YMMV! Suffice to say, though, longevity is not Feather blades' strong point.

(10-04-2016, 07:21 AM)beamon Wrote:

(10-03-2016, 08:22 PM)desafetyrazor Wrote: The wax doesn't bother me.  I believe the reason for having it is to prevent the blades from dulling in the wrapper by movement during shipping.  The wax keeps them put.

I'm sure you're correct. Granted, they have that extra measure of sharpness that they wish to protect and maybe the anchored paper does that, but other quite sharp blades without wax perform as well, for me, with better longevity and lower price. 

I am at least as sure that the wax has nothing to do with dulling in the wrapper.

Think of it:  somebody gives you a razor blade and asks you to lay it flat on a sheet of clean, smooth, paper and, without changing the angle of the blade to the paper, do everything in your power to dull the blade by jiggling it back and forth.  The taskmaster gives you, say, 24 hours to do your absolute best.  At the end of 24 hours, do you really think that you will have dulled the blade?  And, insulated from the outside world by being very tightly packed inside a rigid plastic case, the Feather blade does not have the freedom of movement that you do.

A few blocks away from the building in Seki City where the Feather blades are packaged, KAI packages DE blades that are every bit as sharp as the Feather blades, and KAI wraps the blades, without any wax dots, with paper similar to the paper that Feather uses to wrap its blades.  KAI blades, like Feather blades, are delivered to the users in very, very sharp condition.  The wax dots of the Feather packaging must be there for some other reason.

any more votes?  would like to get more experienced people to chime in

thanks

My understanding is KAI blades are much thicker than Feather, so I'm not sure it is a fair comparison.

With Feather blades, the paper wraps around the blade. So if the blade were loose, I'm sure with enough jiggling the edge would rub against the paper.  I would argue that just like leather stropping a blade can affect its edge, paper rubbing against the edge could affect it too.

CCD or COLONY COLLAPSE DISORDER is decimating US bee populations and has been directly linked to Monsanto's promotion of Nicotoid based insecticides.
Be happy other nations have healthy populations to pollinate a myriad of food crops we take for granted and can irritate us girlymen with wax dots. I forget, in PAPER, ROCK, SCISSORS who defeats paper? You are making a common blunder of new shavers called overthinking minutae. Find razorblades you like. If they have wax dots real men scrape them off. Pay the money and get a good supply, for tommorow, as Scarlett O'Hara said; is another day.

Uh ok

Feather blades may be my best performing blades. Thin & sharp. But for every ying there is a yang. The sacrifice for being thin & sharp is that it's the quickest to dull.

Like Giorgio, I won't go past 2 shaves with a Feather. Most times, it's one and done.

I will say...I have a coarse beard.

One thing this pole doesn't take into consideration is time between shaves. I normally only use my feather once. However, the only reason I do this is because I have 2-4 days between shaves. Having a blade sit in my razor that long is silly and prone to rusting (yes, even if it's stainless steel). Knowing this, I've only had a few runs where the razor sat for days. On those runs, my second shave with same blade was poor. I have thick hairs though.

Good point about blade sitting. I'm beginning to notice performance drop after one. It isn't terrible though

Two for me as well. I've been using them for years almost exclusively, and I've always regretted trying to push it to a third shave. I don't know if this makes a difference, but I'll flip the blade over between the 1st and 2nd use.

(10-15-2016, 07:02 AM)Michael P Wrote: Two for me as well. I've been using them for years almost exclusively, and I've always regretted trying to push it to a third shave. I don't know if this makes a difference, but I'll flip the blade over between the 1st and 2nd use.

Flipping the blade makes no difference.

One and done for me. By the second shave, it feels like a soup can lid.

I found them uncomfortable from the get go and noticeably more so by the third pass of the first shave. A glaring example of YMMV for me at least since a sizable majority find them to be the best modern blade made

(01-16-2017, 07:20 AM)Mouser Wrote: I found them uncomfortable from the get go and noticeably more so by the third pass of the first shave. A glaring example of YMMV for me at least since a sizable majority find them to be the best modern blade made

That particular “YMMV” may well be an artifact of the preferred razor the blade is mounted in.  The thin gauge of the Feather blade makes it especially susceptible to judder, snap-back, and wave-like motions if the blade is not tightly clamped, relatively close to the cutting edge of the blade, particularly on the baseplate side of the blade.  A Feather blade in a razor that has a baseplate that droops down at the leading edge is not a marriage made in heaven.  

Anecdotally, no actual tallying done, as to your “sizable majority” mention, from my reading of the shaving sites, the Polsilver blades seem to get more mentions and more love than Feathers do, even by those who acknowledge that, strictly on a sharpness criterion, the Feathers are sharper than any other blades except, perhaps KAIs.  

Feathers in my 34C HD last me 5-6 shaves, my go to razor and blade combo!