The best safety razor blades
Five blades and one sampler, ranked. The pick is Astra Superior Platinum, and the honest advice is that your first purchase should not be a hundred of anything.
By Sawyer V. · Published
We have not tested any of this. Everything below is compiled from published manufacturer specifications, and the arithmetic is printed so you can check it. This page carries affiliate links: if you buy through one we earn a commission at no extra cost to you, and it does not change the order of the picks. Full disclosure.
The short answer
Buy a sampler first, then a hundred Astras. Astra Superior Platinum is the blade almost everybody recommends to a beginner: platinum-coated stainless, forgiving rather than keen, and sold in boxes of 100. If your beard is coarse and dense and you have stopped pressing, Feather Hi-Stainless is the sharpest mainstream blade there is. If Astra drags by the third pass, Gillette Silver Blue sits between the two.
| # | Pick | Lasts | Score | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Astra Superior Platinum The blade to start on | ~500 shaves | 9.6/10 | Check price on Amazon |
| 2 | Gillette Silver Blue The middle of the range | ~500 shaves | 9.0/10 | Check price on Amazon |
| 3 | Double-edge blade sampler Your actual first blade purchase | Not published | 8.9/10 | Check price on Amazon |
| 4 | Derby Extra The cheapest way to fill a sampler | ~500 shaves | 8.9/10 | Check price on Amazon |
| 5 | Feather Hi-Stainless Coarse, dense beards | ~250 shaves | 6.6/10 | Check price on Amazon |
No live price is currently verified, so every button here reads Check price instead of a number we cannot stand behind. Why we do it that way.
The honest version of this page
Blade preference is personal to a degree that no other part of wet shaving is. The same blade that one man calls the smoothest thing he has used, another finds drags on the first pass. That is not brand loyalty talking; it is a genuine interaction between edge geometry, beard coarseness, skin, water hardness and the geometry of the razor holding it.
Which means the useful thing this page can do is not tell you which blade to buy. It is to tell you how to find out for about the price of a sandwich, and to stop you buying a hundred of the wrong one first.
Why Astra is the default answer
Astra Superior Platinum is platinum-coated stainless, made by Gillette's Russian operation, sold in boxes of 100 as twenty sealed five-packs with each blade individually wrapped. It is not the sharpest blade available and that is exactly why it is the recommendation: a forgiving edge gives a hand still carrying cartridge habits somewhere to make mistakes.
On our arithmetic a hundred blades at five shaves each is 500 shaves, which at five shaves a week is close to two years of shaving from one box. That is the number that makes the whole switch worth doing, and it is the one nobody in the category writes down. Put your own price on it here.
When to move to something sharper
Two signals. The first is that Astra starts to feel like it is dragging on a third pass rather than gliding, which usually means your beard is coarser than the blade is keen. The second is that you have stopped nicking yourself entirely, which means the pressure habit has gone and you have margin to spend.
At that point Gillette Silver Blue is the smaller step and Feather is the larger one. The head-to-head covers the difference properly, including the case for keeping both and switching by pass rather than by week.
The one that divides people
Derby Extra has the most elaborate published coating of anything here - chromium, ceramic, platinum and tungsten, plus a polymer finish - and is the most polarizing blade in common use. A large number of people get on with it completely, and a large number find it drags from the first stroke. There is no reliable way to predict which you are, which is precisely why it belongs in a sampler rather than in a first bulk order.
What the specifications will not tell you
Edge geometry. Not one maker on this page publishes the angle or the grind of the edge, which is the property that actually decides how a blade feels. Feather publishes an edge thickness of 0.1 mm, and it is the only figure on this page that describes the cut rather than the coating. Everybody else publishes materials and origin.
That gap is why our disclosure axis scores blades lower than it scores razors, and it is also why we will not pretend to rank blades on sharpness. What we can rank on is pack size, published coating, origin and how forgiving each is understood to be relative to the others - and then tell you plainly that the rest is empirical.
Two practical notes
- Blades go blunt in storage far more slowly than people fear. They are coated and wax-wrapped. A hundred blades bought today will still be fine in two years.
- Have somewhere to put the used ones. A blade bank, or a tin with a slot in the lid. Loose blades in a bathroom bin are how somebody else gets cut, and this is the one genuine safety consideration in the whole category.
If your face is unhappy and you are not sure whether the blade or the technique is the cause, start with the razor-burn guide. Nine times out of ten it is not the blade.
Every pick, with the working
Each entry shows the published specifications, the axis scores they produce and what you give up. The order is the computed order, not a commercial one, and the arithmetic is open underneath every score.
Our pickThe blade to start on
Astra Superior Platinum
Platinum-coated stainless, made in Russia, sold in hundreds. Astra is the blade almost every wet shaver eventually recommends to a beginner because it is forgiving enough to survive bad technique and cheap enough that throwing one away early costs nothing. Start here, and only move if your face tells you to.
- Material
- Platinum-coated stainless steel
- Blades per pack
- 100
- Made in
- Russia
- Refill
- Universal standard
- Warranty
- Not applicable
- How long it lasts
- 500 uses
The arithmetic: 100 blades x 5 shaves per blade (assumed) = 500 shaves.
What it gets right
- Sold in 100-blade boxes of twenty five-packs, individually wax-wrapped
- Platinum-coated stainless, made by Gillette's Russian operation
- Forgiving rather than aggressive, which is what a new hand needs
- Fits every standard double-edge razor in this ledger
Flaws
- Not the sharpest blade available, which a very coarse beard will notice
- Astra publishes no edge geometry, so 'forgiving' is a description, not a figure
The working behind the 9.6
- How long it lasts: 9.6
- 100 blades x 5 shaves per blade (assumed) = 500 shaves. At five shaves a week, that is about 23.1 months. A 24-month supply scores 10 in this category, so 23.1 / 24 x 10 = 9.6.
- Ease of switching: 9.0
- Widely described as a forgiving rather than a keen edge (+), sold in 100s so a discarded blade costs almost nothing (+), no published edge geometry to verify the claim (-).
- Refill economics: 10.0
- The refill is a commodity standard that dozens of factories make, so the price is set by competition and no single maker can raise it.
- What the maker publishes: 10.0
- 3 of 3 specifications a buyer would expect are published: unitsPerPack, material, madeIn. 3 / 3 x 10 = 10.0.
Axes with no published input are dropped and the remaining weights re-normalized, so a product is not punished for a category where an axis does not apply. Specifications compiled 3 September 2026 from Astra Superior Platinum listed specifications.
2The middle of the range
Gillette Silver Blue
Russian-made stainless, sold in hundreds, and the blade most often described as sitting between Astra's forgiveness and Feather's keenness. If Astra feels like it is dragging by the third pass and Feather feels like a hazard, this is the one in between.
- Material
- Stainless steel
- Blades per pack
- 100
- Made in
- Russia
- Refill
- Universal standard
- Warranty
- Not applicable
- How long it lasts
- 500 uses
The arithmetic: 100 blades x 5 shaves per blade (assumed) = 500 shaves.
What it gets right
- Sits between the forgiving and the keen ends of the range, which is a genuinely useful place to be
- Sold in 100-blade boxes
- Standard double-edge fitment
Flaws
- Gillette publishes almost nothing about it beyond material and origin
- Availability and packaging vary more than Astra's
The working behind the 9.0
- How long it lasts: 9.6
- 100 blades x 5 shaves per blade (assumed) = 500 shaves. At five shaves a week, that is about 23.1 months. A 24-month supply scores 10 in this category, so 23.1 / 24 x 10 = 9.6.
- Ease of switching: 7.5
- Positioned between the forgiving and keen ends of the range (+), 100-count packs (+), but Gillette publishes no coating detail or edge geometry for it at all (-).
- Refill economics: 10.0
- The refill is a commodity standard that dozens of factories make, so the price is set by competition and no single maker can raise it.
- What the maker publishes: 10.0
- 3 of 3 specifications a buyer would expect are published: unitsPerPack, material, madeIn. 3 / 3 x 10 = 10.0.
Axes with no published input are dropped and the remaining weights re-normalized, so a product is not punished for a category where an axis does not apply. Specifications compiled 3 September 2026 from Double-edge blade range and origins (West Coast Shaving).
3Your actual first blade purchase
Double-edge blade sampler
This is the one thing on the site we will tell you to buy before you have read the rest of it. Blades are the cheapest variable in shaving and the one that changes the result most, and no amount of reading will tell you which edge suits your face. A sampler settles it in about six weeks for the price of a sandwich.
- Material
- Varies by seller
- Blades per pack
- Not published
- Made in
- Varies by seller
- Refill
- Universal standard
- Warranty
- Not applicable
- How long it lasts
- Not published
What it gets right
- Answers the only question in wet shaving that genuinely cannot be answered by reading
- Costs less than a single pack of cartridges
- Ends the beginner's habit of blaming the razor for a blade problem
Flaws
- Contents vary between sellers, so what you get is not a fixed specification
- You will end up with a few blades you never use again
The working behind the 8.9
- How long it lasts: not scored
- Not scored. This is a durable item, not a consumable, so how long it lasts is an assumption about service life rather than something the pack size tells us.
- Ease of switching: 9.5
- Removes the single largest unknown of the first two months (++). Contents are not a published specification, so the yield figure cannot be computed (-).
- Refill economics: 10.0
- The refill is a commodity standard that dozens of factories make, so the price is set by competition and no single maker can raise it.
- What the maker publishes: 6.7
- 2 of 3 specifications a buyer would expect are published: material, madeIn. Not published: unitsPerPack. 2 / 3 x 10 = 6.7.
Axes with no published input are dropped and the remaining weights re-normalized, so a product is not punished for a category where an axis does not apply. Specifications compiled 3 September 2026 from Double-edge blade range (West Coast Shaving).
4The cheapest way to fill a sampler
Derby Extra
Turkish, coated with chromium, ceramic, platinum and tungsten plus a polymer finish, and sold in hundreds for very little. Derby is the blade people either get on with completely or not at all, which is precisely why it belongs in your first sampler rather than in your first bulk order.
- Material
- Chromium-ceramic-platinum-tungsten coated stainless, polymer finish
- Blades per pack
- 100
- Made in
- Turkey
- Refill
- Universal standard
- Warranty
- Not applicable
- How long it lasts
- 500 uses
The arithmetic: 100 blades x 5 shaves per blade (assumed) = 500 shaves.
What it gets right
- Multi-layer chromium-ceramic-platinum-tungsten coating plus a polymer finish, published by the maker
- 100-count boxes, individually wax-paper wrapped in sealed fives
- Among the least expensive blades that is not a false economy
Flaws
- The most polarizing blade in common use; a substantial number of people find it drags
- No published edge geometry
The working behind the 8.9
- How long it lasts: 9.6
- 100 blades x 5 shaves per blade (assumed) = 500 shaves. At five shaves a week, that is about 23.1 months. A 24-month supply scores 10 in this category, so 23.1 / 24 x 10 = 9.6.
- Ease of switching: 7.0
- Not a keen edge, so mistakes are cheap (+), sold in 100s (+), but the response to it varies enough between faces that recommending it sight-unseen is a coin toss (-).
- Refill economics: 10.0
- The refill is a commodity standard that dozens of factories make, so the price is set by competition and no single maker can raise it.
- What the maker publishes: 10.0
- 3 of 3 specifications a buyer would expect are published: unitsPerPack, material, madeIn. 3 / 3 x 10 = 10.0.
Axes with no published input are dropped and the remaining weights re-normalized, so a product is not punished for a category where an axis does not apply. Specifications compiled 3 September 2026 from Derby Extra listed specifications.
5Coarse, dense beards
Feather Hi-Stainless
Skip this one. Not in your first month, and this is the most important sentence on the page. Feather publishes a 0.1 mm edge thickness and it is the keenest blade in common use. In a hand that still carries cartridge pressure it finds every mistake. Come back to it once you have stopped pressing.
The sharpest mainstream double-edge blade there is: platinum-and-resin-coated stainless, made in Seki, with a published edge thickness of 0.1 mm. On a wiry beard it cuts where softer blades drag. On an inexperienced hand it also finds every mistake, which is why it is the wrong blade for week one and often the right one for month three.
- Material
- Platinum-and-resin-coated stainless steel
- Blades per pack
- 50
- Made in
- Japan (Seki)
- Refill
- Universal standard
- Warranty
- Not applicable
- How long it lasts
- 250 uses
The arithmetic: 50 blades x 5 shaves per blade (assumed) = 250 shaves.
What it gets right
- Published 0.1 mm edge thickness — an actual disclosed figure, which is rare in this category
- Platinum alloy and resin coating over stainless
- Made in Seki, Japan, by a company whose main business is surgical blades
- Cuts coarse hair with no pressure, which is the entire point
Flaws
- Unforgiving of a bad angle; the sharpness that helps a coarse beard punishes a new one
- Costs more per blade than Astra or Derby
The working behind the 6.6
- How long it lasts: 4.8
- 50 blades x 5 shaves per blade (assumed) = 250 shaves. At five shaves a week, that is about 11.5 months. A 24-month supply scores 10 in this category, so 11.5 / 24 x 10 = 4.8.
- Ease of switching: 4.0
- Published 0.1 mm edge thickness, the keenest here, which is an advantage on coarse hair and a hazard on an unlearned angle (--). No forgiveness margin at all for a first month.
- Refill economics: 10.0
- The refill is a commodity standard that dozens of factories make, so the price is set by competition and no single maker can raise it.
- What the maker publishes: 10.0
- 3 of 3 specifications a buyer would expect are published: unitsPerPack, material, madeIn. 3 / 3 x 10 = 10.0.
Axes with no published input are dropped and the remaining weights re-normalized, so a product is not punished for a category where an axis does not apply. Specifications compiled 3 September 2026 from Feather Hi-Stainless listed specifications.
No live price is currently verified, so every button here reads Check price instead of a number we cannot stand behind. Why we do it that way.
Questions people actually ask
How many shaves do you get from a double-edge blade?
We assume five, and we label it as an assumption everywhere it is used because we have not tested blade life. Coarse beards and hard water shorten it; a light beard can stretch it further. The practical answer is that a dull double-edge blade announces itself - it starts tugging rather than gliding - so you will not have to guess for long.
Are expensive blades better?
Sharper, sometimes. Better, only if sharper is what your face wants. The spread in price across this page is small in absolute terms, and the difference between the cheapest and the dearest blade over a year of shaving is trivial next to the difference between the right blade and the wrong one.
What is actually in a blade sampler?
Contents vary by seller, which is why it has no yield figure in the table above - there is no published pack size to compute from. A typical sampler carries five each of six to ten different blades, usually including at least one Russian, one Turkish and one Japanese make.
Why do people talk about blade coatings?
Because the coating, not the steel, does most of the work. Derby publishes a chromium-ceramic-platinum-tungsten stack plus a polymer finish; Feather publishes a platinum alloy and resin. Those layers control how the edge glides and how quickly it dulls. What no maker publishes is edge geometry, which is why blade choice remains an empirical question rather than a spec-sheet one.
Do double-edge blades fit every safety razor?
Yes. That is the whole point of the standard, and it is why every blade here scores full marks on our refill-economics axis. Nobody owns the format, so nobody can raise the price of keeping your razor running.