How often to change a safety razor blade
Blades are the cheapest thing in your shave and the one people stretch furthest. Count shaves rather than days, and change on the first sign rather than the third.
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 version
Five to seven shaves for most people, and count shaves rather than days. A blade does not know what a week is - what dulls it is how much hair it has cut and how coarse that hair is. Change on the first sign, not the third. Tugging, a second pass that used to be unnecessary, or any nick you did not earn all mean it is done - and a blade is the cheapest component in the whole shave.
| # | Pick | Lasts | Score | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Astra Superior Platinum The blade to start on | ~500 shaves | 9.6/10 | $11.99 - view on Amazon |
| 2 | Feather Hi-Stainless Coarse, dense beards | ~250 shaves | 6.6/10 | $16.83 - view on Amazon |
| 3 | Derby Extra The cheapest way to fill a sampler | ~500 shaves | 8.9/10 | $8.99 - view on Amazon |
| 4 | Double-edge blade sampler Your actual first blade purchase | Not published | 8.9/10 | Check price on Amazon |
Prices last verified September 24, 2026. They move constantly; the figure on Amazon when you click is the real one.
Count shaves, not days
The most common way people get this wrong is thinking in weeks. A blade has no idea what a week is. What dulls it is how much hair it has cut and how coarse that hair was.
If you shave daily, five to seven shaves is roughly a week. If you shave twice a week, the same blade is good for three weeks. Same blade, same number of shaves, completely different calendar.
| Factor | Effect on blade life |
|---|---|
| Coarse, dense growth | Fewer shaves - the main variable |
| Fine or sparse growth | More shaves |
| Shaving a head as well as a face | Roughly three times the area per shave |
| Three passes instead of two | Proportionally fewer shaves |
| Hard water | Slightly fewer, from mineral deposit |
| Leaving the blade wet | Fewer, from corrosion - and this one is calendar-based |
The three signs, in the order they arrive
- Tugging instead of cutting. The first and most reliable sign. A sharp blade severs hair without you feeling much; a dull one catches it and pulls before it cuts. This is the point to change.
- Needing a pass you did not used to need. If your normal two passes have quietly become three, the blade is compensating rather than your technique slipping.
- Nicks in places you never catch. A dull blade skips rather than glides, and a skipping blade catches skin. By this point you are several shaves past due.
Different blades, different lifespans
Blade life is not a constant, and it correlates loosely with sharpness in a way that surprises people.
- Very sharp blades - Feather is the reference - start keener and the drop off feels steeper. You notice the decline sooner precisely because the starting point was higher.
- Mid-range blades like Astra tend to give the most predictable working life, which is part of why they are the common recommendation for a first blade.
- Forgiving blades like Derby start less keen and hold a usable edge for a reasonable stretch - better for sensitive skin, and you will take more passes.
Which of those suits you depends on your beard, your skin and your water, and it is the one question in wet shaving that reading cannot answer - which is why a sampler is the honest first purchase and this page covers matching one to your skin.
The one thing that actually extends blade life
Rinse the blade and dry it after every shave, and do not leave it clamped wet inside the razor between uses.
Corrosion blunts an edge as effectively as cutting does, and it works on a calendar rather than a shave count - which means a blade left wet for a fortnight is dull before you have used it again. The cleaning routine takes seconds and is the only genuine life-extension technique here.
Things that do not work: stropping a DE blade on denim or on your forearm. It is a persistent folk remedy, there is nothing behind it, and rolling a thin edge the wrong way makes it worse.
What the arithmetic actually looks like
We deliberately do not publish a price - this site does not publish figures it cannot source live. But the shape of the arithmetic is worth stating: a double-edge blade costs a small fraction of a cartridge and gives five to seven shaves.
Which means the difference between changing every five shaves and stretching to ten is a trivial amount of money per year, against a real cost in comfort. Put your own prices into the cost calculator and the case for changing early makes itself in about thirty seconds.
And if you have arrived here because your shaves have got worse, the razor burn page ranks the causes - a dull blade is near the top, above anything you could buy to fix it.
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.
2Coarse, dense beards
Feather Hi-Stainless
Skip this one. Not in your first month. The reason beginners cut themselves on Feathers is that they arrive with cartridge-razor pressure still in their hands, and this blade does not tolerate it.
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.
3The 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.
4Your 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).
Prices last verified September 24, 2026. They move constantly; the figure on Amazon when you click is the real one.
Questions people actually ask
How many shaves does a double-edge blade last?
Five to seven for most people, with a real range of three to ten depending on your beard density, your water and which blade you bought. Coarse growth dulls a blade faster than fine growth does, and that is the main variable.
Should I count days or shaves?
Shaves. A blade that has done five shaves is equally dull whether that took five days or three weeks. The one thing calendar time does affect is corrosion - a wet blade left in a damp razor degrades regardless of use.
How do I know it is done?
Tugging rather than cutting is the first sign. Then needing a pass you did not used to need. Then nicks in places you never normally catch. If you are noticing the blade at all, it is past due.
Do different blades last different lengths?
Yes, and it is one of the reasons blade choice is personal. Sharper blades like Feather tend to feel duller sooner; more forgiving blades like Derby start less keen and hold a usable edge longer. The blade roundup covers the field.
Can I make blades last longer?
Rinse and dry the blade after every shave - corrosion from sitting wet blunts an edge as effectively as use does. Beyond that, no. Stropping a DE blade on denim is a folk remedy with nothing behind it and a real chance of rolling the edge.
Is shaving a head harder on blades?
Yes - a scalp is roughly three times the area of a face, so blades dull correspondingly faster in calendar terms. The head shaving roundup covers the rest of that job.