Superior Platinum Double Edge Blades

If you've arrived at double edge shaving via some looksmaxxing rabbit hole about 'optimising your shave routine' — welcome. The good news is that this is one of the few corners of the grooming internet where the hype is largely justified and the economics genuinely work in your favour. The bad news is you now have to learn to shave again, like an adult. Astra Superior Platinum blades are where most sensible people start, and where a surprising number stay.

What Astra actually is: a blade manufactured by Gillette's plant in St Petersburg (before the post-2022 supply shifts complicated things), sitting in the mid-range of the double edge sharpness spectrum. 'Superior Platinum' refers to the platinum coating that extends blade life and reduces drag — not marketing poetry, an actual functional coating. The result is a blade that's sharp enough to cut cleanly through two or three days of growth without tugging, but not so aggressive that a slightly-off angle turns your jaw into a demonstration of why softmaxxing has limits. Feather blades (Japanese, famously sharp) are the enthusiast pick; they'll also give you a weeper on your third shave of the week if your technique wobbles. Astra is the blade that rewards competence without punishing inexperience.

Real performance numbers: expect a usable blade life of 3–5 shaves depending on beard density and prep. Heavy-growth guys report 3 comfortable shaves before noticing drag; normal growth can push 5 without meaningful quality drop. That puts cost-per-shave at roughly £0.02–£0.04 — which is not a typo. The comparison to cartridge razors (Gillette Fusion5 at approximately £2.50–£3.50 per cartridge, rated for 5 shaves so 50–70p per shave) means Astra DE shaving costs somewhere between 15x and 30x less per shave. The DE razor itself (a Merkur 34C runs £35–£40, an Edwin Jagger DE89 around £30) pays itself back inside two months of daily shaving. The 'wet shaving saves money' argument is usually cope dressed as economics — with Astra blades, it's actually maths.

The honest caveat: Astra blades require a safety razor, a learning curve of approximately 2–3 weeks before the shave quality exceeds your old cartridge routine, and a willingness to use an actual shave cream or soap rather than whatever pressurised foam you've been using since sixth form. The technique requirement is real — 30-degree angle, no pressure, short strokes — but it's learnable, and once learned it's faster than it sounds. The skin-friendliness argument also holds up: fewer blades passing over the skin per stroke means less mechanical irritation, which matters if you get razor bumps or ingrown hairs. That's not anecdote; it's the basic physics of one blade versus five.

Verdict: Astra Superior Platinum blades are a genuine lever, not a cope. They won't mog anyone by themselves — that honour belongs to the actual shave technique, prep, and post-shave routine built around them — but as the commodity input to a proper shaving setup, they're essentially the right answer by default. If you're sampling blades obsessively and maintaining a spreadsheet, that's a hobby, not grooming. Buy 100, use them for six months, then decide if you want to go more aggressive. Most people don't.