Are cheap shaver blades any good?
I have a Phillips electric shaver. It’s blades started to fail, so I got new ones - the main options being:
- generic, no-name cheap blades (~£5)
- Phillips official expensive blades (~£30)
I didn’t know how the cheap ones would compare. Given how cheap they were, I bought them to test how they were.
In short, I discovered the cheap blades seem just as good.
Method
To test them, I divided my shave into three sections. For each section, I gave someone else the task of choosing a random blade. I did three rather than two sections to verify whether I was able to identify the different properties of the blades.
I gave my comments and thoughts before learning what any of the blades actually were.
Results
- Section 1: I thought they felt slightly uncomfortable - they didn’t glide over skin as easily as my original blades, and on one occasion it pulled a hair rather than cut it. But I thought the cutting performance was good i.e. how quickly I could cover an area.
- Section 2: I thought these were different blades from section 1. I thought they felt much smoother, but the cutting performance was slightly worse.
- Section 3: I thought these were even smoother, but the cutting performance again slightly worse. I thought they might have been the same as section 2’s blades.
Actually, section 1 and 2 were the cheap blades. And section 3 were the expensive blades.
In hindsight, I think section 2 might have felt smoother because the blades may have then absorbed a bit of beard oil that made them glide more easily.
Conclusion
I struggled to tell the difference between the cheap and expensive blades, and I actually thought the cutting performance of the cheap blades might have been slightly better.
Given this, I think it’s not worth buying the expensive blades in future.
NB: This just tested my initial impressions of the blades. I haven’t tested their longevity, so maybe the expensive blades last much longer which could make them worth their price tag.