Back in April, I’d decided to pull the trigger on getting my fourth razor, the Rockwell 6C. I’ve written about it (and my other razors) here. I’d also been wanting to get more of my favorite blade, the Gillette Nacet, but it had been in and out of stock everywhere, so when I was ordering the Rockwell, I noticed Nacets were in stock and threw two boxes into the cart. After all, they were only $1.79 per box (for a box of 5, which is typical). (People frequently hold up the affordability of this hobby(?) by pointing to the cost of razors in comparison to the cost of refills for cartridge razors, but then kind of hmm and haw over the cost of the razors, soaps, and other hardware and software. As I’ve said before, I didn’t get into this over cost, I got into it over the quality of the shave).
Anyway, back to the story.
I’d also seen a review of the Durablade 7am Plus in a video from Razor Emporium sometime in March or early April. The blade was new to them and to the owner of the shop, and he was trying them along with some others, and he was pleasantly surprised. So I put them on my wishlist, and added them to the cart with the Rockwell. These blades, by the way, cost only $1.25 per box.
Considering that Gillette seems to have thousands of blade models available, it’s always interesting to find these comparatively smaller companies’ offerings. Durablade is based in Bangladesh, and makes these blades from Swedish steel, and has a line on the package that says “Swiss quality.” So they’re global?
These blades, though, don’t get a lot of notice in the Wicked Edge subreddit, which sets off a few alarm bells for me. These are people who generally like to try new things based on other reviews, but when new safety razor users ask what blades people recommend, you don’t see this one in the list. But I bought it anyway.
I’m working to get through blades that I have that are new to me. In the last couple of weeks, For the last two months now, I’ve shaved with new to me blades–the Feather, Rockwell, RK, King C Gillette, Bic Chrome Platinum, and Gillette Platinum. And knowing that the Durablade was rated by Razor Emporium as medium aggressive (a 4.0 on a 5 point scale), I decided to pair it with my Rockwell. And for my Sunday shave, I opted to go with the Rockwell’s plate 4–which should be close to a medium or medium-aggressive shave.
This shave reminded me how much I love the Rockwell. It’s a heavy razor that doesn’t require much effort to keep it firmly on my face. It glides very well and has a satisfying sound when I shave with it–it’s louder, but not disturbingly so, and delivers great aural feedback for the shave. The shave didn’t feel aggressive, even though there was a more apparent blade feel than other shaves. But the shave was close and very good, even with just 3 passes.
I really like the fact that I can predict (to a point) how a shave should come out based on what I know about a razor and a blade. My experience with the Kai throws this a bit, but for most cases now, I have an expectation of roughly what the shave should feel like and result in. From there, there are surprises about how close (or not close) a shave is (like with the Bic). This met with my expectations, but was closer than I expected.
The Rating
Shave #138. This was a comfortable, smooth, very close shave. My cheeks, per usual, only needed two passes, and my neck only needed 3 passes, with no cleanup passes. This blade worked very well, and paired with the more aggressive plate on the Rockwell 6C, it delivered a very satisfying shave.
Comfort: 4.75 out of 5
Quality/Closeness: 5 out of 5
Overall: 4.88 out of 5
