Explanation on how the Feather DE blade tricks you into believing its Scary Sharp.

So how does the fearsome Feather do it?



First one has to quantify how to judge a blades sharpness. This can easily be accomplished by asking what features equal a dull blade.
A dull blade can easily be defined as dull if it does any of the following: "pulls as it cuts, takes effort to cut, does not glide smoothly, or causes skin irritation".
Therefore a blade that does any of the above can not be called sharp.

When reading reviews on the Feather, the general consensus is that besides being scary sharp, it causes weepers out of nowhere, is sort of rough cutting, and is good for two and at most three shaves.
The Derby would be described as not very sharp. Takes some effort to cut but is very forgiving as it is dull and will therefore not cut your face.
The Astra would be described as nice and smooth but not as sharp as the golden standard that is The Feather.

With the above holding true, why would someone who is shown the above line up of blades generally say that the feather is the sharpest? After all it both causes nasty nicks and at times feels rough.
1. Public perception is on its side. It is almost a given that people will say that a Feather is Scary Sharp! Monkey see monkey do.
2. The belief that a fresh blade that is able to cut your face must be sharp. It has to be sharp because it was able to cut me right? Nope, it just makes the blade Scary as opposed to Sharp.
3. The very short usability of the blade (2 or 3 shaves) somehow makes it seem so much sharper. Since the blade is scary sharp, it can only maintain that edge for 2 or 3 shaves. This line of reasoning is totally wrong. It is only "good" for 2 or 3 shaves because it starts off dull then quickly degrades into super face scaring dull.

The Feather is the most expensive, highly regarded, and yet utterly worthless DE blade on the market today.

This is my conclusion after both using and reading (dam you B&B forums!) about these three blades.

I look forward to seeing if anyone can find any reason to believe that a Feather is Sharp as opposed to just plain face scaring Scary.

"My theory - all DE blades are the same.
...

I don't actually believe this."

Deleted

Ridiculous conclusion. How much real world experience do you have using any of these blades? The Feather is not scary sharp as most people who use it regularly know. It is sharp, it will test your technique but there's nothing scary about it. It's just hype used by those who have never tried the blade or are afraid to try it because they have read that it is the sharpest blade on the market.

3 Feathers, 2 Derbys, and 1 Astra. Kept wanting to worship the feather but all it did was give micro cuts which seem to be a VERY common occurrence to those that try it out.
Heh, my point #1 was that its reputation is just based on worthless hype
Lots of blades are sharp yet the only blade that has people saying stuff like "it will test your technique" is the Feather.
And this is because it is Not sharp.
Technique is needed to counter its face scaring dullness.

Interesting thoughts but you are mixing a lot of people's statements to get what you want I think.

For me the Derby isn't forgiving at all; tugging sets in from the first stroke and though I have over 2 decades of experience with DE shaving I can't get a close nor irritation free shave from these.

Astra SP; I am sorry but I can't call these really sharp either. Hardly above the Derby but obviously there is the always present YMMV.

Feather is a nice blade with a clean feeling on the first shave that is done by no other blade. It doesn't feel rough at all for me but because of its sharpness there is little feedback from this blade which might be the reason why a lot of people don't like its first shave too much.
My problem with Feather is the little stamina of the edge; the first shave is great, the second alright and the third a mistake.

But from your listed blades Feather would be the only one I would like to use and it is still far from my favs.

PolarLights said:

The Derby would be described as not very sharp. Takes some effort to cut but is very forgiving as it is dull and will therefore not cut your face.

Click to expand...

Not my experience.
For me, the Derby was a face shredder in the Muhle R41 and Merkur 38C.
Astra SP was a night and day improvement, and the Gillette 7:00 Yellow was even more of an improvement.
Never got around to trying the Feather... I switched to straights before my 25th DE shave.

Check out the One Blade in February thread to refute the claim that Feather's are good for only two or three shaves.

Also, my personal opinion is that the performance of the Feather has a lot to do with the razor it's loaded in. When I first tried a Feather, I wasn't that impressed, but now that I had a chance to try one in the Sledgehammer (Merkur 39c) or Muhle R41, my appreciation for this blade has grown. It gave very close, smooth shaves with these razors.

Sadly, I used the last feather from my sample pack and am working my way through my Astra SP carton, but I know that someday I'll return to the Feather and I look forward to that day.

Er...Its scary sharp to me for the first 3 shaves. I have to use it on my mildest razor, the Feather Popular. After that, I then can transfer it over to my EJ DE86 and that can provide me with at least at least 10 very smooth, yet highly efficient shaves. After that, if I still wish to push it, I can still transfer it over to my old R41 or China made Rimei razor and get around 4 more shave out of it. That's a grand total of 18 good shaves. None of my other blades give me that amount of shaves. The YMMV part it can provide to me is really pretty long mileage.

Never said the Derby is sharp. Only said it is dull. And since it is dull it will cause some sort of irritation.
Derby is forgiving in that it will rarely nick the skin.
When you say the Astra SP is not sharp. By what reasoning do you say its dull?
People don't like the Feather because it causes nicks and general skin irritation.
Do not think anyone would say they don't like a blade because "I cant feel it gliding across my skin". Good sharp blades provide little if any feedback. As "feedback" means the blade is not cutting the hairs effortlessly and is therefore dull.
My post is not a comparison of the 3 blades per se. My post is about how terrible the Feather blade truly is.
To me you are pretty much standard example of how people love/hate the Feather:
1. You somehow love the first shave (although for you it does a good job cutting)
2. But you also dislike the blade as it is nowhere near a top performer in your book...(for unknown reasons. Cost? Longevity?)

Also if I sound sort of condescending...No disrespect intended in any of my responses!
Blades are personal but I truly believe that Feathers are highly overrated.

It could be that through an elaborate mass misunderstanding, the Feather is actually a very dull blade when new.





or, it could just be scary sharp.


There have been microscopic pictures posted here on this forum of razor blade edges and the photography seems to indicate that, yes...

Feathers are scary sharp.

I can use a Feather DE blade for 6-7 shaves. Basically, the blade will last me a week. And yes, as at least one other person has observed the quality of the shave does vary depending on the razor it's loaded in.

When I first started shaving w/a DE, I tried a bunch of blades. Feathers were by far the most comfortable & gave me the cleanest shaves. I've now switched over to the Cobra & have been using the Cobra/Feather Pro combo pretty much exclusively. The quality of Feather Pro blades does vary a bit, and that can be annoying. But the bottom line is that I can get at least 2 weeks of good, clean shaves from a Feather Pro blade. I've actually gotten up to a month's worth of shaves out of some of those blades.

The bottom line to me is that as with anything else wet-shaving -- soaps, creams, etc. -- YMMV. Everyone's skin is different. Some guys love Derby blades; I can't stand them. So be careful before making sweeping generalizations about a particular product. That generalization might hold true for you, but it's bound to be diametrically opposed to someone else's experience.

luvmysuper said:

It could be that through an elaborate mass misunderstanding, the Feather is actually a very dull blade when new.





or, it could just be scary sharp.


There have been microscopic pictures posted here on this forum of razor blade edges and the photogrphy seems to indicate that, yes...

Feathers are scary sharp.

Click to expand...

This doc states that damage done to a razors edge is due to actual cutting of hair and not corrosion. https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&...yNTQ2ZWMtYWIxOC00ZDI2LTkzYjQtMjI5NzEyYTVmYjE3
Post #50 in this thread: http://badgerandblade.com/vb/showth...cope-photography-WARNING-large-pictures/page3
States: "Going through 2 different used feather blades, with about 4-6 passes each, it was hard to find any damage to the actual edge. Damage to the coating is an order of magnitute more prevelant, and the damage tends to be considerably larger than most edge damage I've seen".

To sum it all up this guy took a bunch of pictures using a microscope.
The pictures were of different razor blades before and after use.
The Feather blade showed the most amount of damage damage to its coating. The coating is very thick and extends past the metal of the blade itself.
With that being said the feather could possible be "Sharp" but rapidly degrades so much that by the middle of the first shave as the coating is so damaged from cutting hair that is is now "Dull".
Yes I know its the coating that is being damage, but the coating of a feather blade is the component that is cutting your facial hair.
All in all I believe that science is on my side saying that the Feather blade becomes quite dull during the first shave.
This also fits in with the fact that Feathers tend to degrade quickly past the first shave.
So for the vast majority of us the Feather is a dull blade. Kudos if your one of the few with a face of steel!

PolarLights said:

I look forward to seeing if anyone can find any reason to believe that a Feather is Sharp as opposed to just plain face scaring Scary.

Click to expand...

I find (or at least I think I do!) that a Feather shaves closer on the first (WTG) pass than any other blades I've tried. That would be down to sharpness.
I also find they cause spontaneous, on-contact weepers for the first shave or two. My gut feeling is that they have rough spots, caused either by coatings or bits of wire edge.

yakster said:

Check out the One Blade in February thread to refute the claim that Feather's are good for only two or three shaves.

Also, my personal opinion is that the performance of the Feather has a lot to do with the razor it's loaded in. When I first tried a Feather, I wasn't that impressed, but now that I had a chance to try one in the Sledgehammer (Merkur 39c) or Muhle R41, my appreciation for this blade has grown. It gave very close, smooth shaves with these razors.

Sadly, I used the last feather from my sample pack and am working my way through my Astra SP carton, but I know that someday I'll return to the Feather and I look forward to that day.

Click to expand...

That thread could also be used to say that any blade stays sharp for a month. Normal people (say the 99% of us) could not use any blade from any brand for 1 month. Could we please not count the super extremes?
A thread like that is sort of like saying Superman can stop bullets with his body so if he can do it then its totally reasonable that other people can eat lead and keep on trucking...

I can use feather blades for over a week and a half shaving every day while I can only get at most 3 maybe 4 days if I a push it with an astra and cant even get one decent pass with a derby. Take that for what you will but a feather is still may favorite and longest lasting blade. Is it dull? No or it wouldnt last as long as it does.

PolarLights said:

This doc states that damage done to a razors edge is due to actual cutting of hair and not corrosion. https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&...yNTQ2ZWMtYWIxOC00ZDI2LTkzYjQtMjI5NzEyYTVmYjE3
Post #50 in this thread: http://badgerandblade.com/vb/showth...cope-photography-WARNING-large-pictures/page3
States: "Going through 2 different used feather blades, with about 4-6 passes each, it was hard to find any damage to the actual edge. Damage to the coating is an order of magnitute more prevelant, and the damage tends to be considerably larger than most edge damage I've seen".

To sum it all up this guy took a bunch of pictures using a microscope.
The pictures were of different razor blades before and after use.
The Feather blade showed the most amount of damage damage to its coating. The coating is very thick and extends past the metal of the blade itself.
With that being said the feather could possible be "Sharp" but rapidly degrades so much that by the middle of the first shave as the coating is so damaged from cutting hair that is is now "Dull".
Yes I know its the coating that is being damage, but the coating of a feather blade is the component that is cutting your facial hair.
All in all I believe that science is on my side saying that the Feather blade becomes quite dull during the first shave.
This also fits in with the fact that Feathers tend to degrade quickly past the first shave.
So for the vast majority of us the Feather is a dull blade. Kudos if your one of the few with a face of steel!

Click to expand...

Bearing in mind that it is the blade edge that cuts and not the coating, and the quote you posted yourself that says "about 4-6 passes each, it was hard to find any damage to the actual edge", I'll just pass this off as another case of YMMV.

That's the beauty of YMMV, you are as free to believe any hypothesis you choose to cook up as anyone else, even if you are the only one who believes it

I will caution you however about using statements like "the vast majority of us" and "the fact that feathers tend to degrade", because clearly you are not in a majority if you believe that the feather is a dull blade, and your supposition is far from fact, it's merely an opinion. And there are about 40,000 different opinions here.

Afterall, we don't want to spread false rumors about a product to people who may not know better, who may come in here and misinterpret opinion for fact.

In any case, if you do despise them so, I'd suggest sticking with what works for you. No sense in shaving with something you don't enjoy. There is such a vast ocean of blades out there that I'm sure you can find several that agree with your skin type and razor.

Please do feel free to carry on in defense of your idea, but again, please do couch them in terms of hypothesis or opinion, not as theory or fact.

Feathers are nice, but I don't really find them all that much sharper than many of the others.

Could be just a myth that has grown up around them. Or could it a very clever marketing ploy?

Ill cave in to the majority statement (opps, must really hate those blades!) as I need a poll to back that one up..Mmm
As to feather degrading. All blades tend to degrade. The microscopic images provided show that the Feather had a lot more wear relative to the other blades.
The feather in those images was stated to have a very thick coating (That super platinum coating) that extended beyond the actual blade edge.
The Feather appears to have its platinum coating covering the steel edge.. Which would mean the platinum is doing the cutting as the only time the steel will touch you is when the coating gets worn away.
And the coating gets worn away in rough chunks about the size of a human hair judging by those pictures.
Makes the razor all serrated looking with all those chunks of platinum coating missing.

I am sort of dizzy from looking at all those up close razor blade pictures. Anyone else see something different?
Heh, Ill try to phrase things a bit better. Getting caught up in the moment!

I judge the sharpness of a blade with an against the grain shave and for this the feather was the best the Astra was rough and tugging. Those are the only two I've tried ATG. Astra WTG and XTG is still a nice blade for me though and feels almost as sharp as a feather, that is of course until it proves not to be with an ATG shave. YMMV