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The Official Guide to Israeli Made DE Blades

While there is plenty of information on B&B regarding the Israeli made DE blades, there continues to be confusion and misinformation being spread. Here is my attempt to summarize everything we know about these blades.

American Safety Razor has a manufacturing plant in Israel. In fact, most, if not all of their manufacuring is now overseas. The Israel plant happens to be producing some very nice blades. This plant makes a number of different blades, to different specifications, depending where they're being sold and per customers requirements. The blades listed below all come from the Israli plant and are different unless otherwise stated.

My apologies to the owners of the photos of which I swiped.

Crystal or "Israeli Personna" or "IP"

These are the original Israeli blades. They were discovered on ebay packaged in unbranded boxes of 100 blades. The individual blades are wrapped in white and blue wax paper that says "Super Platinum". The blades themselves say "Super+ Platinum" and may or may not include "Made in Israel". At the time of discover, we knew that they were made in the American Safety Razor Isreali plant. ASR owns the Pesronna name in the US, so it logically made sense to call them Isreali Personna or "IP" blades.

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We have since learned that these blades are sold in the States under a few different brands, two of which are Crystal and Navarro.

Here is one example of the outer packaging, branded as Crystal. They have since redesigned the packaging and I will post another photo shortly. The internal packaging is identical to the non-branded blades above.

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These blades may be sold under other brands in the US, but Crystal and Navarro are the only ones that have been confirmed by ASR. If the inner packaging looks the same with the white and blue wax paper, and they say "Super+ Platinum" on the blade, and they say "Made in Israel" on the packing, they could very well be the same blade. If they don not include all of those markings, they are most likely not the same blade.

Red Pack Personna

These blades have brought a lot of confusion. They are made in the same plant in Israel, but are quite different from the Crystal blades. The confusion comes from the packaging. They are marked "Personna" and "American Safety Razor, Verona, VA". While they say Personna, they are not the same blade as what people typically (incorrectly) call Personna (see above). To make matters worse, while they are made in Israel, and the case states so, they are not marked that way on the individual packages. To top it off, ASR claims they know nothing about these blades. They are not made, distributed, or sold from Verona, VA or any other American Safety Razor division, plant, or distributor. They may be NOS, counterfeit, grey market, etc... who knows. Because ASR in the US doesn't claim these blades as theirs, and they own the brand Personna, I prefer to refer to them as Red Pack Israeli blades.

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Tesco

The Tesco blades have been very well regarded, and their origin was kept secret for quite some time. They are unmarked and wrapped in a plain white wax paper. Because they have no markings, it was difficult to get any reliable information regarding their place of origin. That is, until a few inspired individuals did some investigation, put some bits of information together, and figured out they're made in the same ASR plant in Israel. Again, these are not the same blades as the Crystal or Red Pack. They are made to a different specification. They are distributed by a distibutor in England. Because they are unmarked, we think these are the same blades as those sold in a number of other chain stores in Europe, like Boots, Asda, etc...

As some may now see, these blades probably should be called Israeli Personna as they are indeed sold under that brand name!

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Finally, to make matters worse, there are other blades of different origins that are sold under the Personna brand. I only covered the ones made in Israel.
 
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I believe the Dutch HEMA blades come from the same plant. They look exactly the same as the Personnas in the last picture, branded as HEMA instead of Personna. I can send you a pack if you want.

Best wishes,
Jan Pieter
 
Thanks John, great work.

FYI, the Crystals I just got from you do not have "Made In Israel" on the blade. But, everything else is dead on.

EDIT: Instead of "Made in Israel," they have just a patent number in that location.
 
I believe the Dutch HEMA blades come from the same plant. They look exactly the same as the Personnas in the last picture, branded as HEMA instead of Personna. I can send you a pack if you want.

Best wishes,
Jan Pieter

Jan, I'd love to check them out. If you're up for a blade swap, PM me.

John,
Any chance you might start stocking the TESCO version?

Potentially, if I can find someone willing to work with me. The blades are distributed by Personna UK, and they are not allowed to sell to this market, and vice versa with American Safety Razor, USA. I could always buy direct from one of the sellers, Boots, Asda, etc..., but it's cost prohibitive. I'm working on another chanel and may have some information soon.

Thanks John, great work.

FYI, the Crystals I just got from you do not have "Made In Israel" on the blade. But, everything else is dead on.

EDIT: Instead of "Made in Israel," they have just a patent number in that location.

Yeah, I've seen them marked both ways. I thought the latest were coming with the Made in Israel on the blade, but I didn't have a blade handy to check. If you buy your blades from me, they're legit.
 
Yeah, I've seen them marked both ways. I thought the latest were coming with the Made in Israel on the blade, but I didn't have a blade handy to check. If you buy your blades from me, they're legit.

No worries here about that. I just thought it might be useful info for the IP section.
 
Interesting to hear how a specific manufacturing plant will go through different "runs" to create several brands. I was a bit confused about the "Personna's". Thanks for providing the information.
 
No worries here about that. I just thought it might be useful info for the IP section.

Indeed. I updated the post.

Interesting to hear how a specific manufacturing plant will go through different "runs" to create several brands. I was a bit confused about the "Personna's". Thanks for providing the information.

I think a large part of the differences come from the coatings.

Thanks, that clears up a lot of confusion, except how does ASR not know who makes the Red Pack Personnna blades?

I scratch my head as well. They either don't know or don't want us to know. It's possible the plant is selling blades behind their back.
 
My father-in-law is in Israel as we speak... with a request to return with razor blades... I'll post pics upon his return in a month if he's successful in finding some...
 
Excellent post.

Seems odd that the red pack Personna blades are made in Israel, but they dont know about it at corporate. I just hope "they" keep making them because they turned out to be my favorite. I guess I better stock up on them real soon just in case.

A sticky for sure !
 
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