Blade Life...

I go 10 on polsilvers. Have been up to 20 but dialed it back. After a decade of 1-3 per blade too, until I read the various Excalibur threads on other forums - some guys do hundreds on a blade. I do find the 10 become ever-smoother, which had been missing ironically by chucking after 3 before. Can’t get above 5 on any other blade though, and polsilvers are now hard to come by
 
although it's wasteful I use DE bladed only once (except the rare cases when I use Kai or Feather). Invariably I get irritation if I use them more.
With SE blades, as they are significantly more expensive I try to use them at least 5 times with some disinfection in between
 
I’m not saying your wrong here you’ll know your skin better than anyone however what i don’t understand is when people say they only use a blade once due to irritation.
For me and i know some others feel the same i get better shaves 2nd & most of the time 3rd shaves as well.
Some blades perform at their best once you’ve taken that edge off.
iv also heard of people running a blade down a piece of cork to take that initial sharpness away.
As i say im not criticising & you’ll know best but for me a blade is at its best / smoothest after the first shave.
I know others that only use blades once and to me they are missing out on what potentially could be a brilliant blade
 
I just tried a bic chrome platinum for the first time and shave 2,3 and 4 we’re definitely
a lot smoother than the first shave.
I've come to really appreciate the BIC Chrome Platinum having previously cited it as possibly the worst blade I used. I think that goes back to when I first came to traditional shaving and had little idea how to handle such a sharp blade. Yes, the first run through you've to take care and it should be pretty plain sailing thereafter. The more I use them though, the less I seem to have to worry about that first run through.
 
Blades and blade usage are the most YMMV factor in shaving so I don't have much to add but in relation to dud blades, I feel many times it's the skin having a mild reaction to the soap fragrance and the blade feels dull and/or rough.

Since switching to unscented soap, I haven't had one single "dud" blade.