DE blade extinction

J

James_uk

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1,917
Nowadays with a vast multi blade razors/blades,ridiculous profit and so many fans(fools who don't know any better) I sometimes wonder how DE blade producers manage to keep going,in my eyes profit margins wont be that great, will they actually go out of business completely in a decade or so,any thoughts gents? :?
 
I think its fair to say its likely.

A decade? No i dont think so.. but we will certainly loose a good chunk of the market in that time.
Here in the West DE shaving is all but dead - Our little movement, growing as it may be, is still ludicrously tiny, and likely nothing more than an amusing stat to the likes of Gillette.
However In the East its a little less clear as they are still heavily DE based - With Gillette only now trying to make inroads.. Which is slow ofc because the super expensive products they are hocking don't exactly fly off the shelves in the poorer regions..

So i dont think we will see The Shave Apocalypse any time soon, but we will continue to see the demise of many of our preferred blades as Gillette either buys them up and re-tools, they re-tool themselves for a cheaper home made multi-blade or they just plain go out of business.

The modern multi-blade boys will win by Attrition in the end.
 
Personally I don't feel things are that bleak. The Japanese, German and Greek blade manufacturers are going strong; whilst Russian blades are exported throughout the world. We may lose some of the more obscure brands and prices will increase as the market shrinks but I feel there will always be blades available.

Then again, for the price of a new straight, it might be a good idea to stock up with a lifetime's supply of your favourite blade - NOW ! :twisted:
 
I think this has somewhat happend already, but DE blades are probably not going anywhere soon.
20 years ago I would have probably had the choice of 10-15 different brands in my local supermarket.
Today one brand, if I'm lucky, to different ones from the same brand.

However, look at it this way, if you see the amount of 20-30 year old NOS blades on e-bay, whole cartons of the stuff.
And don't forget that most here already buy there blades in "developing" countries, where DE shaving is still the norm.
I doubt that even if production ceased, we'd be lacking blades in the next 50/60 years.

Choice yes, blades, no.

FB.
 
I can't help wondering if the trend towards recycling & conservation may yet work in the favour of conventional DE & SE blades. I very much doubt how feasible it is to recycle tiny slivers of metal embedded in plastics as found in disposable & disposable head razors ; whilst straightforward high grade conventional blades have just got to be a suitable item for recovery . As costs of refining base ore mounts & supplies decline I'd hope that re usage of blades can only increase. After all, it was only comparitively recently in the history of tin & aluminium cans that recycling kicked in, now it's a massive industry.

Fear not my fellow cultists, we shall overcome ! (& I now have at least 100 each of DE & SE blades !).

Johnny "Last of the Big Spenders" O. :cool:
 
Yes, we haven't batted this about for a while. I remain tentatively optimistic, as only a chap with a goodly stockpile and a collection of cut throat razors can. One small but encouraging sign is the appearance of the £130 DE razor, which is surely a declaration of Feather's commitment to the format, and belief that there's a market out there. It wouldn't surprise me to find that shaving with a safety razor is promoted in lifestyle magazines as the choice of the discerning gent with plenty of disposable income before long, the razor for the man with an Aston in the garage. Still, the pessimists will probably be proved right in the long run, and we'll be faced with a choice of importing basic blades from the Pacific rim or shelling out for exclusive "high end" ones at boutique prices.
 
Here's my take and why I have about 45 years worth of blades....

I started with a sample pack from Paul @ Connaught - as I got to the end of it and had earmarked some blades for bigger purchases, I discovered that a lot of the ones I liked were either no longer in production or had been "reformulated" to be made elsewhere and turned to shite.

I tried other blades from other sources with similar scenarios playing out, so I snapped. Now a trial purchase is 100 blades minimum, because I can always sell on to recoup most of the outlay... and usually 100 is about the same price as 20 so win-win. Now if I get past 3 weeks of shaving with a blade and rate it as highly (or higher than those I already have), I order up at least another 200 so I have around about 3 years worth of that type.

Then when they're spent and as usual unobtanium again, I don't have to go through the fannying on of reappraising the blade market in a "panic" situation - I can simply order up some samples again and test them knowing I have the ultimate fall back of other blades.

I don't think DE blades are going to vanish any time soon, but past experience tells me that the ones I want vanish as soon as I look at them.
 
I think we've already had the Shaveocalypse and what we have now is the left overs. The major shift happend 20 - 30 years ago and I think it's now actually starting to swing the other way with DE suppliers starting to increase production (Merkur are completely unable to cope with the current demand on their products). In the west we were easily convinced to switch to multi-blades but in countries like India they won't stand for the expense and will stick with what they know is a better product. DE will never be replaced with the modern crap but what if something completely new came around....
 
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