There seems to be some confusion between Personna Platinum red blades (denoted by the red box) and another Personna blade more commonly referred to as the Israeli Personna as it’s made in Israel.

From what I can gather the red variety I got in my Mensbiz sampler pack are made in the US. The blades come wrapped in paper and on the back state they are distributed by ‘American Safety Razor Co. Verona, VA 24482′.

There is no mention of where they are made though and from what I can tell the Israeli Personna’s clearly have ‘made in Israel’ marked on them.

The Personna Platinum Red blades come in a cardboard box which is a different from the plastic containers all my other blades came in. Annoyingly this means there’s nowhere to put used blades. The blades themselves are made from stainless steel and are platinum coated.

1. Sharpness

The Personna red blades felt slightly sharper then the Derby in that the glide I felt was slightly better then a Derby blade. I’m still working my way up to the Feather blades which are supposedly the sharpest blade available but I’d put the Personna blades are definitely sharp enough out of the box.

Like the Derby blades the cut was sharp, smooth and gentle. There was no pulling or tugging at my skin.

2. Durability

I got three excellent shaves out of one Red Personna blade and on the fourth I could feel that the blade was starting to pull. The fifth shave was starting to venture into rough ‘cartridge shave’ territory so I didn’t go ahead with a sixth shave.

In contrast the Derby’s gave me six trouble free shaves and felt as sharp as the Red Personna to begin with.

3. Irritation

No issues were found on the first three shaves but come the third shave my neck started to get a bit of irritation. The ends of moustache area were also causing the blade to struggle a bit which meant time wasted going over the same areas till I was satisfied.

The fifth and final shave with the same blade was quite rough on my neck and the time spent touching up the shave was quite noticeable. On the morning of the fifth shave I was actually late for work I spent so long touching up!


The Personna reds are a nice blade and when the time comes to start using one blade regularly will definitely be a consideration on a ‘cost-per-blade’ basis. My aim is to get 3 shaves from a blade and for this purpose I found them acceptable. Anything more then that though and you’re pushing your luck.


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