Pellas Vs Personnas

jramire2 · Post by **jramire2** » Tue Apr 24, 2007 11:34 am

I've got a slew of CVS personnas that I use for my injector and they work great. The only complaint I have is that they tend to rust if I don't dry the blade off after a shave. If I forget to dry off a BRAND NEW blade after the first shave, I come home to a rusty razor.

I've heard that the pellas and personna blades are one and the same, but the rebranded CVS blades are advertised as Chromium plated (or something like that) while the Pellas are stainless steel and PTFE (teflon) coated. I've heard that you can shave w/them for the life of the blade and they never show rust.

So;
1) are they really the same blades as I've heard and
2) if they're not, how do they compare to each other

I've also tried the newer German made Schicks (crap IMO) and haven't sought out the NOS made in USA Schicks that are supposed to be better (why get hooked on them if I can't get them later).

~Joshua

letterk · Post by **letterk** » Tue Apr 24, 2007 1:23 pm

I can't speak of the Pellas, but I find it odd your CVS blades are rusting. I haven't used my injector in a while, but I never had that problem with the CVS blades. Could it be your razor that is rusting?

Zaniix · Post by **Zaniix** » Tue Apr 24, 2007 1:38 pm

I used the CVS blades for a few days and they did not rust, but I do try to shake off excess water and then hang the razor on my stand

jramire2 · Post by **jramire2** » Tue Apr 24, 2007 2:23 pm

Nope, not the razor. The gold finish is actually in really good shape.

The first time it happenned was the first time I used the razor. I shaved w/it, then left it blade guard down, when I got home it was rusted. Have been wiping it off and leaving it blade side up ever since. Haven't had any problems, but I'm starting to hit the gym more often and it can't air dry as easily in my dopp kit.

~Joshua

Pauldog · Post by **Pauldog** » Tue Apr 24, 2007 8:16 pm

The main component in stainless steel alloys is chromium. That's why "chromium" or "chrome" is often mentioned on stainless blade packages.

Apparently there is more than one kind of Personna DE blade, and more than one kind of injector blade. In addition, they're made in Israel, the USA, Korea, and maybe one or two other places. Factor in sample variations, and you're talking about a lot of different blades all of a sudden. Even if we limit ourselves to the US blades, there seem to be at least two "formulations".

This topic has come up a lot in the last week or two.

bernards66 · Post by **bernards66** » Tue Apr 24, 2007 8:30 pm

Joshua, Well, that one beats me. In all the years that I've been using injectors, I've never seen that happen. You do flick it off after use, I assume? I've used them, flicked off the water, wrapped the head in a little tissue paper and right into my luggage for the next 12 hours. Never had a problem. Of course, I've always used the US made Schick blades, but I don't see why that would make a difference. Both are stainless steel, and all blades from the last 30 years or so, have had various combinations of coatings on the edges. Did you have this same issue with the German Schick blades?
Regards,
Gordon

Taffa · Post by **Taffa** » Wed Apr 25, 2007 6:02 am

I have the same problem with the injector personna blades they tend to rust
otherwise a excellent blade.Regards,Eddie

bernards66 · Post by **bernards66** » Wed Apr 25, 2007 9:05 am

Son of a gun! Ain't that something? I wonder why?
Regards,
Gordon

jramire2 · Post by **jramire2** » Wed Apr 25, 2007 9:09 am

Taffa wrote:I have the same problem with the injector personna blades they tend to rust
otherwise a excellent blade.Regards,Eddie

Well, at least I'm not the only one w/this problem it seems.

After the first time leaving the blade wet I've been making sure I keep the razor/blade dry and have not had any problems since. I'm just perturbed by this b/c I've NEVER had any sort of rust problem w/any of my DEs and I never dried them off after a shave.

I've only used the german Schicks once and didn't have that problem. The blade was pretty harsh on the first shave, so I honestly only used it once, then replaced it w/a fresh personna. Haven't had the chance to try the US Schicks or the Pellas.

For the benefit of the community, I'm going to order some Pellas and try to track down at least one cartridge of USA Schicks and do some testing.

I like the benefit of having good injector blades locally (CVS seems about the only place), which is more than I can say for DE blades. And they're cheap to boot. But if these Pellas are different than CVS blades in a positive way (no rusting, and maybe a better shave), then I might be stocking up on them.

Has anyone tried the slightly thicker Carbon Steel blades from the Pella site. I wouldn't be surprised if they rusted, but I wonder how they shave.

~Joshua

jramire2 · Post by **jramire2** » Wed Apr 25, 2007 9:30 am

Out of curiosity, I emailed the people at ted pella and this is the response I got.

Joshua,

Since we don't buy these from Personna, we couldn't tell you if these are the same. We don't give out our vendor information - that is proprietary. On the 121-5, that is only way we sell them. They are mainly sold to universities who do use them in bulk.

Sorry I can't give you more information.

Kathy
Ted Pella Inc

OK, so no answer for who makes them, but according to her they don't buy from Personna. But who really makes some of the other blades that have been discussed has been murky as well. And it looks like the carbon steel ones can only be bought if you buy 500 at a time.

Is vendor information proprietary like she said?

~Joshua

ScottS · Post by **ScottS** » Wed Apr 25, 2007 9:39 am

jramire2 wrote: Is vendor information proprietary like she said?

They are holding the info, so they are free to treat it however they like.

Pauldog · Post by **Pauldog** » Wed Apr 25, 2007 12:37 pm

Personna isn't a company, it's a brand name used by American Safety Razor (ASR), which is the likely source of these blades. Here, we use "Personna" in a general way to refer to ASR.

ASR uses lots of brand names. They are the result of a bunch of mergers of several companies over a long period, each of which owned some brand names. They also purchased other brand names, such as Burma Shave.

acoldspoon · Post by **acoldspoon** » Thu Apr 26, 2007 6:37 am

After giving Ted Pella Injector blades a really good shot (used like 15 of them), I think they are much worse than Schick Injector blades. Just couldn't get a decent shave with the Pellas. They edges aren't all that nice on these.

jramire2 · Post by **jramire2** » Thu Apr 26, 2007 11:41 pm

What about the carbon steel ted pellas? Anyone tried those?

Considering they're not stainless, they'd most likely rust. But at $70 for 500, I think I could afford to change these after every shave if I had to.

Isn't the benefit of carbon steel that they can be honed sharper than stainless, but that they can rust and don't hold their edge as long?

~Joshua

Pauldog · Post by **Pauldog** » Fri Apr 27, 2007 5:13 pm

The carbon steel blades are probably not coated with teflon. We "modern" shavers are used to that, and a non-coated blade will seem pretty harsh.