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It's been a bladey couple of days. Me and my shavegeek pals have been trying different blades in our various razors. Why, I don't know, exactly. We're all perfectly happy with our shave rigs. It's like Sir Edmund Hillary and his party playing strip poker on top of Everest. Why? Is it boredom? Creeping dementia? Healthy curiousity?

Dementia, definitely.

I didn't used to be so into blades as a crucial variable in the wetshaving. I got lucky and hit paydirt right off the bat. The first safety razor blades I ever used were the excellent Merkur Platinums from Germany, which Lee at Lee's Razors sold me along with my first DE razor, also by Merkur.

I was lucky to have started out with such excellent blades -- the much more commonly found Gillette DE blades sold in many drugstores here in the US are really harsh and raggedy, and I'm sure I would've ditched the DE halfway into my first shave if I'd started out with Gillettes instead of Merkurs.

After I got up to speed with the DE, I tried some of the Feather Platinum DE blades, the "It" Blade of the shavegeek forums. The rap on the Feathers is they're the sharpest DE blades ever, and I can vouch for that myself. Unfortunately, I can also vouch for the fact that they're not for the squeamish, or the sensitive-skinned -- they beat my face up something terrible. So I went back to the Merkur blades, and that's all I've fed my DE since.

Nowadays I shave with an old Schick/Eversharp Injector, a 1940's "bakelite" model that shaves me as close as a straight razor every time I pick it up. I started out with fresh Schick Injector blades, which, incredibly, you can still buy at Amazon.com and Drugstore.com, if your local pharmacy doesn't happen to stock them. The Schick Injector blades are thicker than DE blades and seem even sharper, and they shave shockingly well for such inexpensive, easily sourced blades. From my very first shave with the Schicks, I got a closer and more comfortable shave than anything I'd been able to muster from my DE.

Then my pal Andy caused a right kerfuffle by hipping me to the almighty Featherjector -- specifically, a 1940s bakelite Injector (gotta be an old shorty -- the more modern long-handle Injectors don't work nearly as well for this trick) loaded with a clipped-down Feather disposable straight razor blade, specifically this one. The first shave I caught off this thing knocked me for a loop, and I've been addicted ever since.

But recently Andy sent me some new Swedish Gillette DE blades to try. Said they're excellent, nothing like the ratty ones sold in the US. Not really being a DE man no more, I plucked one of the five Swedes out and stuck it in my Merkur HD, then sent the remaining 4 to our other pal Gordon to try.

Now, Gordon's the gentleman who set me right when I washed up on Wetshavers' doorstep lo these many moons ago trying to get a better shave than a Mach3 and some face-numbing poultice. He offered plentiful advice on razors, blades, creams, brushes, and god knows what else that goes into the beautiful thing we call wetshaving, and saved me a ton of ramp-up time, not to mention hipped me to top-shelf staples like the Vulfix badger brushes and Taylor shaving creams which I happily use every day and recommended to eight million people around the world on the Today Show earlier this year.

As it happens, Gordon loves the Swedes. Said they were some of the best DE blades he's ever shaved with in the forty years he's been waving a razor. And since Gordon's never wrong, and neither is Andy, well, there you have it. Swedish Bikini Team and Yngwie Malmsteen, move over -- Sweden's got a new star, 'cept you can't buy them in the US, of course. You can buy the Swedish Gillettes on a few UK web sites like Auravita.com, but you're better off getting a friend who lives over there to send you a stash.

Meanwhile, I've been revisiting the Schick blades in my Injector. I was curious as to whether my technique had ramped up at all with the Feather blades I've been feeding this razor, and I wanted to see what a stock Schick would shave like now that I've become as one with the Injector.

So when my last Feather Pro Super went belly-up, I replaced it with a "lowly" Schick, and today after my workout at the Y, I got the best shave yet from one of these stinkin' el-cheapo blades (actually, the high-end Feathers are cheaper per blade -- 55 cents each, versus 60 cents for the Schicks, but once you factor in the ER visit when you slice your finger open like a gutted flounder while trying to clip the Feathers down to fit your razor, all bets are off)!

So what if it took more passes than I need to make with the Feathers? The Schick blades are so smooth and forgiving and yet unfailingly sharp that I really did get just as good a shave today as I normally do with the Featherjector. I just had to work on it a bit more. Bear down a bit harder with the blade. Do a bit more touch-up under my chin than normal.

But what's a few more minutes if I can get the same ungodly close shave with these cheap Schick blades as I can with the Feathers? The naked guy standing at the next sink over and shaving with a rusty disposable and no cream, just water, may not have appreciated the feat I'd just pulled off, but that was his loss, not mine.

Mine was waiting for me outside, in the parking lot -- a ticket under my wiper, for taking too long. So today's shave cost me 23 clams. Considering I paid $65 for a professional straight razor shave at Truefitt's that wasn't any closer, that's not bad.