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One of the sad ironies of wetshaving is that Gillette, the most important company in the history of safety razors, today makes what many consider the very worst DE blades on the market.

I've tried the Gillette DE blades you can buy in drugstores and online here in the US, and they're awful. Rough, raspy, not fit for shaving at all. And to make matters worse, they're the most expensive DE blades you can buy. Some shavegeeks have even opined that Gillette grinds these blades lousy on purpose, to make the company's modern multi-blade Gillettes like the Mach3 seem better by comparison.

Me, I'm not much into conspiracy theories. A better bet is that Gillette's done the research and concluded that superior quality DE blades aren't a growth category in this country, much as the record industry abandoned the vinyl LP over a decade ago even though a small number of diehards still listen to them (yes, by all means ball up your fists and scream at your monitor that LPs sound better than CDs and DVDs -- after all, what do I know about sound?). So it doesn't make sense to put much effort into a product that doesn't sell even fractionally as well as the Mach3 and soon, the 5-bladed Fusion.

Meanwhile in Europe, where the people are smarter, traditional wetshaving is alive and well, because men there understand that it remains the very best and most comfortable way to shave your whiskers. And Gillette, maker of the worst DE blades sold in the US, sells a very different DE blade to its European customers.

My pal Andy in the UK first hipped me to the Gillettes sold over there, and how they were much, much better than the ones Gillette sells here in the US. The DE blades Andy buys at his local shop are made in Sweden, while the Gillette safety razor blades we get here in America say they're made in Russia but are said by some to be manufactured in India and Pakistan.

The two blades look identical. They even come in the same plastic dispenser. The only way to tell them apart, aside from the cardboard packaging (which, naturally, is blue for the Swedes and red for the Russkies), is that the Swedes come in 5-packs and the Russkies come in 10-packs.

But shaving with them is another story entirely. I ordered some Swedes from Auravita, a UK site with very reasonable shipping to the US -- when all is said and done, you can buy these Swedes for maybe a penny or two more per blade than the excellent Merkur Platinum DE blades sold by pretty much every wetshaving vendor listed in the links section.

Andy'd raved about the Swedes, and then Gordon raved about the Swedes, so I had to try them. And am I glad I did. In my 1940's Gillette Super Speed DE and with some Trumper Violet shaving cream, I got an incredibly close, incredibly comfortable shave. Of course, I said the same thing after my first shave with a Feather blade in this rig, so I'm waiting to see how shaves 2-7 turn out. But so far, so great.

These Swedish Gillettes are excellent, excellent blades, as good or better than any DE blade I've tried. That includes Merkur, Feather, Wilkinson, Personna, who am I forgetting? Those cheap Indian Zorricks. Okay, I haven't tried those yet. You got me. But I've tried everything else, and these Swedes are right at the top of the pile.

Are they the best? Hard to say. I can get as good a shave with Merkurs and Personnas, but it takes more passes with the razor. The Swedes shave as close as the Feathers but a lot smoother -- in fact, they remind me of a Merkur in their forgiving, easy shave. And yet somehow, they also shave closer. I don't get it. Can you really have both? Seems you can. These are the first DE blades to do it for me.

Like I said, this was shave #1 with the Swedes. The real trick is to shave like this for a week without issues. I'll keep you posted.

Meanwhile I'd like to point something out. Even ordering these Euro Gillettes from the UK and incurring shipping charges to mail them to the US, I still paid less for these Swedes than if I'd gone to my local drugstore and bought the Gillette DE blades sold here. It's beyond nutty.