Blade Flex

Both of my birthday razors, Schön travel 4-piece and Long Feng Dragonfeng, had this characteristic in common. When pitched down to the point of catching the beard, they produced tremendous noise, as the flexible blade was played like a bad music box. "Burnt toast" would be the name of that reel.

And I expected my face to be burned, but it wasn't. I was able to reflexively back off the pitch, effectively shaving at a lower angle with respect to the skin, and a moderate angle with respect to the hair, as the blade bent into local opposition. The overall effect was a shave not particularly deep, but no hair missed, like the Schmidt R10; along with thoroughly exfoliated skin, like the DEvette.

Head geometries feature relatively large gap and narrow blade support, with well-sculpted, sharp edges on the top caps.

There is a corner ground off the Indian razor's baseplate.
The Chinese razor's top cap required filing for wavy blade.

While a bit too severe (and yet shady) to be my daily shaves, there is no doubt in my mind that anyone experiencing these results would call it BBS. Considering how easy it was to accomplish, I think this could be the standard formula for that result.

They're playing with black magic, in my opinion. Blade flex introduces a cartridge-like quality to the shaving experience. Still, I can't deny my fascination. No doubt, I'll be fooling around with these until my next birthday.

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