I asked him essentially the same, and his answer is below.

On their site they list the AL13 (aluminum handle with what I assume is the most mild cut, and the AL13-M which is the medium cut. And then for nearly 4x the price you can order one made out of titanium that comes as mild, medium, or aggressive.

I'm not about to pay $250. I find the $70 price of the Al handles to be a bit much, but I may give it a shot. They'll take a return (once per customer), so I'll try the AL13, and if I want something more aggressive, I'll return it and get the AL13-M.

Hi Dan, just looked more closely at my order, I got the:

Henson AL13 × 1 Aircraft Aluminum / 5 / Mild

Shaun, thanks. I am gonna have one within the next week. Hope your Independence Day was fantastic.

I did Dan, thank you!

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/off-topic-discussions/1179844-independence-day-newport-ri.html

Hope yours was too my friend!

I've been using Harry's for the past few years and have been quite happy with them. I'm a shower shaver and go in multi directions and the blades have served me well. I don't go through a lot of blades as I don't have much facial hair.

Yep, multidirectional shower shaver as well. I just don't get the shaver that I want unless I go several directions.

Henson Razor For the Win!!

I got my Henson in the mail today. I've been intentionally letting my hair grow, so I was up around 5-6 days. With my old razor, the Schick Quattro, I wouldn't have been able to shave with the razor. I would have had to use the clippers to cut my hair shorter and then shave with the razor, which is a PITA.

I have 3 priorities for a razor
1) Don't cut me - Schick Quattro is 99.99% on that one.
2) Let me shave if life gets in the way and I don't shave for a bit - Quattro - fail
3) Give a nice close shave - Quattro is 99% on that one too.

I was really concerned that the Henson was going to fail #1, but it didn't. I shaved my face and head and no cuts, and I shave multi direction (with the grain, against the grain, and skew to the grain, that ensures #3).

Henson also laughed at my extended growth. The problem with the Quattro if my hair is longer is that the cartridge gets clogged with hair that just won't come out, even with a strong directed stream of water. The henson has a large capacity for hair and huge holes for ejecting it.

Henson for the win, so far 100% no cuts, shaves longer hair, close shave (with only 1 blade vs 4).

It does take a little bit of adjustment to switch because modern disposable razors have pivoting heads so the angle is always right. The Henson does require the angle to be right or it doesn't work, so your hand/wrist/hold has to control the angle. But it's not a huge deal and everything got shaved.

Out of curiosity, I even checked and can confirm, you can manscape with the Henson if that's something that you do.

I’m happy with my Henson too. My only wish is a grippier handle.

Blade life isn’t too bad. I have tried using the Western Razor blades with the Henson and the shave is not as smooth. The Western blades are heavier so I don’t think it ejects as well as the standard Henson blade. I tried a Western Razor and it just did not work well for me. It is well made but the shave it provided was not satisfactory.

Good to know. When I pulled the first blade out of the box that came with the razor I was surprised by how barely there the blade felt. It worked well.

I feel like the edges of the machining added a fair amount of grip despite the relatively smooth handle.

After astrochex's comment about blades, I thought I'd do a search and see if there were somewhere on the Internet where folks discussed "the best" blade for a Henson razor. I stumbled across a thread on a shaving forum. Certain blades came up multiple times.
https://www.badgerandblade.com/forum/threads/what-blade-works-best-in-a-henson-razor.649465/

Apparently, there is a HUGE variety of blades out there. And you would think, "meh, a blades a blade," but that doesn't seem to be the case. There are all sorts of blades of varying sharpnesses and coatings. The good news is that there are sampler packs where you can get 5-10 blades of a slew of different models (different manufactures as well). I'm probably going to order a sampler pack. I was curious about that forum and checked out another thread. It reads like the "best tire" or "best oil" threads in this place.

A blades a blade? That's like saying a tires a tire! :D

I am running Bic blades right now and LOVE them. Super super sharp.

Yes, but which Bic blades? Are you running the All Seasons or the 200 tw max perf summers or the 100tw track tires or snow tires?

When I read through that thread that I posted above, I made a list of the blades that I saw mentioned most frequently or multiple times. I'm going to try to find a sampler pack that's got as many of them as possible. A bunch of these names are models, but because it was a shaving forum, the make wasn't mentioned. Like here, we could all say "pilot sport 4s" and we'd all know that they were Michelins. For instance the Nacet, Permasharp, silver blue, and 7 o'clock black are all Gillette, and the Chrome Platinum are Bic.

Astra, Nacet, Permasharp, Feather, Chrome Platinum, Wizmet Super Iridium, persona lab blue, Accuforge (new branded Personna Lab Blue), 7 O'clock Black, silver blue, Wilkinson Sword, kai

I am using these: search Amazon for 40 Bic Chrome Platinum Double Edge Razor Blades

Astra are terrible. Disappointed with Feather given the hype, Merkur are very good. My $.02

Good to know, thanks.

Going on my Christmas list.

One of the interesting/crazy things when reading a thread about the various blades and sharpness is talk like:

I also saw folks commenting "I can't use platinum blades because they give me razor burn" and other folks can't use other sorts of blades. And apparently, different types of safety razors perform better/worse with different sorts of blades. A lot of the folks on that forum seem to have gone over the edge on the whole shaving/razor/blade thing, but I'm sure many of them would think the same viewing some of the threads here.

Shaving has never been a problem for me. I don’t think I’ve cut myself even once in 60 years of shaving. I have a Norelco electric that I use once in a while, but mostly I use a Gillette 3 blade and Barbasol shave cream. I think I’ll get a Henson because those Gillette blades are expensive.

Wow, impressive! I've cut myself plenty over the years all with a variety of disposable/cartridge type razors. For many years, my preference was Schick Slim Twin cartridge razors. I occasionally cut myself on those, but got a great, super close BBS shave (BBS as they say on the shaving forum - baby butt smooth). At some point, they changed and I started cutting myself more often. I went through a few other models until I eventually stumbled across the Schick Quattro. I get a great shave with those, and I don't think I've ever cut myself. I think I'm paying $1.75 - 2.50 per cartridge, and that sucks.

I'm very happy with the Henson. I'm going to try a selection of different blades to see if I like one or two more than the others, but even the blades that it came with seemed good, and I definitely didn't cut myself. I think that's one of the strengths of the design of the Henson, and why I bothered trying it at all.

I'm not in any way suggesting that any of us need to use these. I believe these were designed for the old original blades that were quite a bit thicker (and not coated with all manner of coatings) than modern blades. Some are really great.

<iframe width="720" height="480" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/plVRh_4ybWo" title="My Antique Razor Blade Sharpener Collection ~ Rescue &amp; Restore" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>

So, we can consider ourselves men of steel!
<iframe width="720" height="480" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/6kgw6j9n_2o" title="Your hair can crack steel when it hits the right spot" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>