Paradigm Salient (China)
Paradigm had not released a razor since the Diamondback of 2020 so when it was advised that they were about to release another razor, it’s fair to say that the announcement gained my attention. Within seconds of the release on 26 May 2023, I had the Salient bought and paid for. A couple of day later, there it was a shipping notification; so far so good. 31 May, I received an email advising of a shipping delay of a couple of weeks, then an immediate follow up advising that a refund was available. I thought I had a shipping notification, so this does not apply to me; but it did. It appears Paradigm Shaving had little if any stock on hand at its release and used the funds from those who jumped in early to fund the purchase of stock from China. Their web page stated that the additional razors should be available in the week of 5 June; that day came and went with nothing heard. An assurance that the razors would be shipped in the week of 24 July came and went, with you guessed it, nothing heard. 9 Aug and there’s another shipping note; I’ve been down this path before, so I’ll wait and see; this is looking better as reports started coming in from other buyers of the razor finally starting to receive what they had paid for. Mine was physically in my hand on 1 September. Had Paradigm advertised the Salient as a pre-sale, they would have made the same sales but without their name being dragged through the mud, up front honesty goes a long way.
With their Salient, Paradigm has released a razor that is totally out of character with their existing models; like being machined in China, a simplistic but rugged handle design, a matt electroplated finish and a competitive price, nothing aligned with their attention to detail displayed and the upfront cost of their previous models. Did I say matt finish, when the razor finally arrived it had been given a half-hearted attempt at a polished finish, that’s not what was offered for sale????????? and whether it was ever electroplated is debatable. Like most razor manufacturers, Paradigm overlooked the fact that there are two sides to the cap; the underside looks a bit hard to polish, it’s out of sight, no one will care, and we’ll spin them the old yarn that polishing the underside of the cap would unduly interfere with the fine tolerances we demand from our supplier, leave it as it rolled out of the CNC machine. Blade clamping is at the outer extremities of the cap and the elongated blade posts on the cap stand quite tall and feed into the full depth cutouts in the plate. Being a budget razor, the thickness of the plate can’t be criticised too much; it’s not overly thick but it could have had more material machined off it. It is a nuggety looking razor and its weight goes over the 100g mark, it would have been so easy to reduce the weight.
Halfway through the first shave and I’m thinking the Salient seems to shave with similar characteristics to those I remember from the original Paradigm Titanium, I must bring that out for a review; Karve CB level #D efficiency and an abundance of positive blade. That amount of positive blade would be a big negative to some potential users, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. For a razor with so much positive blade, the shave was reasonably smooth. There is no denying though that the Salient delivered a close shave, those enjoyable long lasting close shaves that don’t come around often enough. My biggest complaint with the Salient was that the so-called polished surface of the handle did not provide sufficient grip. I think the matt finished Salient would have provided far better grip; come to think of it, I have a sample of every general release model from Paradigm so a satin finished Paradigm Salient is not out of the question. It looks like the Salient is a stop gap razor in the Paradigm range designed to deliver a comfortable shave, be economical, sell lots of razors and provide funding for future releases. If that was the idea, the Salient is a success, and to be fair, it is very much a razor I could live with.
Blades Used – Gillette Minora and Feather
Material – 316 Stainless Steel electroplated
Blade Tab - Covered
Weight – 105.6g
Head Width – 43.00mm
Handle Length – 85mm
Handle Diameter – 11.97mm
Availability – Paradigm
Final Word – Out of character
PS.
Paradigm may have learnt something from their poor customer service with the Salient; they recently had a titanium version of their Diamondback for pre-sale. Of course I have one bought and paid for.