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Moore's Law For Razor Blades?
BartlebyScrivener writes "An article in The Economist examines Moore's Law as applied to razor blade technology: 'For the most cynical shavers, this evolution is mere marketing. Twin blades seemed plausible. Three were a bit unlikely. Four, ridiculous. And five seems beyond the pale. Few people, though, seem willing to bet that Gillette's five-bladed Fusion is the end of the road for razor-blade escalation. More blades may seem impossible for the moment — though strictly speaking the Fusion has six, because it has a single blade on its flip-side for tricky areas — but anyone of a gambling persuasion might want to examine the relationship between how many blades a razor has, and the date each new design was introduced'" I'm legally obligated to mention the Onion article that predicted this.
God I hate razor blade ads. Why do Gilette et al always use an actor who's clearly been clean shaven before they do the shot where he pulls the blade from his ear to his chin in one fell swoop. It's hardly a ringing endorsement of their product if they won't show someone with a day or two's worth of stubble doing the same thing.
Here's my favourite parody of the gilette ads:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wd6BjAj9Zag
If it's too difficult, I can't understand it !
640k blades
Forget the 14-blade razor in the year 2100. We have a 15 blade one now.
Respect the laws of physics, for the laws of physics have no respect for you.
I remember reading this article back in MARCH. Seven months is a little long, even by Slashdot standards.
You're new around here aren't you?
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Now at 5 the blade density is already getting up there so I'm not quite sure how much higher they can go (without pointless tricks like splitting the blades in half and calling it "10 bladed").
Sir, if you don't patent that - and I mean right now - you're an idiot.
-Richard Stallman
... if you try too hard to use it in a complicated way, it just cuts your head off, and saves us from having to hear about it.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Let me add here my great contribution to science and simple living:
You don't need shaving cream to shave.
I once read an interview in the Wall Street Journal with a scientist from Gillette. He said that a razor blade can cut a wet beard much more easily than a dry beard. It takes a minute or two for your beard to be soaked through. The only purpose of shaving cream is to hold the water to wet your beard for a minute or two while the hairs gets saturated.
I thought, "When I step out of the shower in the morning, my beard is soaked. I should be able to shave without any shaving cream."
I tried it next morning, and I got the smoothest, cleanest shave I ever got in my life.
I haven't used shaving cream for 30 years.
(Conversely, if you just spread shaving cream on your face and don't give it a minute or two to wet your beard, you'll get a rough shave.)
I'm not quite sure how much higher they can go (without pointless tricks like splitting the blades in half and calling it "10 bladed").
.carbon!; to combine light weight with strength. Let's see the competition match technology like that. And they're, ummmmmmmmm, organic. Yeah, that's the ticket, but you vegetarians will be pleased to learn that they contain no meat."
"With our new nanotechnology we have been able to create a blade with billions of discrete cutting components per millimeter of blade! Batteries? We don't need no stinking batteries. Our blades are internally powered by atomic quantum energy. But wait, there's more, they contain. .
KFG
Yeah, back in the quaint old days when three blades seemed like an absurdity.
Nit: I think the slogan was "For you.... Because you'll believe anything."
I use single-bladed Bic disposables myself, which are great except that you have to keep track of how sharp they are and adjust your shaving style accordingly. Presumably this is because they're made of intentionally corrosive metal, razor blades being one of the classic examples of planned obsolescence in action. I keep wondering if it might be possible to hack my own razor blades: stainless steel isn't terribly easy to sharpen, but I bet it would hold an edge forever. I'd prefer some sort of "saftey" arrangement, rather than the old fashioned straight-edged razor. Has anyone out there looked into this?
Funny, I just remembered that once I tried a different approach: it seemed to me that if I stored a disposable razor in oil, I might be able to prevent it from corroding... I quickly discovered the obvious problem: if I wanted to use soap for lubrication, I was going to have to completely clean off all of the oil before each use. I don't remember if I looked into using oil as a shaving lubricant, that seems like an obvious thought to me now, but I might've missed it back then. Why not stash your razor in olive oil, and wash your face after shaving rather than before?
Though what would be really nifty is to figure out a way of using an electrochemical effect to suppress corrosion... how hard could it be to nickle-plate a "disposable" razor? Hm.
I threw away my Gillette Mach 3 and bought a good old-fashioned safety razor which takes good old-fashioned double-edged razor blades. I pay less than 1/10th the prize for blades now, and they last just as long as the Mach 3 cartridges did. Reading the Shave My Face site helped me find the good stuff.
I have great respect for the late King Camp Gillette, who invented the cheap mass-produced double-edged razor blade, and no respect at all for the Gillette Company who seem to have turned into a marketing machine.
Ideally, I would shave with a straight razor, but I'm kinda scared...
Dumping cartridge razor was definitely one of the best decisions I ever took, though
Eat the rich.
Yea, but image a beowulf of those. You could shave your face, your ass, your balls, your back and your legs in half a second. Put a small motor and a AAA in the thing, make it look like a 1950s lawn mower. You can shave on the way to work, talk on your cell phone AND drink that mocha latte at the same time. Fuck, you could shave a rottweiler with that bad boy and he wouldn't know what hit him till he was balder than a baby's ass.
(Sorry, got caught up in the Onion article, and I *DO* work in marketing for a living...)
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
Why not make the blades out of ceramics? Tungsten carbide's a good one; you just need a mold that will stably hold its shape to a microscopic vertex.
It would never break. You could make it now, shave your face for thirty years, and still accidentally slash your wrists with it.
110100 1101000 1101000 1100110 0 1101111 1101000 1100011 1
to go to a fun party and pick you up some "intimiate shave lotion". places like pure romance or passion parties sell it, it's for women to shave their junk. i use it to shave my face and it's the best. it's sort of scented, so you end up smelling like shaved pussy, and there are worse things to smell like :-)
sarcasm:
-noun
1. harsh or bitter derision or irony.
I'm posting anonymously because I'm pretty sure I'm not supposed to talk about this, but when I interned at a razor company, much of the research was for new materials, and none of the ones that I tried while I was there lasted through the equivalent of even 1 shave. The technology is nearing the physical limits of the materials. My take on the situation would be that since there are 2 big razor manufacturers in the US, they'll take any advantage they can get to gain a larger market share, no matter how small.
A lot of the 'shaving comfort' is anecdotal, too. I remember one test that I ran while I was there and I found that a certain coating significantly reduced the force required to cut a hair, so we produced a bunch of razors with that coating for a test. The testers are just people off the street, and in the double-blind trial of the new coating vs the traditional one, the testers overwhelmingly preferred the old coating. My point is basically that the best technical ideas don't necessarily produce the most consumer satisfaction, and maybe 6 or 10 blades will draw a larger market share.
- "Nobody came out that night, not one was ever seen. But Old Man Stauf is waiting there, crazy sick and mean!"
Since the day I realized girls aren't all that into limp teenage stubble, I've used a certain 3-bladed razor whose name I won't mention because they're not paying me to do so and I don't give out freebies.
It's always seemed sufficient, but I've never been happy with the red irritation that seems to perpetually inhabit my neckal region.
I stumbled across this article a while back, which convinced me that razor technology has been pointlessly nursing a fatal blunder made 50 years ago rather than admitting defeat and going back to the way it used to be.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6886845/
On the other hand, you might just view disposables as a parallel market - one for people who value a few extra minutes of their time high above comfort, psychological satisfaction, and a smooth babyface.
I, for one, intend to invest in a nice quality old-school shaving kit very soon rather than pay the 3-blade racketeers their outrageous replacement fees any longer.
You can run but you can't hide, except, apparently, along the Afghan-Pakistani border.