Dancing on Razor’s Edge – Moon of Alabama

September 17, 2005

Dancing on Razor’s Edge

Commerce beats satire:

The Gillette Mach3 was the razor to own. Then the other guy came out with a three-blade razor. Were we scared? Hell, no. Because we hit back with a little thing called the Mach3Turbo. That’s three blades and an aloe strip. For moisture.

But you know what happened next?

Shut up, I’m telling you what happened—the bastards went to four blades. […] Well, fuck it. We’re going to five blades.

Fuck Everything, We’re Doing Five Blades,
The Onion, February 18, 2004

The Gillette Company today announced the launch of Gillette Fusion(TM) and Gillette Fusion(TM) Power, revolutionary new wet shaving systems for men […] Both shaving systems feature a breakthrough 5 blade Shaving Surface(TM) technology on the front of the cartridge, with blades spaced 30 percent closer together than MACH3 blades.
Gillette Introduces Fusion: The Future of Shaving,
The Gillette Company, September 14, 2005

The market? Listen, we make the market. All we have to do is put her out there with a little jingle. It’s as easy as, "Hey, shaving with anything less than five blades is like scraping your beard off with a dull hatchet." Or "You’ll be so smooth, I could snort lines off of your chin."
Fuck Everything, We’re Doing Five Blades,
The Onion, February 18, 2004

Both products feature a superbly engineered handle with an elastomer coating to provide a secure grip, better control, and a design that is elegant, highly functional and as next generation as the products’ performance.

Gillette Introduces Fusion: The Future of Shaving,
The Gillette Company, September 14, 2005

Here she comes: Put another aloe strip on that fucker, too. That’s right. Five blades, two strips, and make the second one lather. You heard me—the second strip lathers. It’s a whole new way to think about shaving.
Fuck Everything, We’re Doing Five Blades,
The Onion, February 18, 2004

An Enhanced Indicator Lubrastrip fades to white when optimal shave conditions have been reduced.
Gillette Introduces Fusion: The Future of Shaving,
The Gillette Company, September 14, 2005

Don’t question it. Don’t say a word. Just key the music, and call the chorus girls, because we’re on the edge—the razor’s edge—and I feel like dancing.

Fuck Everything, We’re Doing Five Blades,
The Onion, February 18, 2004

[S]aid Mr. Hoffman: "We listened to consumers and developed products that meet the shaving needs of all men, with or without facial hair, to help them look and feel their very best."

Gillette Introduces Fusion: The Future of Shaving,
The Gillette Company, September 14, 2005

Posted by b on September 17, 2005 at 14:12 UTC | Permalink

Comments

I buy one package of ten Bic desposables every couple of years. But, then, I only shave my face not my whole body like some ‘girly men’ governors I know.

Posted by: pb | Sep 17 2005 17:24 utc | 1

Agreed pb. This is a Madison Ave created ‘need.’ Given the quality of even the budget blades, many of us ‘recreational shavers’ can go for years on a package of disposables.

Posted by: hrc | Sep 17 2005 17:45 utc | 2

What an old science-fiction novel can tell us about the Big Easy

As Americans struggled to grasp what was unfolding in New
Orleans, the word “unimaginable” recurred frequently—even
though the catastrophe had been imagined, and envisioned,
many times. Thirty years ago, science fiction writer Samuel
Delany wrote, in high detail, about the unfolding of
racially-charged violence, rape, and looting in “Bellona,” a
major American city struck by an unspecified catastrophe and
ignored by the National Guard.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Sep 17 2005 17:45 utc | 3

metrosexuals are going to go wild over this product. i’m a little jealous. maybe i’ll try it on my legs.

Posted by: annie | Sep 17 2005 17:47 utc | 4

b, you left out the best part:
RFID “spychips” have been hidden in the packaging of Gillette razor products and in other products you might buy at a local Tesco, Wal-Mart or Target store – and they have already been used to spy on people.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Sep 17 2005 18:04 utc | 5

Hilarious!!
Of course the business strategy of a company like Gillette (or it’s parent, Proctor and Gamble) is to take already well established consumer products and tweak them so they can justify selling them at a premium. Otherwise you’re just in the business of producing commodities, and that’s purely a race to the bottom in terms of profit margin.
I myself prefer the two blade Gillette razors to Bic -I find they do give a smoother and closer shave, but hey, maybe I’m just a victim of marketing. I draw the line at swivel tops, lubricating strips, or that little plastic thing that’s supposed to push the gunk out from between the blades (do they still even make those?) Obviously somebody must be buying this stuff because they just keep producing more of it though.

Posted by: Lexington | Sep 18 2005 1:45 utc | 6

I’ve recently adopted the Cherokee method — plucking every individual hair out, one by one, until you’re as smooth as can be.
Takes a while, but it’s permanent.
I started this recently, by preparing a spreadsheet to observe a rigourous schedule of plucking.
Then I bought some nice tweezers.
So I guess I’ll be ready to start soon. Maybe Thursday.
Maybe Thanksgiving.
Or New Year’s.

Posted by: Antifa | Sep 18 2005 5:12 utc | 7

Ah DHALGREN… I still have the first edition of that book… Weird, rambling, but so unique. They don’t write them like that anymore.

Posted by: Lupin | Sep 18 2005 6:37 utc | 8

The only thing I shave are my sweaters. I use an old ceramic knife.

Posted by: Noisette | Sep 18 2005 11:42 utc | 9

I don´t like Newsweeks Zakaria’s writing that much but here he hits some nail Leaders Who Won’t Choose

Today’s Republicans believe in pork, but they don’t believe in government. So we have the largest government in history but one that is weak and dysfunctional. Public spending is a cynical game of buying votes or campaign contributions, an utterly corrupt process run by lobbyists and special interests with no concern for the national interest. So we shovel out billions on “Homeland Security” to stave off nonexistent threats to Wisconsin, Wyoming and Montana while New York and Los Angeles remain unprotected. We mismanage crises with a crazy-quilt patchwork of federal, local and state authorities—and sing paeans to federalism to explain our incompetence. We denounce sensible leadership and pragmatism because they mean compromise and loss of ideological purity. Better to be right than to get Iraq right.

Posted by: b | Sep 18 2005 17:01 utc | 10

“…optimal shave conditions have been reduced…”
Um. Does that mean the blade is dull?

Posted by: PeeDee | Sep 19 2005 0:20 utc | 11

When all of these alternatives to the old double sided safety razor came out I was a reluctant convert if only because if you were in a hurry and hadn’t screwed the damn handle on tight enough you’d cop a few nicks for sure.
After a few years I had this huge collection of razors with no blades that fit them and blades that didn’t have a razor that I could attach them to.
This was because although they all look the same they aren’t and whenever I bought a package of blades I would spend frustratingly large amounts of time trying to fit them only to find out that my razor was a schick and my blades wilkinson etc.
I then went for the introductory offers where you get a handle with the packet of blades. That way you couldn’t get it wrong and it was frequently cheaper to buy 3 blades and a handle for 3 bucks than 5 blades on their own for 8 bucks.
The problem was that the bathroom eventually becamme overwhelmed with black plastic bits and pieces and I could never keep track of which was my current razor so I went back to nicking myself again.
Then reluctantly I made myself memorise the name of one of the damn things. In the past it had always been confusing as I could never remember whether it was me or the bloke on TV that used the Turbo or whatever.
Anyway I picked a brand that wasn’t gillette (for no reason other than some throwaway line an economics professor made to me about the power and meaningless of brands ie gillette at sometime in the deep dark past)
I remembered the name of this damn thing and then the predictable happened. It was ‘improved’. This meant that although the name was the same the plastic bit no longer fitted on any of my 157 handles.
I found an old double sided safety razor and a Chinese Emporium that sells blades that fit it. These cost around 15 cents each and now I’m back where I started nicking myself whenever I’m in a hurry. Considering that I still used to get nicked with the 3 dollar blades I am happy to move backwards because I’ve yet to see the money I threw away on the Chinese blades being used to berate me in a commercial featuring some lantern jawed half wit who seems to confuse his shaving equipment with a coupe or a jet fighter.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Sep 19 2005 1:19 utc | 12

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