You Are What You Shave With
A long time ago, razors used to sell on “tech” dimensions. The Gillette Mach3 came out in 1998 and cost 750 MILLION DOLLARS in research and development costs. For a razor. A cartridge razor with an extra blade than was typical at the time.
Rather than be a write-off, the investment proved to be a huge success with buyers lining up to pay the higher margins on premium razors that promised to provide a somewhat smoother shave.
It kept going from there. In 2004, The Onion parodied an exasperated Gillette executive saying they were going to go to five blades.
In 2006, Gillette launched the Fusion, which had six blades.
The razor companies kept raising prices and kept developing minor innovations that appealed to enough of the public to continue the cycle. This happened for years.
Then, there was a minor revolution ten years ago with this commercial from the Dollar Shave Company.
This commercial is worth contemplating. Dollar Shave Company did not spend any money to develop its product. It bought its razors in bulk from a factory. Then it shipped them to customers at an affordable price. That was the model. But who wants cheap razors? Isn’t the Fusion power that vibrates cool?
“No, it isn’t,” argues Dollar Shave Company. If anything those features are unmanly. With this subtle bit of reframing jujitsu they undid all of their larger competitors heavy investments into slick products and even slicker marketing. Men looked down at their Schick PX-311B Xtreme 3s for sensitive skin and wept.
With this commercial, Dollar Shave Company’s product wasn’t just about saving money. It was a choice. A choice to forgo the false masculinity of tech-chasing baubles for a sort of rugged simplicity. The reference to the viewers’ grandfather in the commercial is crucial to making this point.
This all worked out great for Dollar Shave Company, which itself grew to be bought by Unilever for $1 billion only five years after its founding. Not bad for a company that purposefully sought out to commodify its market!
But are razors truly commodities? Does it really not matter which one if you use? If that’s true, then you should just pick the cheapest one, right?
That is generally not an acceptable answer for marketers. Product choices are about identity. Yes, I drive Toyotas because they are reliable, but I chose to buy a Toyota because I am the type of person who makes those kinds of decisions. And despite myself some of my identity has Toyota stamped on it, and that has value as long as I might someday be in the market for one of their future products.
Here is where the Daily Wire enters. They are selling a razor. The razor has no reason for being other than as a declaration of one’s political leanings. That is not a criticism. It’s the explicit point argued by the brand. Their razors too, I assume, will be coming out of a similar factory, but the buyer gets to declare, if only to themselves, who they are as a person.
Do you still use the single-blade safety razor, Vikram? I’m still on my folding “straight razor” with the same double-sided single-blade razor inserted as a removable blade.
Although if I’m in a hurry I keep a pack of those commodified plastic single-blade disposable razors (‘regular razors’ to most folks) on hand to scrape my face in the shower. The straight razor cuts closer and cleaner, but these are faster.Report
I switched to a single-blade safety razor a few years back, and it was a great decision. So cheap. I think I got 100 blades for about $20. It shaves as close as anything.
Now I have grown out my beard, so it’s a little less useful, except for trimming the neck line.Report
Same, way cheaper, does just as good a job as a name brand, and no politics in my shaving.
Add in some unscented shave soap and a badger bristle brush, and it’s easy as can be.
I keep a decent electric for when I travel.Report
I use a Gillette Fusion razor and buy the blades in bulk at CostCo. One package lasts a while. I don’t trust myself with a straight razor but I do like getting old-timey shaves every now and then. Those are really nice. For shaving cream, I do get fancy ones. I like shaving creams with sandalwood in them.Report
You know electric razors exist and are a miracle of modern tech. Haven’t used a sharpened piece of metal on my delicate face and cranium in decades. It’s a Braun fwiw.
I’m sure some RW health and beauty aid company will make an electric razor that runs on diesel and has an exhaust.Report
I used to use an electric razor, and I got these weird Voltron whiskers where several whiskers would fuse together into a single super-whisker as thick as a wire.
I’ve never been sure whether that was the cause, but they haven’t come back since I switched to a straight razor.Report
I use Philips. I started off shaving with Braun (and my father still uses Braun), but found that I had to replace the foil quite often. This tended to become a problem as it became harder and harder to find foils and blades for old model.Report
I’ve been using a Norelco since college. In face, I replaced my roughly ten year old one just last week.Report
I use an electric. No idea what brand. When it dies, I’d buy a new one from Jeremy’s if they make them and sell them at a reasonable price and I still remember this story, but frankly I probably won’t.Report
I use a Braun. I replace the foils every two years or so and the razor maybe every 10 to 15 years.
It’s a solid shave. Good mix of fast, comfortable, and close. Razors will get you a bit smoother, but not much.
Of course, I’m about to laser most of it off. A decision I wish I’d made a decade ago when I had less white hair. (laser doesn’t do squat to that). Then again, the white hairs aren’t as bristly and I can deal with those in a different manner, later.Report
The last time I shaved my face was 2007.
My head? Well, God gets the top. He leaves the sides for me to shave, however.
The so-called “Good News” disposable left my head feeling peeled and a half dozen toilet paper spots covering the nicks. And, goodness gracious, they needed to be cleaned after every swipe. Make two swipes, you’ve gotta have a small needle nearby to clean out the gunk. The stream from the faucet was not sufficient.
The Gillette Mach 3 was pretty good. It cleaned well under the faucet. However, about once a year, I cut myself shaving. And it wasn’t a toilet paper cut either. It was a bandaid cut and it left a scab for about a week. But it was only once a year. A small price to pay.
The Fusion was a revelation. It cleaned easily. So easily, you could shave in the *SHOWER*. AND IT DIDN’T CUT ME OPEN. Like, in the 15 or so years that I’ve been using the Fusion, I have cut myself maybe once. It is the best dang razor I’ve ever had. Like, even if I say “Dang, that’s pretty expensive!” when I buy some new blades, I then have to say “Well, it’s your head, man. Nothing wrong with saving a few bucks but save them elsewhere.”
So when Gillette came out with the ad campaign back in 2019 saying that their razors stood for shaving and NOT toxic masculinity, I was irritated but it never occurred to me to change blades.
I’m not going to go back to cutting my head.
The main that I’m going to wonder about Jeremy’s Razors is whether they’re going to actually ship product.
Remember David Hogg’s pillow company that he was going to use to take down Mike Lindell (of My Pillow fame)? “Good Pillow”?
Well, I just checked, and they haven’t shipped product yet. Their announcement was met with much fanfare and they talked about having unionized out-of-work theater people working on making the pillows and they were going to be cheaper than Lindell’s and *BETTER* and, in February 2021, David Hogg announced that they were hoping to release their product in six months (they wanted sooner, but they had strict sustainability guidelines).
Anyway, that’s what I was thinking about when I saw that The Daily Wire, an ostensible news website, was getting into making razors. “WE’RE GOING TO UPEND RAZOR MAKING!”
Dude. You’re a website. Making things is hard.Report
The Jeremy commercial reminded me of Colbert… it was a satire of a satire.
The product itself looks kinda chintzy to be honest; I think the Harry’s story was they bought an actual razor factory and changed the business model – which is interesting because Razor Blades *is* the original subscription model, it’s the go-to reference in every tech company. What I think they pioneered was going direct to consumer; for Gillette and others, their *real* customer is Walmart and the distribution chains. So bypassing Walmart is the quality/cost nexus that makes the model work. At least originally.
So back to Jeremy… I’m guessing they are just going to buy wholesale parts and slap them together which will make their product probably less profitable and likely lower quality. But, might still make Jeremy boat loads of money.
I don’t think I care who ‘wins’ in a fight between Daily Wire and Harry’s … but if I can buy Aviation Gin because Ryan Reynolds made fun of Peloton in an ad, I can potentially buy a razor for making fun of Harry’s in an ad.
I definitely abandoned Penzey’s (even before he went nutzo over Trump) because of his rants… now I buy from his sister (!) – who probably has the same or similar views (?) but keeps me blissfully ignorant of them. I think of it as a de-escalation strategy.Report
Team X:”*Virtue signaling*
Team Y:”Vice signaling*
This will be used by future historians not yet born, to explain the politics of the early 21st century.Report
I use a buzzer/trimmer. The girlfriend prefers a little stubble and I prefer a lighter touch. Works for me.
I checked and Jeremy’s starter kit is $59 which includes a carry case, the handle, 8 blades, shave balm, and shave gel. Best I can tell from the pre-order pricing, 8 blades costs $18… so… $2.25 a blade. Harry’s range from $2.25-$1.88 per depending on how large an order. So… comparable but not cheaper. Not now at least. Can’t quite make heads or tails of shipping costs.
Shipment won’t start until June… but I would have to pay now and would be agreeing to a renewable subscription.
Anyone wanna bet shipments never go out and refund requests become a cluster?Report
I’d take that bet. Boreing seems like a good businessman.Report
I’d like to be wrong just because I never like a grift. I’m generally skeptical of any “Pay now, get later at an indeterminate time.”
If Boreing is a good businessman, power to him on this venture. It seems silly but so much of marketing seems silly. To his credit, he’s saying the quiet parts loud. Rather than try to indirectly appeal to a demographic, he’s straight up beckoning to them.Report
I’ve been a Dollar Shave Club buyer for years. I was kinda bummed when they sold out to Unilever, but I know I sure wouldn’t turn down a billion dollars. Really what I miss is the cool newsletter that would come with the blades. The blades aren’t the best but, as the British say, they do what it says on the tin.
I wonder what percentage of the Daily Wire’s ad revenue came from Harry’s that their making such a stink about it. They don’t seem to have any ads on their site, and I’m sure as sh*t not going to listen to one of their podcasts to find out.Report
I have a beard and moustache, but I still shave my neck and square off the edges. I switched from Gillette to Harry’s for a couple of months a few years ago. I thought it’d be a good way to save a few bucks. Once I could no longer take the pain and bleeding, back to Gillette I went. I even felt a bit guilty about switching back–Harry’s said they used good German engineering, so maybe I had been doing something wrong?
I just couldn’t take the regular damage to my face anymore.Report
I have a heavy beard, thick hairs and lots of ’em, and have shaved at least five days a week since I turned 16. I got a note from the photo finisher along with my high school senior portraits saying she was sorry, but had been unable to do anything about the blue shadow. I worked my way through every sort of blade there was, none entirely satisfactory.
I had to switch to an electric in my 30s because my skin just wouldn’t take shaving five days in a row. Some of that may also have been moving to Denver, where the air is much drier. Wound up with a high-end Philips after trying several.
By my late 50s I had to go back to a blade. White whiskers are a different thing and the electric missed too many of them. For me, a Gillette Mach 3 seems to be the best combination of closeness and longevity. More than three blades clogs too easily with my whiskers. Gillette pays a premium for their steel for corrosion resistance — blades don’t get dull because the edge is worn, they get dull because the edge is corroded.
These days I’m wearing a beard and just trimming around the top of my cheeks and neck . Length and two-tone shading along the lines of Sean Connery in Hunt for Red October.Report
I enjoyed this! Thanks for writing, I always love your pieces!Report
Meta commentary.
Many if not most of the biggest sponsors for independent media are so easy to duplicate that I’m shocked every YouTuber doesn’t have a shave club, supplement line, and underware subscription.Report