Another sellout
If I had any principles worth mentioning, I'd shave with a straight razor or wear a beard.
As it is, I gave up the goatee a few years ago because it was going grey about twice as fast as the rest of my head, making it look like I was channeling Col. Sanders. Now, another of those social history moments. Before the the invention of the safety razor, most "clean shaven" men actually shaved only two or three times a week. The rest were either rich enough to own a matched set of seven straight razors professionally sharpened, rich enough and leisured enough to visit a barber every day, or masochists.
Since King Gillette (his real name) perfected the safety razor, I am circling back to my point, which is that today I sold out and gave up trying to get blades for my 15-year-old razor. I bought a new razor and two umpteen-blade refills for $9.99, thus fulfilling my part in the Gillette business model.
As most people who have been through business courses can tell you, Gillette's real invention was understanding that he was not in the razor business: He was in the razor blade business. He deeply discounted, or gave away, his safety razors. They were such an improvement over the first primitive safety razors, and more so over the straight razor, that Gillette ensured himself a steady and growing market for his disposable razor blades. Although the model has been somewhat muddied by the introduction of entirely disposable razors, it still holds true. How well does it work? I've just been starved out of my attachment to an old razor. I have sold out for ten bucks. I will now spend about a buck and a half every time I change razor cartridges, for the rest of my life or until Gillette pulls the rug out from under this model.
Will it be an improvement? I wonder. When I was first shaving, which was some time after the demise of straight razors, the big deal was razor blades that kept an edge more than two or three days. That innovation was introduced by a Gillette competitor, and probably is responsible for the shaving arms race that has now outlasted the Cold War by a generation. After that first innovation, I haven't noticed any substantial improvement in shaves, nor any reduction in bloodshed, in proportion to the cost of keeping up.
And no, it is not a comfort that the author of this quintessential bit of capitalism professed himself a Utopian Socialist. If it walks like a duck, and quacks like at duck....
As it is, I gave up the goatee a few years ago because it was going grey about twice as fast as the rest of my head, making it look like I was channeling Col. Sanders. Now, another of those social history moments. Before the the invention of the safety razor, most "clean shaven" men actually shaved only two or three times a week. The rest were either rich enough to own a matched set of seven straight razors professionally sharpened, rich enough and leisured enough to visit a barber every day, or masochists.
Since King Gillette (his real name) perfected the safety razor, I am circling back to my point, which is that today I sold out and gave up trying to get blades for my 15-year-old razor. I bought a new razor and two umpteen-blade refills for $9.99, thus fulfilling my part in the Gillette business model.
As most people who have been through business courses can tell you, Gillette's real invention was understanding that he was not in the razor business: He was in the razor blade business. He deeply discounted, or gave away, his safety razors. They were such an improvement over the first primitive safety razors, and more so over the straight razor, that Gillette ensured himself a steady and growing market for his disposable razor blades. Although the model has been somewhat muddied by the introduction of entirely disposable razors, it still holds true. How well does it work? I've just been starved out of my attachment to an old razor. I have sold out for ten bucks. I will now spend about a buck and a half every time I change razor cartridges, for the rest of my life or until Gillette pulls the rug out from under this model.
Will it be an improvement? I wonder. When I was first shaving, which was some time after the demise of straight razors, the big deal was razor blades that kept an edge more than two or three days. That innovation was introduced by a Gillette competitor, and probably is responsible for the shaving arms race that has now outlasted the Cold War by a generation. After that first innovation, I haven't noticed any substantial improvement in shaves, nor any reduction in bloodshed, in proportion to the cost of keeping up.
And no, it is not a comfort that the author of this quintessential bit of capitalism professed himself a Utopian Socialist. If it walks like a duck, and quacks like at duck....
posted by Uncle | 22:34
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