Gillette's view on disposibles

[GarageBoy]

http://www.gillette.com/en/us/mens-style/truth-disposable-razors.aspx Just saw this, not sure if it has been posted before, but it's kind of funny (esp the first paragraph)

[noctilux]

capitalism in action.


vuk.

[Dalejr]

WOW. Very surprised to hear someone from Gillette say that since they have been promoting 100 varieties of disposibles for years and still do. If they feel this way why not just kill off disposibles? The article is nothing more than B.S. in my opinion.

[MASSDRIVER]

WOW. Very surprised to hear someone from Gillette say that since they have been promoting 100 varieties of disposibles for years and still do. If they feel this way why not just kill off disposibles? The article is nothing more than B.S. in my opinion.
What part is B.S.?
Sounds accurate to me.
Brent.

[joe.attaboy]

Too bad we can't leave comments. We could tell them a thing or two.

[muskus]

Yeah, and this comes from a company that offers exactly the same blades as both disposables and system razors.

[Mako72]

I got nominated to take a survey after I read it. It actually had a question about preferred razor style and Traditional DE was listed. Except for the Cool Wave AS I don't use any of there other products so it was pretty much a wash for me but hey, at least they know there are 30 Somethings that are using DE!!

Jay

[Doug_in_NNY]

King Camp Gillette is credited by some for inventing the disposable culture. For the first twenty-five years of Gillette's existence even the handles were so poorly made that virtually every one encountered today is cracked or in pieces (with the end cap and screw end separate from the handle). I inherited a 1921 Bostonian from my grandfather and even it has the obligatory small crack at the top. It took until the 1930s for Gillette to invent the bar handle on the NEW to correct their run of poor quality handles. The irony is that the razors were supposed to last while the blades were supposed to be the consumables. A second irony is that the company had to eat a big mess o' humble pie in 1930 when Henry Gaisman won a patent suit and became a gazillionaire (his $20m award then equates to over $250b today) and was elevated to the head of the Gillette organization.

If one were to evaluate Gillette advertising over the past thirty years (maybe a hundred years?), one would find the corporation speaking out of all sides of its mouth. Its goal, after all, is not logic or consistency or rationality. It lives to make money, pure and simple. That a niche of shavers value its order products today is something of an accident of history.

The Gillette of today is the spawn of its early incarnation. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

[LuckyR]

I don't have a problem with some of the conclusions, but the explanations are inaccurate and self serving, financially speaking.

[FL shaver]

Microscopic steel eating bacteria? That create grooves in disposable, but not system cartidge, blades?

[Dalejr]

What part is B.S.?
Sounds accurate to me.
Brent.

The fact that Gillette claims disposibles are inferior. If they are so inferior why are they selling them?

[ShavelockFoams]

Perhaps most surprising is that something so badly written made it on to the website. In paragraph 3 - the steel spawns bacteria? Really? I was not aware that steel could create bacteria, but if a corporation said it, it must be true.

Why does this feel like an article written by a company that released a product on which they spent a huge amount in R&D, and thus created an expensive product, right into a major economic downturn? Could it be that comparing the cost of a bag of disposables vs. one cart and finding the disposables cheaper, that people are choosing the disposables?

[alumblock]

Interesting that another article on the same site here (http://www.gillette.com/en/us/mens-style/daily-shaving.aspx) advocates using a shaving brush as "they're not just for old-time shaving"!

Confusingly though, it refers to shaving creams when it's clear that Gillette only sells gels and foams.

[davros]

Leaving aside the obvious guff - disposable razors spawning bacteria, "Today's disposables, for the most part, are no different in theory or practice than those created more than a hundred years ago", it's just a big mass of non-sequiteurs, unsupported assertions and false premises. It goes on and on about 'design', 'research', and 'engineering', without actually saying a damn thing about any actual property of this research that makes 'system razors' better.
There's no date on the article, but 3+ blade disposables with pivoting heads have been widely available for years. Moreover, if their 'system razors' are so specially designed for men's special beards and special skin, why do they make the same razors (in different colours and with curvier handles) for women?

Note also that they tell us that disposable blades are "are made from inexpensive and flimsy steel", but don't actually say anything about the metal used for 'system razors'.

None of this means that cartridges aren't better than disposables, but the case they make for it amounts to 'because we say so'. But of course, in this it's no different from 99% of marketing guff written about anything.

[Pjotr]

............For the first twenty-five years of Gillette's existence even the handles were so poorly made that virtually every one encountered today is cracked or in pieces (with the end cap and screw end separate from the handle)................If one were to evaluate Gillette advertising over the past thirty years (maybe a hundred years?), one would find the corporation speaking out of all sides of its mouth........

One thing that always amazes me is the Gillette hate that is prevalent here. The vast majority of people here cherish, collect and use an enormous number of Gillette designed and manufactured razors. So now apparently for the first 25 years they produced inferior razors that were so badly designed that after nearly 100 years of use the handles on some are cracked. You buy a razor and it won't even last five generations. Wow that's really bad!

Without even looking hard I'm sure I could find advertising campaigns from corporations or governments the world over that in the space of a few years, let alone an entire century (by the way how many manufacturer/companies are there that are still around after 150 odd years), speak out of all sides of their mouths or any orifice you care to mention.

You're spot on when you say the new boss is the same as the old boss. The Gillette that brought you the Toggle, Fatboy, Aristocrat etc etc is exactly the same Gillette that is now bringing you multi blade, throw away cartridge, canned goo shaving equipment. And then as now they're making a lot of money doing it.

[ikeyballz]

I like the part where they don't cite anything and where there is no 'author'.

Parts of it is true for ME personally. the M3/fusion does a better job of shaving my beard than any disposable I've ever purchased. Whats interesting though, is that they now sell disposable M3s... what does that mean? It does a pretty decent job of cutting my facial hair.

[Doug_in_NNY]

Pjort, you're reading way too much into my comments. The persistence of cracks is evidence of poor design. I'm not speaking of occasional cracks. Sellers and owners identify cracks almost routinely in these early handles. Most of these haven't been used in many, many years. They were used as long as they were used, and then they weren't, and then they migrate to the market.

Recently I obtained a gold old type in a small-ish gold metal case. Its ball-end handle was split (very common) and the ball end itself was missing. I opened the blade case. It contained one Probak blade in its original wrapping, and three unwrapped Gillette newer-style blades in rather good shape (not the three-hole blades) with "Patent Pending" on one side and the Gillette triangle logo on the other. The seller informed me that she obtained this set from an estate of an elderly man who had died. That suggests that this was his from its beginning eighty or more years ago (but not less). The co-incidence of the Probak blade with those that are labelled "Patent Pending" tentatively (no guarantees here) locate this aggregate specifically to the year 1930. Henry Gaisman won his patent law suit that year, and from that time forward the patent numbers that were on Probak blades from 1928 forward (and on Probak OC razors from that era) could legally be used by Gillette. Those patent numbers promptly appeared on Gillette new style blades and on the underside of the blade guards of NEW OC heads.

I recall this history because it speaks precisely to my point. While one cannot be absolutely sure, it is likely that this razor had not been used since about 1930. It lasted that long because its handle split and it was likely retired. It is now mine precisely because it was retired and stored and just this year it passed from its owner's home to mine. These things didn't have a useful hundred-year life (or, in this case, eighty or ninety years). For much of that time they sat around.

I have a few old Gillette razors in various configurations, with some in better shape than others. Because of the simplicity of the technology, most are quite useable today. Your last paragraph suggests that you and I quite agree on Gillette's marketing mentality over the years.

Those of us who are using these razors at this point in history (I began shaving in the late 1950s, and I don't recall anyone collecting them then) are fortunate in some ways: There were lots of them made over the years, they are regularly surfacing now, and the collecting process has ramped up over the past twenty-five years or so. The internet is facilitating awareness and availability in ways impossible to fathom just fifteen years ago.

I don't hate Gillette. I just recognize the corporation for what it is, an engine of consumer capitalism. They're out to separate me from my money. I'm out for a really enjoyable shave.

[MASSDRIVER]

They clearly state they are adequate for limited use, much the same as a DE blade.
Should we all use strait razors then, the antipathy of disposable waste?
Brent.
The fact that Gillette claims disposibles are inferior. If they are so inferior why are they selling them?

[Go West Young Man]

Different customers have different needs at different price points, and Gillette produces razors for all of them.
They've never been shy about bashing lower-priced models in ads for higher-price models, since all it's doing is funneling customers from a low revenue stream to a higher one.

[doug1066]

...I don't hate Gillette. I just recognize the corporation for what it is, an engine of consumer capitalism. They're out to separate me from my money. I'm out for a really enjoyable shave.

On this I agree. King Camp Gillette is quite often credited with "inventing" the modern disposable culture in order to do precisely what Doug says...separate us from our money.

[AlanL]

capitalism in action.
Exactly.
So we have only hundreds of models to choose from, produced by scores of companies in dozens of countries. We can pay a lot or a little, for excellent, good, fair, or poor quality. We can buy disposable products, or others proven to last more than a century.
How awful.

[Chevyguy]

I used the Gillette Good News pivot disposeable for three years before I switched over to DE razors. The shave I got using shave gel wasn't too bad and I didn't suffer too much irritation. The razor would last five six days. I didn't shave on Sundays at that time and I always started Monday off with a new razor. A pack of twelve cost $3.99 and would last me three months.

Clayton

[kingfisher]

Microscopic steel eating bacteria? That create grooves in disposable, but not system cartidge, blades?

Precisely. That's because the cheap steel they use for the disposable razors "spawns bacteria."

HAHAHA! That is one of the funniest things I have ever read, anywhere!

[Jon1944]

Pure propaganda!

[doug1066]

Wait! Cheap steel doesn't spawn bacteria? I was sooo lost in Biology 101...

[inspiringK]

Interesting that another article on the same site here (http://www.gillette.com/en/us/mens-style/daily-shaving.aspx) advocates using a shaving brush as "they're not just for old-time shaving"!

Confusingly though, it refers to shaving creams when it's clear that Gillette only sells gels and foams.
That does seem a little out of place doesn't it.

[doug1066]

Interesting that another article on the same site here (http://www.gillette.com/en/us/mens-style/daily-shaving.aspx) advocates using a shaving brush as "they're not just for old-time shaving"!

Confusingly though, it refers to shaving creams when it's clear that Gillette only sells gels and foams.

Ummm, P&G also sells creams and soaps. Art of Shaving is part of Proctor and Gamble as is Gillette.