Evil Gillette or "how a relatively respectable professor was fooled by "science""

Hi all,

I am a relatively new member here, been looking for a while since I discovered wet shaving again!

Last night I was watching the good old BBC when a piece on razor blades came up. In the BBC2 show with Professor Regan she attempts to look behind the claims made by advertising execs and find the true science behind them.

She visited Gillette's laboratory and was shown some close up video of someone's skin and the hairs sticking out of it! The man then proceeded to show a multiblade razor pass where you could see the hair being yanked out of the skin and cut by the subsequent blades. This was accepted without question by professor regan and no other opinion was sought!

This has led me to make a complaint at the bbc. Some of you may think that is a bit over the top but considering that the BBC is publicly funded and shows no adverts, I feel that they have given gillette not only free advertising but also substantiated the claims from their adverts.

Did anyone else see this? (thurs 7th may)

Most reporters aren't challenging any more. They ask soft questions and accept the answer without challenge anything.

I believe the modern cartridge razor works on the principle of each blade cutting the whisker closer that the blade before.

Each razor is at a slightly different angle, so the yank and pull IS correct. I see what you mean though, and can understand filing a polite complaint, because it certainly does make Gillette look correct and acts as a means of substantiating their claims.

There are an odd number of blades. Does that last blade just yank the hair for nothing?

Hahahaha, I don't think it's exactly yank and pull, yank and pull for every blade. Each blade does something a little different. Plus, I think the ones that yank can cut too. ie: One blade may cut a couple hairs but also yank some, then the next will cut those and yank some, and so on...

Also, I don't know why exactly, but I like your avatar Mark

adonnellyr said:

Also, I don't know why exactly, but I like your avatar Mark

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What's not to like about Shaving Ken?

I'm so gald I'm not the only one who has complained! It hacked me off because the show has looked quite closely at all sorts of different medicine and techniques to ease pain etc, and found some pretty interesting results (like a lot of it is marketing)

I clicked record as soon as the shaving bit came on, thinking it would all be quite interesting to see the comparison and then nothing!

What gillette say happens and what happens is the same thing, with reguards to multiblade, but there was no investigation into the effects of that, or the claims of their shave gel.

I was quite dissapointed.

I thought that whole issue of "hysteresis", or the pulling and cutting of whiskers, had never been proven and was considered marketing hype. As I recall part of the effect was based on how fast the blades were moving and in fact couldn't work at normal shaving speed. That, plus the fact that it would require a duller blade to do the pulling instead of cutting the whisker smoothly. Makes more sense to claim that subsequent blades just cut more closely than the previous one. Even so, it doesn't explain that a single blade, such as a straight razor, gives just as smooth a shave as any multiple blade cartridge.

freecar said:

She visited Gillette's laboratory and was shown some close up video of someone's skin and the hairs sticking out of it! The man then proceeded to show a multiblade razor pass where you could see the hair being yanked out of the skin and cut by the subsequent blades. This was accepted without question by professor regan and no other opinion was sought!

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I didn't see the BBC show, but what you describe sounds like Gillette has film of the blades actually doing what they say they do. Professor Regan saw this film and accepted what it showed her. Do you think Gillette might have faked this film?

Unless the first 2 or 3 cut all the whisker and the rest just cut thin air. I think 3 was a maximum efficiency and for most people any more is probably cutting nothing, just as many people use a 3 pass shave.

Now, why are Gillette's multi-blade razors ALWAYS a PRIME number of blades? Will they go straight to 7, then 11?

i dunno you'd think with this tough gal look she'd really get to the bottom of ****.

TorzJohnson said:

I didn't see the BBC show, but what you describe sounds like Gillette has film of the blades actually doing what they say they do. Professor Regan saw this film and accepted what it showed her. Do you think Gillette might have faked this film?

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That is correct. Gillette have very close up video of the whole yank then cut situation of their blades.

I'm not accusing gillette of faking anything, I'm saying that she didn't investigate whether the gillette method is the best one.

The show was looking at all sorts of marketing claims and she went to great lengths to check these claims and see if it was all just marketing "hype".

Another product looked at was the slendertone belt. The good professor actually phoned the doctor who conducted the study that the marketing literature references, she then questions him about his methods and results and was happy with what she heard. However when she looked at whether the claims that multiblade razors are "the best a man can get" she asked the manufacturer for their theory, watched a pretty video and said "O.K. I believe you" she failed to try and find out if the whole "cut beneath the skin" was a good idea or had any drawbacks, she also failed to try to understand what shaving was about before cartridges and how they differ.

Having watched the show before I was expecting a sensible comparison between "yank and cut" and "hydrate and cut" techniques and examination of whether the multiblade cartridge justifies it's expense.

It's still on Iplayer for UK folks to see

Here it is

[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFsRQOPjnHA[/YOUTUBE]

Ouch...all that close up hair tugging looked sore...do you think they called the gunea pigs back 12 hrs later to have a look at the ingrowns and rash.

I enjoyed that. But isn't (wasn't) Gillette a US company? Did their pivotal R&D occur in Europe?

Also, I suspect the lift and cut action is accurate. That is why the multibladed razors can cut below the surface of the skin increasing the chance of ingrown hairs and bumps. The wetshaver will cut the hair as close to the surface of the skin as possible, but not below. That is the advantage of what we do, IMHO.

2.52 - Need 60 blades

Interesting that each hair is pulled out and retract after...

I've seen similar footage in another documentary. It was a close up while a man was shaving with a Fusion. The first thing my wife says is, "Aren't the blades supposed to cut the hair? The seem to just fold it over or pull it out. Neither seems like a good job to me."

I simply said, see I told you and this is why I switched to DE, LOL!

Leche said:

Most reporters aren't challenging any more. They ask soft questions and accept the answer without challenge anything.

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I think reporters (like many other industries) fall to the almighty dollar (or pound) and let things go the way their sponsors want them presented.

Well, I am probably being persnickety here, but why does that video show the clock tower of the British Gillette HQ building in west London?

Subliminally, they want to suggest (to those who recognize the place) with whom they spoke, BUT (and here's the kicker) Gillette vacated that property completely in 2006!