Shaving Myths......

I'm with Mickey on the effectiveness of the modern stuff. I had to wear a dress shirt with a tie all through the 90s and suffered because of the razor burn caused by the cartridges. I truly wish I had known about wet shaving then as it solved that problem.

grim, I understand that you are saying that the cartridges aren't easy to make, though you also said in the same post that you can get a great shave with cartridges which can be somewhat confusing.

I'm not buying Gillette's marketing hype about how complicated it is to make cartridges. Gillette doesn't have credibility with me. If they really wanted people to have the best shave, they would have invested in improved single edge technology. In my view, the OneBlade folks came up with something that far out performs their $750MM investment for around $1mm. With my comments, I'm not saying that the cartridges are easy to make, rather I'm saying that anything Gillette says should be taken with a grain of salt.

Mickey Oberman  

I think you totally miss my "myth". Its not about whether it was good for you or anyone. It has not nothing to do with price

Rather, it was  " - cartridges are simple and easy to make ....

They are not. They each have 78 spot welds. The edge width is 25nm. Only 2 factories in the world have the equipment to make them.

None of this has anything to do with how well they work for you, me, or anyone else. "Our" opinions on how they work have nothing to do with this.

Just trying to help you understand.

I'm with Mickey on the effectiveness of the modern stuff.  I had to wear a dress shirt with a tie all through the 90s and suffered because of the razor burn caused by the cartridges.  I truly wish I had known about wet shaving then as it solved that problem.  

grim, I understand that you are saying that the cartridges aren't easy to make, though you also said in the same post that you can get a great shave with cartridges which can be somewhat confusing.  

I'm not buying Gillette's marketing hype about how complicated it is to make cartridges.  Gillette doesn't have credibility with me.  If they really wanted people to have the best shave, they would have invested in improved single edge technology.  In my view, the OneBlade folks came up with something that far out performs their $750MM investment for around $1mm.  With my comments, I'm not saying that the cartridges are easy to make, rather I'm saying that anything Gillette says should be taken with a grain of salt.

Guys, I don't disagree with either of your takes on this.  I much prefer my 'old school' shaves to the times I have to use a cartridge or single use razor.  I can get a serviceable shave from my Fusion (yes, I have one) but the shaves I get from my SEs and DEs with their accompanying blades are invariably closer, longer lasting, and more comfortable.

However, Pete, grim has a point, as well.  Gillette has always been trying to convince us to up our game by trying their latest and greatest and for the most part, they succeed.  Granted, the DE blades (Gillette's cash cow) didn't change much in shape but the Old Type razor gave way to the NEW (and Goodwill, I believe a sort of transitional razor that used parts of both, and someone please correct me if I am wrong on this) which moved on to the early Tech, then the Superspeed, with it's twist-to-open top.  From there, Gillette moved on to the slightly different Superspeeds (Red Tip, Blue Tip, etc.) with their different degrees of aggression and then to the Fat Boy, Slim, and Super Adjustable (aka Black Beauty) with the latter's long and short handles.  You can bet that Gillette had huge advertising campaigns to get men to toss perfectly usable razors to try the new shiny toy on the block.  No matter how much Gillette spends on research and development, it is only to help their bottom line.  Everything else is somewhat irrelevant so you can be sure that whatever they make will offer up a respectable shave, if not exactly a great one, to the vast majority of men.

Interestingly, their advertising to women never seemed to be as intense in the early years nor did products seem to change that much.  I can only guess (and it is nothing more than a guess) that perhaps pushing ladies' razors to women too openly might have been considered a bit crass or indiscreet.  Again, this is strictly a guess and I could easily be way off the mark here.

Anyway, interesting points of view that make us look at more than one possibility.

"They are not. They each have 78 spot welds. The edge width is 25nm. Only 2 factories in the world have the equipment to make them."

So what?
The Sphinx was also difficult to make but it has lasting value.
Bee hives have thousands of 'spot welds' and they give us something enjoyable.

It must be my fault that numbers do not impress me. Performance does though.

Mickey

I don't think grim and I have significantly different points of view. Cartridges caused me a lot of trouble for a decade and I don't like them. grim can get a good shave with a cartridge. That is a YMMV situation.

grim's next point is that the cartridges are not easy to manufacture. I don't disagree with that at all. I wasn't challenging grim's point, but rather the marketing claims by Gillette. I spent a lot of years in manufacturing and have no doubt that Gillette uses sophisticated manufacturing processes. What I was trying to say is that there may not really be 78 weld points.

Or, They say that only two plants in the world can make their product, which they say with the intent of being impressive. They are insinuating that they are much more advanced than everyone else. This isn't true.

Manufacturing processes are often customized. There are many situations where only a couple of plants can make an item, though it isn't because the plant is special, rather it is because they are customized in their manufacturing process and equipment.

YMMV

I've read that so many times it no longer means anything. Cliches have no value when overused.

Your Miles Might Vary only applies if you bought a VW Diesel car   (allegedly)

Sorry, Pete123 , I was responding to grim with my YMMV statement...

I guess you missed the as my comment was an allusion to the fact the acronym YMMV has been ripped from the EPA for CAFE standards on cars and the fact the VW Diesel Scandal is going to probably result in a massive fine in the Billions of dollars for VW. It was a joke.

I understood the VW joke. I was referring to your statements about cliches being meaningless and YMMV being a myth...

As for Gillette's "complexity"...I'm willing to bet that the claim of complexity is more marketing, than any true complexity of design or manufacturing process.

Regardless of how I feel about their performance, the marketing strategy of Gillette is not indicative by itself of complexity in either production or design. Exclusivity via patent doesn't mean it's too complex for anyone else to make, it means nobody can make it until the patent wears off.

Besides...last time I checked it was really difficult to weld metal blades to a plastic frame, even with a 25nm edge thickness... 78 micro-welds doesn't impress me very much...

I don't disagree with anyone here...but not all cartridges are created equal.  Imagine if someone posted that all DE shaving sucks because they got a bad shave with a cheap ebay razor and a Derby blade.

Now that is another shaving myth:  All cartridge razors suck.  

In my experience, cartridge razors range from terrible to acceptable.   It is true though that most of them are more expensive than they should be.    Even if I'm not saving money (quite the opposite) now that I've switched to a DE...at least I'm not giving it to Gillette any more.   Well, I just bought some 7 O'clock blades, so that is not entirely true.  

Myth for me:

You get better shaves with a DE, than you do with a multi blade cart

I wonder what 78 things they had to weld to each blade.

Mickey

It appears this myth thread has degenerated into a bash Gillette thread. I have no doubt, whatsoever, that major corporations twist the truth or use words to their advantage in advertising. However, I have no reason to believe that Johnny Davis, the author of that article, or Dr Kristina Vanoosthuyze, whoever that might be, has any reason to lie to the public. I will take it on faith that each pro fusion cartridge has 78 spot welds and the edge thickness is 25 nm. If it turns out, the edge thickness is 26 nm then shame on me for believing what what they wrote. So what? Because this is a "myth" thread and I have often heard in the wet shaving community that cartridges are simple and should not cost so much. It's not about whether or not cartridges work or don't work for you.

So I looked up Dr Kristina Vanoosthuyze and she, I presume Kristina is a she, has been busy

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/a...-face.html

Dr Kristina Vanoosthuyze studies the shaving habits of 80 men every day using high-speed cameras at Gillette's Innovation Centre in Reading

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/a...z4HFjlpFKm
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

Nice pictures there closeup.

She pops up in 2013 http://www.bostonmagazine.com/health/blo...expensive/

Dr. Kristina Vanoosthuyze, a principal scientist at the Gillette Innovation Centre in Reading, has worked for both Olay and Gillette on skin care sciences and is an inventor on 20 published patent applications for various skin care technologies

Vanoosthuyze says that the stainless steel blades alone are not strong enough to cut beard hair, so coatings of diamond-like carbon are applied to each blade for added strength and then a lubricating polymer layer is applied for comfort and a smoother glide along the skin. In all, four layers of complex coatings are applied to each blade.

More complexity. She sure sounds like a legit and accomplished scientist to me.

http://www.profnetconnect.com/kristina_vanoosthuyze_phd

Now we know what she looks like.

She is an inventor on 20 published patent applications on these technologies

And a video!  The hysteresis effect in video – never saw that before

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzsuOHnLMQo

Sure, advertising can be misleading and believing everything you read is probably not a good idea - unless its on the Internet or in a chain email, then it must be true.  But companies pay a hefty price for “False Advertising” . Consumers are quick to bring class action lawsuits and its easy to Google False Advertising cases. Just google them, they pop up. So I’ll choose to believe that Dr Kristina Vanoosthuyze is not lying and the  technical aspects of the profusion cartridge is accurate. I see no reason to think why she is not telling the truth.

So hear is my last “myth”


No, Gillette, and its parent corporation P&G, are not the spawn of the Devil.


Sure, they make profits. If they didn’t they would not be fiscally responsible to P&G stockholders. This is how capitalism works. But if you think Gillette and P&G is the spawn of the devil, you might want to look more closer at about every major corporation and see if they have not paid some kind of civil fine for something. You might be surprised, including the chips you might be using from Intel to read this who paid fines to the EU. I know this "myth" doesn't fit the agenda of those pushing traditional wet shaving vs just wet shaving. It doesn't have to anymore than buying into the pejorative term canned "goo" which is used to downplay canned shaving cream or gel in lieu of more expensive soaps.

grim, I agree that perhaps the thread has gone a bit off track about myths in wet shaving.  I also think  Gillette/P&G isn't about making the best product for us but rather for itself.  Do I think they're the devil's spawn?  Of course not.  I still like a lot of the DE blades sold under the Gillette name and I still use a Fusion when traveling.  However, I think it is a "myth" to think that this company has the best interests of it's consumers at heart, anymore than any other large, epecially publicly held, company does.  By necessity, these companies are beholden to their stockholders.  The checks and balances come in by making an acceptable and safe product for the public because when that doesn't happen the bottom line can fall by millions or even billions.  Just look at the coverups of big tabacco, car companies, air bag manufacturers, medical device manufacturers, and so on.

There really is no "myth" to this one way or the other.  Now, a shaving myth, to me, is assuming that because something is called a safety razor there is no need for concern or caution when using it.