razor wars

This guy is laughing all the way to the bank thanks to the millions of us who believed the marketing hype behind 2 blades being better than 1, 3 blades being better than 2, 4 blades being better than 3, 'lubrastrips', 'microfins', etc...James Kilts, former Gillette CEO made $140 million selling the company to Proctor & Gamble. Now we're lining the pockets of other executives because we believe that 5 blades are better than 4, that we need edging blades, more lubrastrips, more microfins...

Where's it going to end? 6 blades? 7 blades, 8 blades? And who are these gullible people who believe that more automatically means better? Are they the same people who spend more than they need to on a 10 megapixel pocket camera because 10 is a bigger number than 9? When the first professional digital camera came out it had a 1 megapixel sensor. That's the number of pixels on my computer monitor - perfect. The vast majority of us could never, ever need more than 2 or 3 unless we're intending blowing up images to the size of a house - yet such cameras don't even exist anymore - they wouldn't sell - because 2 or 3 can't be as good as 10 can it? Well - actually it can be even better! A 2 megapixel camera would store 5 times as many images, could take approximately 5 times more images per second than a 10 megapixel camera and downloading images to your computer would be 5 times faster too. But so long as there are people out there who believe that bigger numbers are better you can be sure that we will see 12, 14, 16 megapixel pocket cameras before long - and they will sell - albeit at ridiculously high prices.

Back to razors. Are 4 blades better than 2? Of course not! Does it halve the time taken to shave? No. They cost more and their size makes it more difficult to shave in awkward places like beneath the nose or to shave sideburns accurately - hence the decision to revert to a single 'edging' blade. Yes 1 blade is better folks - but we'll stick it on the back of a 5 blade razor along with lubrastrips and microfins - 'cos that's what's making us rich - I mean that's what the public want.