How many do we really need ?

I’m talking about blades on my razor (what else) I had inadvertently bought 5 blade heads for my 4 blade handle an easy mistake but an expensive one. No chance to return them given I am on a different continent so forced to buy a 5 blade handle.

Now why are you not keeping up with the latest trends I hear you ask (well I think I heard you ask). Do I really need that extra option to trim my sideburns I don’t think so I have never been able to grow any. So to put it simply I don’t need 5 blades I actually don’t need 4. I was very happy with 2 or maybe even 3 but time moves on. Once the world decided it could not live without adding yet another blade to its already high performing razors I had to reluctantly move along with it. The down side was the shave came so close I had to stop using aftershave as it actually hurt, not just the initial sting but it went straight through and man it made my eyes water.

Now I know from the initial trials that 5 is one too many I can not seem to complete the task without nicking myself. It may be that I so early in the morning my hand is not so steady or my eyesight that good. It may be the fact that peering into a foggy mirror and seeing my older brother Joe staring back at me is too much of a distraction but whatever the case 5 is one too many but of course now I have 5 brand new blades to get rid of. I am not disposing of them (that’s a pun) and to cap it all when I buy the handle guess what I get another 2 free so now I an around $20 down and know that I now have 6 weeks of “be careful” shaving to look forward to. Managed to cut myself twice already one quite severe and I think they originally called them “safety razors”. My theme of impressing people with my array of crisp white shirts took quite a knock with clumps of dried blood on my face. (maybe nobody noticed (I think not))

Now one has to ask if all this is necessary I mean really necessary or is it just marketing pushing things forward. I already know I will not enhance my life by adding yet another metal strip. In fact it may even endanger me but maybe there are millions out there who are actually looking forward to the next generation of cutthroats and maybe would even preorder them like you do with Cd’s to download or books on Amazon before their release. The fact that for some reason you can not interchange blades with handles seems somewhat unfortunate how easy life would be if like Microsoft all things were backwards compatible but alas no this is not possible. Whilst we can put men on the moon (granted it was a while ago) see out to the farthest reaches of the universe. Send emails right around the world in the blink of half an eye we can not master having the same locking mechanism for razors made by the same company. One might even believe they may do it on purpose. I apologize for even thinking it.

There are many things which are new and improved however I am not sure they are life enhancing although my flat screed high definition TV could be said to make mine that little bit more palatable and of course I still miss the tivo.

I suppose I am destroying my own argument but still there are some things which don’t need incremental improvements what they need is radical changes like the leap from tape players to walkmans. Now that is a radical change so lets hope the next “improvement” in shaving is radical maybe the “No blade” razor now wouldn’t that be something.