5.27.2003

COMMENTARY - The Pink Razor Conspiracy

Sorry it's been so long. I'm still awaiting internet access at home, plus they've finally caught on to me at work with the internet abuse, and I've been issued a semi-formal warning for the misconduct. While that certainly has a way of hampering my posting here, it by no means is going to stop me from providing fresh content to my growing audience of eight. So without further ado, the Pink Razor Conspiracy. Razors used to be a fairly generic and simple object. A cheap plastic stick with one sharp little blade on it. They came in varying colors, but in general were of a unisex model. They all had the same design, and aside from differing shades of plastic, they were otherwise identical. Then along came all these innovations in the area of severing hair follicles from your epidermis. They added more blades, a lubricating pad, and reusable handles with disposable blades. At first they marketed these new inventions mostly to men, but soon discovered that many women were buying them as well. Thus a new variation of the same blade was created specifically for women. So to recap, we went from one generic universal razor to two seemingly identical yet slightly different models varying on sex. Why bother? Why not continue to offer the same universal solution? Solely to make more money, of course. As I said, the two models have slight differences between them. Namely, the women's model lasts longer than the men's model. This forces men to go out and spend more money on new razors with greater frequency, thus making the company more money. So having figured this out, why wouldn't a man just use the woman's razor? Simple. It's pink. No self respecting man would ever shave with some curvy handled pink razor with a name like "Venus". He needs a manly razor, in manly silvers, blacks, and blues, with a manly name, like "Mach 3". Now that's a manly razor. I'm sure all the chicks in the marketing department for Gillette are laughing all the way to the bank.