I recently switched to Target’s double blades for the Gillette Sensor. They work far better than Gillette’s blades and they’re half the price.
A piece of trivia for you. Did you know that in the UK the most shoplifted item is the Mach 3 razor and its cartridges? They are now being fitted with individual security tags , and sometimes locked away in their own cabinet to try and prevent them being stolen.
Cite? Not that I don’t believe you, I just can’t believe it costs that much to design a razor.
Also, would a generic mach 3 razor head infringe on Gillette’s patents?
Actually, I’m using a Philips Coolshave, the with the lotion cartridges, and the lotion (actualy it came with both lotion and gel packs) works great; the mild discomfort is simply from the heads tugging on the stubble as they cut it off. Most of the time it’s okay but there’s always a few hairs here and there that it just catches wrong and pulls before severing. Probably not much I can do except get a newer, sharper set of heads, which I’ll probably have to do in a few months anyway.
Those cut my face up pretty bad. I’ve noticed the Mach 3 is one of the few razors that does not cut me up.
I sometimes buy blades on ebay for it, they go for about $1 each there, as opposed to $2 a blade at stores. I should go to sams club or costco though.
Well, I can only add this:
That was a number I just ‘knew’, probably from reading engineering mags. But I just did some Googling, and found this:
I also found a U.K. commission report on competitive practices in the razor industry (warning: PDF) which says this:
That’s 180 million pounds spent between 1979 and 1989 on the Sensor R&D, which was a much simpler razor. In constant American dollars, that’s got to be close to $500 million.
Of the 35 patents on the Mach3, you can bet that one of the most critical would be the patented method of attaching the razor blade catridge. After spending that much on R&D, Gillette would be insane to have an attachment method that allowed generic blades to be attached to their razor. So if you make a blade that fits, you’re probably in patent violation. They’ve got hundreds of patents on various aspects of razor technology, making it pretty hard to sell generic replacements. Patents only last 17 years, which is why you can find generic Trac-II and Atra cartridges I’d imagine.
Here’s an interesting Wikipedia article on the Mach3 that goes into great detail about its construction. It’s actually a pretty sophisticated little device. And a lot of the research you can’t see, such as the metallurgy of the blades.
I recently participated in a market research study for razors. We used what were apparently run of the mill Gillette Fusions. My $75 participation payment came directly from Gillette’s bottom line.
During the eligibily interview, they asked me I or anyone in my family was a metallurgy engineer. I kinda wish I was.