Marketing material should always be taken with a mountain of salt, but sometimes it would pay manufacturers to be slightly less terse, or at least consider the reader.
I bought a new razor the other day and it came with a pack of blades. Perusing the usual gumph on the back of the packet, I noticed two curious statements.
Avoid touching or wiping the blades as this may impair performance.
Not quite sure how I’m supposed to have a shave without the head of the razor touching my skin. Presumably they mean by my fingers. If that’s the case then I most certainly will not be wiping the blades because the resulting slice wound takes forever to heal.
Since razor manufacturers seem to spend most of the time trying to outdo one another with the number of cutting implements in the head or other dubious marketing improvements like “gelatinous absorbo-pads for a smoother finish”, I did wonder if the technology was so far advanced that all 87 micro-crunjo-lubri-tech blades could sense the difference between the skin on my fingers and that on my face; perhaps dulling the surface as penance if I was stupid enough to try and shave my hands.
Vagaries of the English language aside, the second statement on the packaging was simply baffling:
Suitable for vegetarians.
Are they seriously implying it’s a good idea to eat razor blades now?
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Yep, that wording sounds strange, but sadly some manufacturers test their razor blades on animals. It might also be a generic statement on their packaging: lots of shaving bristles are made of animal hair too.
Eeek, shave-my-badger on 0898. I thought all bristles were synthetic these days. Shows how out of touch I am with general shaving technology.
In order to appease non-meat-eaters whom, by inference from the packaging statement, would also be against animal testing, the manufacturers presumably test such razors by shaving celeriac, raspberries or other hairy fruit and veg?
I suppose it’s a reasonable assumption that vegetarians are against animal testing, though I know a guy who was vegetarian simply because it was cool to be so at Uni. He was actually lured back to being an omnivore by caving in when passing a McDonalds.
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