(Or, to paraphrase an old Cheech & Chong routine: "When you're out of Gillettes, Tough Schick!")
Anyway...I was coming home with galfriend and her older son tonight from dinner at a pretty nice Indian restaurant when she decided she needed to pick up a few things at the local drug store. Since the drug store in question was one of the better ones in the 'hood, I thought I'd tag along and do some casual DE blade research (she asks if I'm running low on blades: "Well, er, not really...just want to check out the stuff they've got...just in case").
Nosing around the front of the store, I see they have a few shaving items there (most of the stuff is usually in the back). The one interesting item I see is a Lord 3-piece DE, packed with two or three blades, selling for about $8.50. "Made in Egypt" is printed on the back of the cardboard blister pack. The package feels very light, telling me the razor might be made of aluminum (or "aluminium" if you insist
), and not terribly substantial at that.
Strolling to the back, there's a lot more to check out: a huge, blister-packed, "Special Offer" Gillette M3 Nitro, including razor, battery, and five extra cartridges, which for the big G is rather generous (funny, with all the advertising dissing the Mach3 in favor of the Fusion, you sometimes wonder if this is just the corporate norm of one Hydra-hand not knowing what the other is doing). All for about $18 or so.
Blades...oh, were there blades. I'm still trying to remember when Gillette decided to offer triple-bladed carts to Sensor users...well after the Mach3, but before the M3 silliness? To give a little taste to Sensor stalwarts of the joys that await them should they ditch their beloved, preferred handle for a Mach3 (which the other hand of Gillette appears to disown, and spending millions in airtime and endorsement contracts to do so)? Then there was the vibrating Venus for women: that prompted some funny, scary, and largely-unprintable thoughts from me (let's just say that one of the thoughts involved the Product Manager of Gillette being discovered to be a descendant of the Marquis de Sade).
The real discovery were the DE blades back there. There were two: Wilkinson Sword ($1.99 for a pack of five, made in Germany), and these numbers from Schick:
Twice as many blades as the WS pack for the same price: neat! Only problem is, while Wilkinson spells out the country of origin for their blades, Schick says nothing. Nothing. Not on the cardboard back of the package. Not on the back of the dispenser. And, as you can see, next to nothing at all on the blades:
At two bucks for ten, I could take a chance on buying at least one pack: somehow, I seriously doubt I've come across some near-Holy Grail of blades (although, If I have, I'm close enough to the store to race by and clear out their inventory before making any kind of proclamation...
). I'll try one in one razor or t'other in a day or two.
Meanwhile: anybody here have a clue as to what these things are about?
- Barrett
Anyway...I was coming home with galfriend and her older son tonight from dinner at a pretty nice Indian restaurant when she decided she needed to pick up a few things at the local drug store. Since the drug store in question was one of the better ones in the 'hood, I thought I'd tag along and do some casual DE blade research (she asks if I'm running low on blades: "Well, er, not really...just want to check out the stuff they've got...just in case").
Nosing around the front of the store, I see they have a few shaving items there (most of the stuff is usually in the back). The one interesting item I see is a Lord 3-piece DE, packed with two or three blades, selling for about $8.50. "Made in Egypt" is printed on the back of the cardboard blister pack. The package feels very light, telling me the razor might be made of aluminum (or "aluminium" if you insist
), and not terribly substantial at that.Strolling to the back, there's a lot more to check out: a huge, blister-packed, "Special Offer" Gillette M3 Nitro, including razor, battery, and five extra cartridges, which for the big G is rather generous (funny, with all the advertising dissing the Mach3 in favor of the Fusion, you sometimes wonder if this is just the corporate norm of one Hydra-hand not knowing what the other is doing). All for about $18 or so.
Blades...oh, were there blades. I'm still trying to remember when Gillette decided to offer triple-bladed carts to Sensor users...well after the Mach3, but before the M3 silliness? To give a little taste to Sensor stalwarts of the joys that await them should they ditch their beloved, preferred handle for a Mach3 (which the other hand of Gillette appears to disown, and spending millions in airtime and endorsement contracts to do so)? Then there was the vibrating Venus for women: that prompted some funny, scary, and largely-unprintable thoughts from me (let's just say that one of the thoughts involved the Product Manager of Gillette being discovered to be a descendant of the Marquis de Sade).
The real discovery were the DE blades back there. There were two: Wilkinson Sword ($1.99 for a pack of five, made in Germany), and these numbers from Schick:
Twice as many blades as the WS pack for the same price: neat! Only problem is, while Wilkinson spells out the country of origin for their blades, Schick says nothing. Nothing. Not on the cardboard back of the package. Not on the back of the dispenser. And, as you can see, next to nothing at all on the blades:
At two bucks for ten, I could take a chance on buying at least one pack: somehow, I seriously doubt I've come across some near-Holy Grail of blades (although, If I have, I'm close enough to the store to race by and clear out their inventory before making any kind of proclamation...
). I'll try one in one razor or t'other in a day or two.Meanwhile: anybody here have a clue as to what these things are about?
- Barrett
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