Guillotine labs
Gillette has been one of the products that I have been using for years. And have an on and off relationship with them. After they developed the five-blade shaving system with a multi-billion dollar investment, they have been milking the market with their expensive products for years. I have moved to their competitors including the Dollar Shave Club, Harry’s, and Schick among others. And have come back to Gillette for part of the needs.
Recently I found that Gillette has come out with even upmarket product offerings at double their prices with a range called Gillette Labs. And with sophisticated packaging to boot. So why not give it a try? The best a man can get, right? It certainly stoked my ego to boot.
And what a fail it was. I first started with the innovative docking. The razor would not stand properly on it and the magnet was not strong enough to keep it in place. Really, such a faulty design in what is positioned as an upmarket device? Ok, let us at least try out the product to see whether it holds on to its promise of “A SHAVE AS QUICK AND EASY AS WASHING YOUR FACE.” And it worked out badly. It was not even as good as the previous Gillette Fusion series that I was using. My skin got nicks and cuts on my first shave akin to what happened with my other blade when it was losing its sharpness and was meant to be thrown away. Epic, epic fail.
I wish packaging looks and marketing alone with doing the job of creating more revenue and profits. The basic requirement is Fit-for-Purpose. And the expanded requirement is the overall experience and feeling of using the product. The first part related to looks and marketing was great. The second and third parts related to basics and overall experiences were not. Now, I do have to use up the eight blades before I close this chapter.