Shaving Is Science - TV Tropes

"We already have a 3-blade razor, what do we need a 5-blade razor for? Does blade 4 shave off a thin layer of epidermis, then blade 5 cauterize the wound so that no beard hair will ever grow there again? Do I need to unlock blade 5 by defeating a boss on blade 4?"

• Damage Control: A scientist mentions that he is constructing a razor using adamantine blades for She-Hulk—apparently, that's the only thing effective against her leg hairs.
• Iron Man: There was a promotional solo comic about Tony Stark presenting cutting-edge razors using technology based on Avengers' superpowers that A.I.M. attempted to steal.
• Transmetropolitan: Whatever's going on in that sonic shower Spider Jerusalem steps into, it moves him from "hirsute mountain man" to "permanent hairlessness" in about ten seconds.

• Avengers: Age of Ultron: Gillette parodied their own "science of shaving" adverts with an Dualvertisement that showed razors based on Thor's hammer, Cap's shield, Hulk's fists, and Iron Man's armour while the voice-over explained "You could make a razor with Avengers technology," and then, as the bathroom was destroyed, "but you clearly shouldn't."
• The Hunger Games: In this viral ad for the movie, Seneca Crane advertises a razor with seventeen blades. An electric razor.
• Star Trek: Insurrection: Despite there being sonic and laser razors in-universe, Troi shaves Riker with shaving cream and an old-fashioned razor.

• A Russian joke came out before there were three blades. It ended with "the 24th polishes the jawbone."
• Another Russian joke has a man trying to patent a device for automatic shaving, where one simply needs to put the face in the machine, and two straight razors will shave him automatically. They ask him how he expects it to work, with each man having a uniquely shaped face. He answers "Well, the first time, he does."

By Author:

• Isaac Asimov:
  • The Stars, Like Dust: While aboard the stolen Tyrannian warship Biron shaves with "Tyranni erosive spray", an "extremely fine air-blown abrasive" that removes hairs without harming the skin. Although it is "undoubtedly the quickest and closest non-permanent shaving method in existence" it makes Biron uneasy—there are rumors the stuff causes "skin cancer". Biron also considers having permanent "depilation" done, but rejects the notion as the fashion in facial hair might shift.
  • Robots and Empire: D.G. Baley uses a laser instead. Permanent facial depilation isn't unknown either.
• Harry Harrison: In one of his novels, there's a sonic shaver—it delivers a perfectly close shave by shattering stubble.
• Robert A. Heinlein:
  • The Number of the Beast: Someone mentions that the future he is visiting has a device that makes razors seem like Stone Age technology.
  • In another Heinlein novel, the main character laments the loss of his diamond-bladed razor as it had comfortably dulled over the decades.
  • Farmer in the Sky: Heinlein introduced this substance already in the 1950s; the extraterrestrial pioneers grow beards because the depilatory cream, imported from Earth, is hideously expensive.

By Work:

• The Black Fleet Crisis : Parodied in Shield of Lies, when Luke mentions that most models of weapon scanners will interpret a Lightsaber as a shaving implement... "Which I suppose it could be, in a pinch — if you were very, very good with it."
• "Junior Achievement": This young adult Science Fiction story has a child of a biochemist come up with a form of depilatory cream that causes the hair to grow brittle. He calls it "before-shave".
• Matador Series: Depilatory cream is the primary method of removing facial hair.
• Vorkosigan Saga:
  • Rather than a razor (straight razor, safety razor, or electric razor) Miles uses "depilatory cream". In Komarr it's mentioned that if you leave this stuff on for too long it will start eating through your skin. (Although it's possible that Miles is exaggerating the effect — he's talking to a nine-year-old to whom "depilation is still a bit of a mystery" and is explicitly trying to fast-talk his way into the bathroom where the kid has barricaded himself because he doesn't want to go to school.)
  • Shaving is just for Barrayaran nobles who have the free time and inclination (and because they are so macho, that holding a blade to one's face holds certain appeal). The rest of the Nexus denizens use a depilatory cream or permanently stun the hair follicles.

• America's Funniest People: Comedian Mark Weiner did a skit in which he advertised a razor with six blades. The first five didn't so much cut the hair as rip it out of its follicle, and the sixth was actually a tiny roll of tissue paper for staunching the blood.
• The Late Show with David Letterman: One episode features a razor with 16 blades: 15 did increasingly ludicrous and specific jobs ("the first blade distracts the hair while the second and third blade sneak up behind it, cutting off any escape routes"), whereas the 16th? It's just along for the ride. See it here
• MADtv (1995): One sketch involves the 20-bladed Spishak Mach 20.
• Mock the Week: Lambasted.

  "From Gillette comes the new Sensor Uber-Uber-Uber Excel, for that closest ever shave. In fact, this one slices your face like a potato peeler. It's too close; get the previous Gillette Sensor! Turns out, we couldn't get closer than that one."

• Saturday Night Live:
  • A classic faux-commercial describes a razor named the Platinum Mach 14. The patented fifth razor actually removes the follicle!
  • In the first season, when two-bladed razors were apparently just coming out, the show has a faux-commercial mocking the absurdity of a hypothetical three-bladed razor—The Triple-Trac: Because You'll Believe Anything.
• Star Trek: The Next Generation introduced a shaving device that used some suitably scientific-futuristic sounding term (futuristic for the 1980s). "Sonic", perhaps, or "laser". You just passed it over your skin, and the hair was gone.

• Blue Man Group: One blade mocks the hair, another shoots tiny arrows.

• MAD: In the 1970s, shortly after the Trac II came out, the magazine featured the Trac LXXVI, a 76-blade razor.

• Les Guignols de l'Info: In one episode, the then-popular news anchor promotes a series of fictional razor ads in an advertorial manner. The ad describes how the first blade avoids hair, the second pulls it and the third dyes it black, allowing people to be "constantly impeccably badly shaved".

• Bob And Tom: A radio skit featured a razor with 27 blades, yet it's the safest razor on the market! Its name? The Decapitator!
• That Mitchell and Webb Sound: There's an in-universe ad for a 14-blade version, including blades that get your shopping and scrape all the skin off your face. Notable for the speed with which it gets extremely silly (the third blade files your tax return), and the fact that every few blades there was one that SHAVES YOU CLOSER STILL.

• Les Inconnus: One of their ad parody begins with a man moaning in pain, who then turns toward the audience to reveal that his whole shirt is dripping with blood. The announcer then proudly reveals this was the work of their 12-blade razor.
• Dara Ó Briain mocks the increasing number of blades shaving implements companies feel the necessity to add in his last stand-up show. He suggests that Blade Five had to be "unlocked", by defeating a boss on Blade Four. Not to mention his "Does the 4th blade actually REMOVE a layer of epidermis while the 5th blade instantly cauterizes the wound ensuring that no hair will ever grow there again!?"

• Dark Forces Saga: Kyle Katarn uses his lightsaber as a shaving implement.
• Grand Theft Auto IV: Advertisements feature a razor called the Excelsior Extreme 9, with "9 blades of glory." The DJ of the Tuff Going radio station (reggae) warns his listeners not to buy it. "You might cut off ya' nose."
• Monday Night Combat: There are two futuristic shaving products among its many sponsors: LazeRazor (with fifteen laser blades—"If you've got the balls to shave with one of our razors, you might as well keep 'em silky smooth") and ShaveIce, a flash-freezing shave "gel" that is more popularly used on the field of combat to freeze the air around enemies.

• The Art of Manliness: Defied. The problems caused by modern shaving products are discussed and the benefits of traditional single-blade safety razors and straight razors are praised.
• The Onion:
  • In 2004, they ran a parody editorial attributed to the CEO of Gillette, entitled "Fuck Everything, We're Doing Five Blades." The following year, Gillette actually introduced such a product.
  • The weekly feature "Tuesday Morning Quarterback" mocked Gillette Stadium by referring to it as "Next One Will Have 4 Blades Stadium." He's since had to update this joke twice.
• It's estimated that◊ at the rate razor blade technology has expanded in the past century, we will soon have razors with infinite blades.
• Wikipedia's article on technological singularities used to predict this would happen in 2015, illustrated by a picture of the Schick Infini-T. Then some humorless bastard got hold of the article, obviously. Then someone went and actually made a documentary about all this. (Modern Marvels, maybe?)
• Apropos of not much, there was for a while an unofficial measure of laser power based on how many Gillette razor blades the beam could cut through. Between the fact that it was difficult to measure the power of the first ruby-pulsed lasers and the wonderful uniformity of Gillette razors, it was a natural measurement unit. Thus, proud scientists could brag about their 4 Gillette laser as compared to their colleagues' wimpy little 2 Gillette unit.

• Mike Cook: In his "Shaving with Stone Razors" video, Cook goes low-tech and probably gets the cleanest shave EVER. That's it, that man is going in the Mantheon as the god of shaving.

• Gravity Falls: Inverted and Played for Laughs. Man of Science Stanford Pines is known to occasionally set his own face on fire, on purpose, on the grounds that it's "much faster than shaving".