Can a razor blade trim hair to length rather than to skin level?
Men and women often want to trim hair to a consistent length. Many products are designed for this purpose, but powered trimmers are bulky and indiscreet and manual devices are often inefficient and require considerable skill to obtain an even cutting of hairs to uniform length.
I was involved in consumer research using a male body-grooming panel to provide insights and feedback on prototype embodiments.
Image: Terry Richardson
The Venus Bikini Trimmer is as simple to use as a conventional razor but cuts hair to a consistent length. Its simple design means that the product is compact and discrete.
Image: www.gillettevenus.com
The product consists of a single cutting edge mounted at a set height and angle from the skin to ensure an efficient and uniform cut.
My role was to contribute to the mechanical design development of the trimmer as part of a small design team.
During each stroke, the forwardly projecting parallel elements function like the tines of a comb to guide hairs onto the blade for engagement.
I used a range of different prototyping techniques to explore and rapidly iterate through a range of concepts optimised chosen concepts for injection moulding.
The main technical challenge was to maintain cutting efficiency of the blade whilst also positioning it far enough from the skin to cut hair to the desired length.
I generated a selection of novel tine forms with the aim of gripping the hair to improve engagement.
Conclusion
The female variant of the project was commercialised as a product under the Venus brand
Male embodiments were not pursued
Male embodiments were not pursued
5 Patents Granted:
