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Author | Topic: The Skarp Razor | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Percy Member Posts: 22504 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.9 |
The Skarp razor uses lasers instead of blades, here's their Kickstarter website.
It'd be great to shave with lasers, but after watching their video I smell a rat. Lots of enthusiastic talk, lots of good video and animations, but no actual demonstration of someone using a laser razor. Anyone know anything about this? --Percy
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jar Member (Idle past 423 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
Numbers don't lie. Set a goal and raise 2 million above your goal and it doesn't really matter if it works or not.
Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped! |
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Diomedes Member Posts: 996 From: Central Florida, USA Joined: |
I call major BS on this.
The amount of power that would be required to generate a laser beam of sufficient intensity to actually 'cut' facial hair would likely far exceed anything that could be reasonably contained in a hand-held razor. Additionally, it would be generating huge amounts of heat. So while you may avoid razor burn, you are likely going to experience 2nd and 3rd degree burns as a trade off. Unless they plan on having some industrial cooling unit tied into the razor. My guess is the resulting contraption would end up being some kind of Rube Goldberg device:
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ringo Member (Idle past 441 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Diomedes writes:
Almost everything we hear about shaving is BS. I call major BS on this. Many, many, many, many years ago I read an article about the "razor wars" that broke out when Gillette invented the Safety Razor. Other companies like Wilkinson Sword (whose sword business was in decline) outflanked Gillette's patent by introducing stainless-steel blades, which were answered by Super Blue Blades, which were answered by teflon-coated blades, and so on.... When disposable razors were introduced, the warfare broke out again, with double blades, triple blades, up to an idiotic FIVE blades. I predict that eventually razors will be the size of a sheet of plywood, with thousands of blades. But it's all BS. Fancy technology isn't always the answer to low-tech problems. There ain't no magical solution to shaving.
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Percy Member Posts: 22504 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.9
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I'm pretty convinced at this point that it's a scam, in the sense that there will never be any laser razor. Launchers of a Kickstarter campaign can just walk away with the money. The presentation is pretty slick, must have cost a bit.
The one thing that gives me pause is that two of the principles are genuine names in the field. Christopher Zachary *is* Clinical Professor and Chair, Dermatology, at the University of California, Irvine, and in his video at the bottom of the Kickstarter page he claims to sit on their scientific advisory board. But I could find no confirmation that the Morgan Gustavsson pictured at the kickstarter site in both the video and in a still image (he also briefly appears in the Zachary video) is *the* Morgan Gustavsson with patents and papers about using light to treat skin conditions. Just to do what they've already done would take a fair bit a of money, maybe a few million. There's offices, labs, research, utilities, equipment, computers, designs, prototypes, testing, slick videos, websites, salaries. Is the Kickstarter money just to pay the bills they've already run up? The registrant name for http://wwww.skarptechnologies.com is private - I didn't know you could do that. So I've got no hard evidence to go on, but this just smells to me. They have a delivery date of March, 2016, and even though they haven't lined up a manufacturer yet and supposedly have all these fine tuning issues to address, they already know the price will be $159 (that price is from the Business Insider article, not the Kickstarter site). By April 1st next year we'll know whether they've come through. Hmm, appropriate date. --Percy Edited by Percy, : Grammar.
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Coragyps Member (Idle past 763 days) Posts: 5553 From: Snyder, Texas, USA Joined:
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I need to initiate a Kickstarter for my Giant Humongo Laser that you use to utterly evaporate approaching cars with those ugly blue headlights that they don't dim after you dim for them.
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Modulous Member Posts: 7801 From: Manchester, UK Joined: |
Lots of enthusiastic talk, lots of good video and animations, but no actual demonstration of someone using a laser razor. 'Demo video'
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Diomedes Member Posts: 996 From: Central Florida, USA Joined: |
I zoomed in as much as I could when viewing that demo.
Correct me if I am wrong folks, but doesn't that laser 'beam' actually look like a piece of wire that is deforming as it contacts the skin? I am thinking it might be razor wire that is being heated. The fact that you can actually 'see' the laser beam is kind of telling. Normally, lasers that have cutting capabilities are not visible to the naked eye. Conclusion: I still smell a scam. Along with some burnt flesh and hair.
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Modulous Member Posts: 7801 From: Manchester, UK Joined: |
Correct me if I am wrong folks, but doesn't that laser 'beam' actually look like a piece of wire that is deforming as it contacts the skin? The text accompanying the video has this explanation:
quote:
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Percy Member Posts: 22504 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.9 |
Watched the video - the razor prototype is pathetic. They explain that it's because the fiber isn't mounted rigidly, while it will be in the manufactured version, but that tells me they don't even have a genuine prototype. Their non-rigid fiber prototype is pathetic at cutting hair, and so they don't even know that a rigid fiber will do a half decent job, let alone be better than existing razors.
Steve Jobs was able to keep Next alive for years with no more product than announcements and press releases. The lesson of Next is to pay attention to what they got, not what they say. Applying that lesson to Skarp, they got nothing, just lots of words. Every time they show actual hair being cut it looks really, really pitiful. --Percy
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Diomedes Member Posts: 996 From: Central Florida, USA Joined: |
The production model will be using a high performance precision manufactured fiber, only possible with mass production automated machinery. This fiber will be of much higher quality. Thanks for clarifying that Modulus. I hadn't read the details. I am still a little confused how this functions. The laser is IN the fiber? So is it heating the fiber to allow for the cutting action? According to the following statement:
Notice the flashes as it cuts. This is the shaving light escaping the fiber into the hair. Sometimes the hair is cut but lightly fuses back onto the hair shaft. This is resolved by gently brushing. That almost seems like some derivation of the technology they use for laser hair removal. But frankly, I am still not grasping how this will actually operate. Seems like a lot of techie word salad that isn't actually explaining much.
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Modulous Member Posts: 7801 From: Manchester, UK Joined: |
I am still a little confused how this functions. Me too.
The laser is IN the fiber? Yes.
So is it heating the fiber to allow for the cutting action? No. Fiber optics are very difficult to heat up and can be used to transmit KWs of light energy of KMs of space with little in the way of heat loss. The laser does not use heat energy to cut the hair:
quote: quote: That almost seems like some derivation of the technology they use for laser hair removal. Indeed - the founder of Skarp Tech seems to be something of a pioneer in laser and hair removal technology (read Percy's posts as he seems to have looked into that more directly). He claims to be inventor of IPL, but I don't think he's alone in that claim. The difference with this claimed tech is that it cuts the hair above the skin, rather than in the follicle.
But frankly, I am still not grasping how this will actually operate. I'm not sure how the laser escapes the fibre and into the hair, but other than they have what otherwise looks like plausible near future technology.
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Diomedes Member Posts: 996 From: Central Florida, USA Joined: |
I'm not sure how the laser escapes the fibre and into the hair, but other than they have what otherwise looks like plausible near future technology. That's the part of the mechanism that I also don't understand. Fibers like fiber optics are meant to contain the light with internal reflection. So this 'fiber' appears to operate differently in conjunction with the laser, although I don't see how. I am almost wondering if this is some extension of another shaving 'scam' called the 'No No'. You all may have seen the infomercials on TV trying to sell that thing. Check out the consumer reports review of that device: Does No No Hair Remover Work - Consumer Reports Perhaps I am being too pessimistic on a potentially new technology, but my instincts tell me this is yet another derivation of attempting to create some 'buzz' around something nifty that actually has very little practical capabilities.
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Tangle Member Posts: 9514 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 4.8 |
KickStarter has suspended funding for the Skarp Laser Razor, a crowdfunded effort to replace conventional razors with a laser-powered shaving implement. Reg readers have shared a KickStarter communique in which the crowdfunding platform says we’ve concluded that it is in violation of our rule requiring working prototypes of physical products that are offered as rewards. In other words, the Skarp crew doesn't have a working prototype. This video from the project's KickStarter page suggests there is a prototype in existence, but not a very effective one: the device does knock off a few hairs, but is a long way short of the experience of pulling a conventional razor down one's skin and having the majority of hairs beneath the blade cleft. KickStarter's email says Suspensions cannot be undone, so it looks like Skarp's crowdfunding efforts will have to move elsewhere. The project smashed its US$160,000 funding target, securing pledges of over $4m. With that level of interest, Skarp looks a decent chance of drumming up the cash on another crowdfunding platform, if any will have it. LASER RAZOR blunted by KickStarter ban The RegisterJe suis Charlie. Je suis Ahmed. Je suis Juif. Life, don't talk to me about life - Marvin the Paranoid Android "Science adjusts it's views based on what's observed.Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved." - Tim Minchin, in his beat poem, Storm.
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Theodoric Member Posts: 9201 From: Northwest, WI, USA Joined: Member Rating: 3.2 |
Looks like the scam has moved to indiegogo.
Skarp Laser Razor relaunched on Indiegogo after Kickstarter cancellation | WIRED UK They don't even have proof of concept. The Skarp Laser Razor: 21st Century Shaving | Indiegogo quote: Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts "God did it" is not an argument. It is an excuse for intellectual laziness.
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