Why are razor blade refills so darn expensive?

Maybe they’re willing to pay an arm and a leg so that they’ll have less to shave.

I don’t know the answer but my husband swears up a storm when he has to buy them. Depressing he says.

@Seelix I literally just laughed out loud at that one!
@AmWiser The prices are just ridiculous, even more ridiculous than gas prices if you ask me!

I don’t get it either.
I have a double edge razor that I use now. The blades are cheap but if you aren’t careful,you’ll end up with a fruit roll-up on your shin. XD

It’s a joke. I switched to disposables.

lol @lucillelucillelucille

Husband is thinking about getting laser hair removal for his bald head.XD

A lot of the cost of blades goes to R&D. The two major manufacturers are locked in a heated competition for market share, and are constantly trying to outdo each other by offering some “new and improved” technology. That research costs a ton of money. When Gillette went from 2-blade to 3-blade technology back in the 90’s, they spent 1 billion dollars on R&D, which, of course, gets rolled into the price of the product.

And the manufacturing process is very technically demanding. Here’s a description of just one cleaning operation in the process.

@JustJessica although I switched to disposables, my husband refuses to make the change. However, we buy his refills at the flea market. I don’t know where you live, but we can get the cartridges at the flea market for half the price that they sell them for in stores.

It probably works out cheaper if you just keep buying a new razor with the one cartridge re-fill. Sometimes they throw two re-fills in there. I think they use the drug dealer’s philosophy in that if you already own a Montague Mach-16 razor then you’re going to buy cartridges for it, no matter what it costs.

As far as I know, nobody’s ever been able to tell a definitive difference between a twin blade and a quad blade. Or even the Montague Mach-16.

I switched to straight razor years ago. Not only do no longer have to pay Gillette but I don’t throw away any plastic cartridges saving the enviroment too. Also despite the billion dollar research spent on cartrideg razors the straight edge shaves better, causes less irritation and no ingrowing hairs.

It’s a cut throat business! Prices should be slashed.

@ucme ::facepalm::

I’ve tried single and double blade disposable but can’t get around the love for my now old Mach 3. I like what @mrentropy wrote about checking prices for the shaver plus a cartridge or two, going to check it out.

Phew, that was a close shave. My awful pun went undetected….....oh shit!

^^No! It didn’t XD

It’s similar in practice to what they do with printers. The equipment itself goes for an unbelievably low price in both cases.

But then they’ve got you. They know that you need to keep constantly buying the refills of both blades and ink cartridges.

Same principle for both. Do you really think that the printers themselves are THAT inexpensive to produce? Once they’ve hooked you they’ve got you for the life of the original product.

@Buttonstc King Camp Gillette pretty much invented the loss leader bussines model. The sod.

They have a captive market. Razor blades aren’t like cigarettes. What can you do, quit them? So manufacturers are free to charge whatever they like.

As for the disposables vs. refill issue, there’s really no price difference between them at my local stores. Disposables are getting more and more expensive all the time. Anyone else notice this?

@thorninmud That was quite an informative link I thank you. Seems like a very tedious process. They are still over priced though.

@lonelydragon You can quit the regular razors and go with the electric kind.

@mrentropy That’s true. I hadn’t thought of that, although you do forfeit the benefit of a close shave.

@lonelydragon True enough. That’s why I wax.

I stopped buying refills and started using disposables about 10 years ago when I could no longer fine refills for my old Gillette Atra©!

Does that make me “old school”?