One of my hobbies is traditional wet shaving. If you don’t think that sounds like a hobby then check out the #wetshaving #shavelikeyourgrandpa #safetyrazor hash tags on Instagram and Twitter. Some people have even called the bathroom the ‘new man cave’ as so many have discovered male grooming and men are spending more time in the smallest room in the house.
I accidentally discovered wet shaving because I wanted to reduce my use of single use plastic products. I read an article in the NYT about reducing waste and it recommended wet shaving as an alternative to disposable razors. With reducing waste in mind I ordered my first ‘safety razor’ and a few different blades. What I discovered was a world of male grooming that was new to me. I stocked up on shave soaps, brushes, endless blade options and classic Italian aftershaves. I truly did not know what a bad shave I was getting until I discover wet shaving. I finally learned how to shave at 49 years old.
However, wet shaving products are often incredibly over priced which is a shame because with the right kit one can get a great shave for less than $0.15 per shave. So wet shaving is economically and environmentally friendly. There are great kits at reasonable prices from web retailers and with that in mind I designed the inexpensive acrylic shave stand that fits neatly into a standard 12x6x2.5 inch ‘picture-window’ retail display box. My intent was to buy the same private label shave kit from Alibaba.com as the better web retailers are selling but package it up into an inexpensive kit for sale on Amazon.ca. The target retail price would be $44.99 USD.
After designing the acrylic shave stand to be easy and inexpensive to make I wanted to also imagine what a more complex product could look like so here is a gallery of different design ideas…
David Mckee Smith 