Ladies and gentleman, it’s time to talk about laser razors. Yes, both the “laser” and the “razor” parts of that are accurate, all because a little Kickstarter campaign for the Skarp razor – which, yes, claims to use lasers to cut your body hair.
In fact, there’s scant evidence here that the product works at all, let alone that it’s safe. You can peruse this interesting Reddit thread for more information if you want, but, tl;dr: This may be nothing but LED lights and unsafe wires. Sounds like an awful little to bet around $4 million on, and we wonder if Kickstarter hype has finally outraced itself here.
However, there are some positive signs. Those attached to the project, such as Morgan Gustavsson, appear much more legitimate than the Kickstarter itself, so maybe they really are onto something here. You can pledge $189 to get a first-in-line ticket for the Skarp razor, which is supposed to be shipped next March.
Can Skarp razors really use lasers to cut hair?
The descriptions of the laser razor are filled with phrases like “shaving light” and “a wavelength that could cut any color hair,” which do not inspire confidence. Also, apart from shaky footage of one off-the-cuff lab experiment, Skarp doesn’t seem to have done anything yet. Without funding they cannot produce circuit boards, diodes, lenses, fiber, coatings or anything else on their list for a product design.
Skarp has been getting some attention lately because of its Kickstarter campaign, which aimed for a sort-of humble $160,000, but blew away expectations by raising around $3.8 million dollars (as of now, there are nine days left to go in the campaign). That puts in in the top 20 most successful Kickstarter campaigns ever…and also raises a whole lot of questions.
While the Skarp razor absolutely looks like something your average Star Trek crew would use in their quarters – the Kickstarter talks about design before it talks about lasers – no one seems quite sure how it’s going to work. Obviously a laser scraping against your tender skin bits does not sound particularly encouraging: Many humans are skilled at accidentally cutting themselves on normal razors. A laser razor seems like asking for trouble. But the problems go deeper here.