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The Gilded Razor Farce

Or, How Modern Men Were Convinced to Pay a Fortune to Remove Hair They Grew for Free

There exists in the modern marketplace a peculiar alchemy by which steel, soap, and shame are transmuted into a monthly bill rivaling that of heat and light. The luxury shaving kit, once a humble affair of blade and lather, has been reborn as a velvet-lined sermon on masculinity, delivered at a price that suggests the razor itself was once owned by a duke.

These kits arrive not in boxes, but in presentations. Walnut cases. Magnetic clasps. Instruction cards written as if shaving were a rite performed at dawn by monks sworn to silence. One half expects a bell to ring and a steward to whisper, “It is time, sir.”

The blade, we are told, is German steel, which in marketing dialect translates roughly to “sharp, but not sharp enough to justify this.” The handle is weighted “for balance,” though no one has ever fallen over from shaving imbalance, nor perished due to a lightweight razor.

“

“No man in history has ever needed a subscription to remain hairless.”

”

Yet subscription we must, lest we be cast into the wilderness of drugstore razors, where plastic reigns and cartridges cost only a few coins. The horror. The indignity. The savings.

The soap alone demands reverence. Activated charcoal. Alpine moss. Whispered hints of leather, oak, regret, and something called resolve. It is unclear how resolve smells, but it apparently justifies an additional twenty dollars.

Then comes the ritual email.

“Your grooming essentials are on their way.”

Essentials, here meaning the same blade you already own, arriving again, like an uninvited guest who insists on being thanked.

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A Brief Accounting of the Madness

• A razor: $85
• Replacement blades: $45 a month
• Soap harvested by people wearing aprons: $32
• The feeling of being “premium”: Priceless (non-refundable)

In defense of these kits, they do shave hair. But so does a sharpened rock, and history suggests we managed quite well before the advent of artisanal foam. The beard does not know it was removed by luxury. It falls all the same.

One suspects these kits exist not to remove hair, but to remove guilt. Guilt for aging. Guilt for mediocrity. Guilt for not owning a watch with visible gears.

Thus the razor becomes not a tool, but a talisman. Proof that the modern man, though confused, is at least well-packaged.

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Editorial Conclusion

If shaving were truly elevated by expense, the bald would rule us all. Instead, we remain a nation of softly groomed men, lighter in wallet, heavier in delusion, and eternally subscribed.

Tomorrow, they will sell us luxury nail clippers. God help us when they do.