DESIGN
ZAFFIRRO
The Razor’s Edge This unique shaving tool uses genuine sapphire blades and takes men’s grooming to a new high.
SEPT-OCT 2013
It hardly comes as a surprise that the male grooming industry is expected to generate up to $35 billion in revenue worldwide by 2015 (according to a study by Global Industry Analysts), especially when the latest razor on the market, the Zaffirro Iridium, as it has been christened, costs a cool $100,000.
Which also made us wonder – is it just the price tag that has propelled the Iridium razor into the luxury bespoke segment, and does it have the kind of extraordinary features and function that will make it a bathroom staple, pushing popular brands like Gillette from the mantle? is query was addressed when the founder and CEO of the company, Hayden Hamilton told us why this elegant, sapphire-blade sporting tool ts in perfectly with the modern man’s grooming kit to deliver a luxurious experience: “e men’s razor blade category has long been the biggest single component of the global grooming industry (which is why P&G bought Gillette for $57 billion in 2007), but the luxury segment is in its infancy and has the potential to be enormous. There are very few gifts that are universally wellreceived by men. I believe a great razor is one of them. But there are still very few razors that would be considered a really special gift, such as this one.”
In 2011, Bright Light Ventures, a Portland, Oregon-based company in the USA known for its innovative offerings asked a simple question: what would it take to make a razor blade last a lifetime,thus giving birth to Zaffirro in Portland, after three and a half years of extensive research and several prototypes? e USP of this ultimate razor since then has been the sapphire blades that are, as claimed by the company, approximately 5,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair, and thus sharpened with the help of nano-technology. Production has been limited to 99 pieces globally.
After toying with 18-karat gold and Grade 38 titanium for its previous products, Zaffirro decided to take the innovation a notch up by employing an amalgamation of the rarest and technically advanced materials that inevitably shifted the decimal point on its price tag by three digits. “To me, luxury is the ability to be indulgent, to make the best possible version of a product you can imagine. It’s the ability to create something rare, unique, authentic, made with true craftsmanship, in this era of plastic and mass production, which is what this razor has been about,” says Hamilton. So white sapphire blades have been added to the centrepiece handle that is made from the purest
form of a metal (99.95 per cent to be exact) that is 10 times rarer than platinum, and is mainly extracted from meteorites. Iridium, as this metal is known, has required advanced rocket engineering to cleverly render it into the shape of a grooming item used every day. e sapphire blades themselves sport ne edges that are not susceptible to the ordinary razor afflictions of oxidation and corrosion, obviating the need to replace them ever, guaranteeing a hypoallergenic nature. Clear attention to detail has also been paid vis-à-vis of the almostinvisible hexagonal screws that hold the handle of the razor together: made to be tolerant on CNC Swiss screw micromachines primarily used for biotech applications, they are made from pure platinum alloys. Finally, the company also offers complimentary servicing for two decades, which includes resharpening of the blades.
However, the male grooming industry, as bountiful as it appears to have become, cannot hope to take over the fairer sex’s demand for nishing-school items. Simply because these beautiful razors can be used by women as well…