Old razor ads can be worth looking into. New ones can be… odd. And ones from back when I grew up can be pretty bland. Recently I found a Gillette Contour ad from when I was still in elementary school. Back then shaving was, for me at least, something grownups did before I even got out of bed.

Disregarding my strongly held opinions on wibbly-wobbly razor heads – even if some of them are funny looking – the whole ad is kinda… underwhelming. At least from fourty years down the line.

A tiny bit of text. A big picture of the plastic razor. A line drawing. A murky photo of a pack of carts and some canned goo. And a less-than-snappy slogal to round it of.

Yeah… I’m not going out of my way to buy one of these, based on the advertisment.

And for those who don’t speak Danish (or Norwegian, or Swedish), let me give you a full translation of the ad copy:

The Contour method

Gillette Contour.
With self-adjusting tilting head, that follows the shape of the face, no matter how you hold the hand. Switch to the Contour method. And let the platinium covered double blade give you a perfect, precise, and comfertable shave.

Become better shaved with Gillette Contour.

Translated ad copy

As I said, kinda underwhelming. No wild claims on how many shaves you can get. No info-dump in a tight space. No twee drawings. Just… meh.

I’m glad we’re not living in the 80’s no more.