For lots of men, the most irritating aspects of shaving don’t involve scrapes, nicks or the tragedy of razor burn. It’s actually culling the supplies—loading up on blades alone, which often locked up even at finer stores, can be maddening—that can make even the most clean-cut gent consider the Grizzly Adams look. Or perhaps start a company.
“The idea to launch Harry’s was born out of a particularly underwhelming experience I had at the drugstore,” Andy Katz-Mayfield says. “I waited 10 minutes for an employee to open the case where they keep razor blades locked away. After all that, I felt like I had to overpay for products that didn’t really speak to me as a consumer. That experience leftme feeling like there had to be a better way.”
So Katz-Mayfield teamed up with his friend, Warby Parker co-founder Jeff Raider, to do something about it. The pair founded Harry’s, which offers chic shave products for guys—two kinds of highly designed handles, a luxurious shaving cream and German-engineered blades —at reasonable prices. And, following the Warby Parker method, Harry’s donates blades or cash to charity with every purchase.
“We’ve strived to build a brand around high-quality product, simple design, fair prices and a commitment to social good,” Raider says. “We want to make a premium set of products, that you’d expect to find at elevated prices at a high-end boutique, accessible to lots more people at a fair price.”
And forget going to the drug store to buy more blades: Harry’s allows you to purchase their packs of up to 16 blades online. It’s an idea whose time seems to have come.
“I think men’s grooming is undergoing an evolution that we’ve seen in the broader realm of men’s style,” Raider says. “In the past few years, guys have started to put a lot more consideration into the clothes they wear and items they buy.
“This doesn’t really exist in the shaving market today, and is something that customers have come to expect in other product categories. So why not shaving?”
