Despite various design tweaks throughout the years, razors still use the tried-and-tested method of cutting hair at an angle using sharp metal blades.
Now, a team of scientists has created an alternative that ditches these dangerous blades in favour of a laser that safely ‘melts’ the hair without causing any irritation.
Called Skarp, the razor’s class one laser specifically targets part of the hair molecule that responds to light – and its designers have already raised more than $3.7 million (£2.4 million) on Kickstarter.
Working with optical engineer Paul Binun, the pair recently identified a particular particle in hair that can be broken using certain wavelengths of light.
All hair molecules contain chromophores that are responsible for giving the hair its colour.
In particular, these particles absorb and reflect wavelengths of visible light, and the type of wavelengths they reflect determine their unique colour.
After years of research and development, the experts found a chromophore that is present in everyone’s hair – regardless of colour – and discovered which wavelengths of light it is affected by.
A laser using a wavelength that breaks the hair if it comes into contact with this chromophore was then fitted onto a razor using a single optical fibre.
In traditional razors, the blades cut the hair shaft at an angle, causing the skin to feel rough.
By comparison, when the Skarp razor makes contact, the laser ‘melts’ through the hair shaft level to the surface of the skin.
e held to the exact same standards, levels of rigour and expectation as students on Bard’s main campus,” said Max Kenner, executive director of the Bard Prison Initiative, which operates in six New York prisons. “Those students are serious. They are not condescended to by their faculty.”
