Remember the Skarp laser razor? For those that do not, it is a new shaving device that promised to "bring shaving to the 21st century" by using light instead of sharpened steel to remove hair.
The small laser of the Skarp razor is able to easily cut through light gray hair, which is more challenging for traditional razors to cut. Users will only need to wave the laser razor over the parts of their body that they want to cut hair from, and the hair will simply fall off. This would bypass the usual concerns on using traditional razors such as razor burns, scratches, itching, infection and irritation.
The founder of the Skarp razor took the project to Kickstarter, where it was seeking a crowdfunding goal of $160,000. The goal was overwhelmingly shattered, with the campaign having raised over $4,000,000.
Despite the amazing performance of the campaign and the massive support by backers, Kickstarter has decided to suspend the Skarp laser razor campaign.
According to e-mails that were sent by Kickstarter to the campaign's backers, the suspension on the Skarp laser razor project was due to the fact that it was in violation of the crowdfunding website's rules of having working prototypes as physical products that can be offered to the backers of the campaign.
This means that the team behind the Skarp laser razor does not have an actual working prototype. While the campaign page features a video showing what is suggested to be a prototype of the laser razor, but it is largely ineffective and is only able to remove a few pieces of hair. This is still a long way away from the promise of simply needing to wave the razor to cut off hair.
Kickstarter said that suspensions on campaigns cannot be undone, so it would seem that the overwhelming support for the Skarp laser razor's crowdfunding campaign would be going down the drain. That much interest could translate to other crowdfunding platforms that would allow the project to be listed, though without a working prototype, there might not be any crowdfunding websites willing to have the Skarp laser razor listed.
