Cusp is a proposal for a low waste & environmentally low impact subscription based men's shaving product. Made entirely from one material, the razors are designed to be disassembled from the handle to the single-piece blade unit. Cusp would operate on a circular business model utilizing a blade send-back program. Users would send used blades back to the manufacturer for them to be repurposed. 

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Cusp, as a product and idea, is rooted in the plastic crisis that humanity now faces. Based on secondary research & stakeholder interviews, we identified three primary insights that drove the design process. The first was that men perceive eco-friendly products and behaviors as feminine.* The second was that razors are the most wasteful products that humans use in the bathroom (based on average lifetime cartridge use and the lack of recyclability for both the handle and replacement blades). The third – people who want to be more eco-conscious struggle to find an easy to use replacement for mainstream razors. 

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The challenge of the product lay not just in decreasing environmental impact and material waste, but also in reframing green behaviors in a way that did not threaten masculinity.

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Cusp was a 15-week product development and branding project.

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