Laser razor thrown off Kickstarter because it doesn't work

Bad news if you want to burn hairs off your face using a laser: Kickstarter has pulled the fundraising page for the “Skarp” laser razor, despite the project having already raised $4m on the crowdfunding platform.

Kickstarter’s reasoning is fairly straightforward, however: the Skarp doesn’t actually work.

Specifically, the Skarp is “in violation of our rule requiring working prototypes of physical products that are offered as rewards”. That rule was introduced in 2012 after a rash of failed projects that over-promised and under-delivered. Now, a company must demonstrate at the very least a working prototype for any object which it is actually intending to ship to backers.

Unfortunately, Skarp did not. The company made one video available of what it said was a prototype, showing a device struggling to remove more than a couple of hairs on the back of a man’s hand – a far cry from the smooth shave the designers promised.

It seems that Kickstarter agreed that the video didn’t fit the definition of “working prototype”, and removed the project to prevent disappointment down the line (either from the delivery potentially slipping later and later than promised, or the device being shipped under par).

Kickstarter aggressively polices its site, and until 2014 the company pre-emptively checked every project going up to make sure it fit with the stated policies. Now, the volume is too high for that, but it’s still very rare for a project to hit the volume the Skarp did, raising $4m in pledges from thousands of backers, and then be pulled.

In an email to backers, Kickstarter emphasised that “suspensions cannot be undone”, and so whatever happens next, Skarp will have to find another source of funding to continue development. Whether that means returning to crowdfunding on a different platform, or raising private funding some other way, remains to be seen.

Kickstarter told the Guardian that Skarp’s creators “would be welcome to resubmit their idea to Kickstarter for review if they developed a working prototype. Or they could submit a project that is focused on developing a prototype, as long as they didn’t offer the razor itself as a reward.”