An email from Camp Pa-Qua-Tuck, a camp in Center Moriches for children with special needs, launched a chain of events that resulted in a mother-son duo from Manorville, N.Y., starring in a nationwide social media campaign for a razor designed for a caregiver to shave someone who needs help with daily tasks.
Dorothy Elliott, 51, a customer service representative for the Internal Revenue Service, uses Gillette's new Treo razor to shave her son Anthony, 20, who has Down syndrome, in a video the company is featuring on YouTube, Facebook and Instagram.
Dorothy Elliott connected with Gillette's production company after she received an email from Camp Pa-Qua-Tuck in January asking for any families interested in the new razor who might want to be part of the advertising campaign to coincide with the August launch of the product. "I wanted at the time to get my hands on one," she says. "They actually sent me a bunch of them so we could really try to test them out. Before you knew it, I had this group of people in my house doing pictures and video."
Dorothy and Anthony are one of three families in the nationwide social media campaign, says Peter Ries, consumer research engineer for Gillette's research and development team. The other two families were an older couple in which the husband was in a bicycle accident and needs care, and a son who cares for his father with mobility issues, Ries says. "We were looking for diverse pairs of individuals who had this caregiving relationship."
The Treo razor is designed with a safety guard over the blade to minimize nicks and cuts, Ries says. It's designed to be held like a paintbrush to allow the best range of motion and control, he says. The shaving gel is inside the handle, allowing caregivers to shave someone who is bedbound without needing a sink, he says. Once the gel runs out after a couple of shaves, the razor is disposable. A package of four retails for $7.89.
"It just made my day," Anthony says of the filming experience. His father, Tony, 51, a systems specialist with the Federal Aviation Administration in Ronkonkoma, his brother, Charlie, 15, a sophomore at Eastport-South Manor High School in Manorville, and his service dog, Joaquin, a black Labrador/golden retriever mix, also spent the day helping out with the video creation. The family was paid about $3,500, Dorothy says. "We had a lot of fun doing it," she says. "As a family, it was such a wonderful experience."
