This post originally appeared on Business Insider.
The dream of the Skarp razor, which its creators said could shave your hair with a laser, was a powerful one. The Kickstarter project sped past its initial goal of $160,000 and racked up an astounding $4 million.
But it seems that dream might have been too good to be true, at least from Kickstarter’s perspective. The crowdfunding site has officially booted the project from its platform for not presenting evidence of a working prototype.
The closure of the project is permanent, Kickstarter told Business Insider.
The Register obtained an email sent to backers by Kickstarter that reads, “We’ve concluded that it is in violation of our rule requiring working prototypes of physical products that are offered as rewards,” and it further goes on to say “suspensions cannot be undone.”
Though the Skarp creators did provide a video of a “prototype,” it seems to have not been high-quality enough to pass Kickstarter’s threshold of acceptability. You can see its rudimentary shaving in the video below. While it does succeed in zapping some hairs into oblivion, it certainly doesn’t seem practical for any sort of everyday use.
But lest you were worried that the two Swedes who started the project would let their laser-shaving ambitions die, they have already moved onto another crowdfunding platform, Indiegogo.
The new project raised over $62,000 in six hours.
See also: Newspaper Employees Arrested at the Gigafactory After Hitting Tesla orkers with a car
Update, 10/13: This article originally stated that Kickstarter was afraid Skarp was a potential scam. Kickstarter has confirmed it is closing the project, but will not speak to whether it deemed Skarp a scam.
