Razor blades, as a tattoo design can symbolize several things, all of them a little "edgy". A razor blade is sharp, it cuts things, sometimes dubious things, and it has often been used as an instrument of suicide, as in "cutting ones wrists". As a tattoo design, the razor blade speaks to a history of risk taking, operating outside the bounds of law, and drug use. It may also symbolize a history of dealing with depression, addiction, and self-abuse or mutilation.
The Razor Blade, in particular the straight-edge style that were designed to be used as replaceable blades, are a tattoo design that harkens back to a time in the seventies and eighties when such razors were regularly used as drug paraphernalia. A razor blade was used to cut up drugs ranging from marijuana to shaving cocaine crystals into a powder fine enough that it could be smoked or snorted into a nostril. In fact, when cocaine use was in vogue, razor blades charms often hung from the gold chains of those who considered themselves in the know.
