![]() ![]() Gillette struck another blow in 1971 when it introduced the two-blade razor. Consumers loved them.īic introduced the first totally disposable razors in the sixties as well, which made shaving even more convenient. These newer blades were tougher to hone, but they lasted much longer and didn't rust. Mental Floss: Revisiting 8 'Sesame Street' rumorsĪfter years of losing market share to their electric competition, Gillette finally hit upon a winning innovation in 1960 when it introduced stainless steel blades. In fact, Schick supposedly thought that if a man shaved often enough, he could lengthen his life to 120 years. ![]() Part of the reason he went into the shaving business was that he really, really believed in the benefits of shaving. Like King Camp Gillette, Jacob Schick was a bit of an odd duck. Their hair had been highly prized for wet shaving brushes because it retained water so well, so more than a few badgers were spared a shearing as America started plugging in their electric Schicks. The real winners in this transition from wet shaving with soap and a brush to electric razors were badgers. Schick razors took store shelves by storm in 1931, and they quickly sold millions of units. In 1928 a retired Army colonel named Jacob Schick patented an electric razor he had designed, and the world finally had a winner. (One failed model from 1910 ran on clockwork.) People have been patenting and trying to market electric razors since 1900, but at first they met with little success. Gillette even offered Teddy Roosevelt $1 million to serve as president of this planned utopia in 1910, but Roosevelt declined. He became a strong proponent of utopian socialism later in his life and planned a community in Arizona in which engineers would rationally orchestrate all activity. Interestingly, Gillette sold the razors at a loss, but he more than made up for it by selling the blades at a huge profit.Īlthough Gillette's invention came from his notion that he should invent something people bought, threw away, and then repurchased, he wasn't your typical capitalist. Razor Milestones 4th millennium BC: Circular gold Egyptian razorsĦth century BC: Razors introduced in Romeīy 1906 Gillette's design was moving 300,000 units a year. MIT professor William Nickerson joined up with Gillette to figure out a way to stamp the blades out of sheets of high-carbon steel, and by 1903 they had their first batch of razors ready to take on America's beards. It took another six years for Gillette to find someone who could actually make the disposable blades. The idea was great, but there was a problem: the blades weren't easy to make. The resulting safety razor eventually made Gillette a fortune and solved the hassle of having to remove the razor's blade to sharpen it every few shaves. In 1847 William Henson invented the hoe-shaped razor that most of us have in our medicine cabinets, and in 1895 a traveling salesman named King Camp Gillette combined this shape with the idea of shaving with a disposable double-edged blade. (Ouch!) Mental Floss: When did women start shaving their armpits?ĭesigns for safety razors date back to at least 1762, but they didn't really catch on until 1828, when they debuted in Sheffield, England. Julius Caesar supposedly preferred to have his beard plucked out with tweezers, although other Roman men used razors or rubbed the beards from their faces using pumice stones. In the 4th century BC, Alexander the Great encouraged his men to shave so enemies couldn't grab their beards during melees.Īlexander's subjects were often shaved using a novacila, a block of iron with one edge sharpened, which sounds like a great way to shred your face.
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