Most of us peck up a razor at least every duad of days , and although sliver ’s a little ho-hum , it ’s not too much of a fuss . It has n’t always been quite so leisurely , though . Let ’s take a look at the history of shaving .
It Could Get a Little Rough Pre-Gillette
In the day before razors , you could either sport a hirsute spirit or get creative . Records drawn on cave walls show prehistoric hoi polloi shaving with clamshells , flint knives , and even shark teeth . It ’s not clear when these rough implements gave way to what we now think of as razor . According to theEncyclopedia Britannica , circular substantial amber or cop razors can be found as far back as the fourth millennium BC in some Egyptian tombs . Still other culture sharpened volcanic obsidian glass and used those .
Another story posits that the Roman big businessman Lucius Tarquinius Priscus introduced the razor to his hoi polloi in the sixth C BC , but shaving did n’t really catch on with Romans for another hundred eld or so .
In the 4th C BC , Alexander the Great encouraged his men to shave so enemies could n’t snap up their beards during melees . Alexander ’s matter were often shaved using a novacila , a closure of iron with one boundary sharpened , which sound like a great way to shred your face .
Julius Caesar supposedly preferred to have his beard pick off out with pincer , although other Roman humankind used razor or rubbed the beards from their expression using pumice stone Harlan Fiske Stone . ( Ouch ! )
It Didn’t Get Safe Until 1828
The idea was capital , but there was a job : the blades were n’t easy to make . It hire another six years for Gillette to find someone who could actually make the disposable blade . MIT professor William Nickerson fall in up with Gillette to figure out a mode to stomp the blades out of sheets of high - carbon sword , and by 1903 they had their first batch of razors quick to take on America ’s beards . By 1906 Gillette ’s design was move 300,000 units a year . Interestingly , Gillette sell the razor at a red , but he more than made up for it by selling the blades at a huge profit .
Although Gillette ’s conception came from his notion that he should invent something people bribe , bedevil away , and then buy back , he was n’t your typical capitalist . He became a strong proponent of utopian socialism later in his aliveness and planned a residential area in Arizona in which locomotive engineer would rationally direct all activity . Gillette even offered Teddy Roosevelt $ 1 million to suffice as chairwoman of this planned utopia in 1910 , but Roosevelt refuse .
Things Got Electric in the Twenties
People have been patent and trying to commercialize galvanizing razors since 1900 , but at first they met with small success . ( One neglect model from 1910 ran on clockwork . ) In 1928 a retired Army colonel describe Jacob Schick patent an electric razor he had designed , and the cosmos finally had a success . Schick razors took store shelf by storm in 1931 , and they speedily sell millions of unit .
The real winners in this transition from wet shaving with soap and a brush to electric razors were badgers. 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.
Like King Camp Gillette , Jacob Schick was a bit of an odd duck . Part of the reason he went into the paring business was that he really , really believed in the welfare of shaving . In fact , Schick supposedly thought that if a humans shaved often enough , he could lengthen his life to 120 yr .
The Real Arms Race Started in the 1960s
After years of losing market share to their electrical contender , Gillette finally hit upon a winning innovation in 1960 when it bring out stainless brand blade . These new blades were tough to hone , but they hold out much longer and did n’t rust . Consumers enjoy them . Bic introduced the first totally disposable razors in the 1960s as well , which made shaving even more convenient .
Gillette struck another blow in 1971 when it introduce the two - leaf blade razor . Other companies followed case , and now it ’s just a matter of time before we ’re all shaving with a 17 - bladed behemoth . [ icon courtesy ofWikimedia . ]
