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Since the first man arrived on the earth, a decision has had to be made - whether to allow a beard to grow or to remove it. Cave painting have shown that, contrary to popular opinion, early man went about his work clean shaven, making good use of pieces of sharpened flint. With the Bronze Age and primitive metalworking came razors made from iron, bronze and even gold. The civilisations of Rome and Greece used iron blades with a long handle and developed the shape of the 'open' or 'cut-throat' razor which was the only practical razor until the 19th century. With improvements in steel manufacture came blades that were really sharp and capable of resharpening.
Advances in razor technology changed shaving habits in the 20th century. In 1900, most men were either shaved by the local barber (your trusted confidante, wielding a cut-throat razor), or periodically at home when required, rather than regularly. The barber's better-off customers would have personal sets of seven razors, labelled 'Sunday' to 'Saturday'. Today, nearly all men shave everyday in their own homes, using a wide variety of equipment.
The first 'safety' razor, a razor where the skin is protected from all but the very edge of the blade, was invented by a Frenchman, Jean-Jacques Perret, who was inspired by the joiner's plane. An expert on the subject, he also wrote a book called 'Pogonotomy or the Art of Learning to Shave Oneself'. In the late 1820s, a similar razor was made in Sheffield and from the 1870s, a single-edge blade, mounted on a hoe-shaped handle was available in Britain and Germany.
The idea of a use-once, disposable blade (which didn't need resharpening) came from an American, King Camp Gillette in 1895. It was suggested to him that the ideal way to make money was to sell a product part of which would need replacing at frequent intervals, an early example of built-in obsolescence. However, producing a paper-thin piece of steel with a sharpened edge strong enough to remove a beard was a near technical impossibility at that time. Although patents were filed in 1901, it was not until 1903 that Gillette could go into business, with the assistance of his technical adviser, William Nickerson, and the necessary financial backing. He produced a grand total of 51 razors and 168 blades in that year. To generate interest, many razors were given away to his friends.
By 1905, the year the Gillette razor came to Britain, 90,000 razors and 2.5 million blades were produced, rising to 0.3 million razors and 14 million blades in 1908. In 1920, the Gillette razor was introduced as standard issue to the British Army, replacing the old cut-throat. Gillette's early models had a separate handle and clamp unit for the blade, but in the 1930s, he introduced a single-piece version which had opening 'wings' in the top for inserting the blade. Other razor manufacturers, such as Wilkinson, Ever-Ready and Valet, produced similar safety razors but with resharpenable blades. These used a new version of the old leather strop or a stropping machine which through the blade was passed. Tiny safety razors for women, using the Gillette system, appeared in the 1920s.
The increasing popularity of the rival electric razor prompted further technical development in the late 1950s and 1960s onwards: long-life stainless steel blades were introduced by Wilkinson Sword in 1956 and twin-blade safety razors came in the 1960s, along with the completely disposable, one-piece plastic razor introduced by Bic.
The concept of a powered razor was unknown until the 1930s. There were some early experiments with clockwork and friction motors, but these coincided with the increasing availability of electricity, and the invention of the electrically-powered razor, both battery and main, eclipsed both of these.
The technology of the first electric razors was not new; the innovation was in the housing of tiny electrical components safely inside a smooth, hand-held casing. The electric razor was invented by a Canadian, Jacob Schick in the 1920s. Schick was obsessed by shaving and believed that a man could extend his years to 120 by correct, everyday shaving. He had already invented a system of injecting blades automatically into a razor without having to touch them. His first patent electric razor of 1923 consisted of a large, hand-held, universal motor driving a remote cutting head via a flexible shaft. This was clearly unmarketable without further development and, like Gillette waiting for the perfection of his wafer-thin disposable razor blade twenty years earlier, Schick had to wait until an electric motor had been developed that was small enough to fit into a hand-held device, yet powerful enough to cut through a beard.
In 1931, he sold his first electric razor in New York for $25 and managed to sell another 3,000 that year. This greatly refined product consisted of an oscillating induction motor (the most powerful in the world at that time for its size) driving a sliding cutter inside a slotted shearing head. The motor had to be 'kick-started' into life with an exposed turnwheel. All the components were housed in a sleek, black Bakelite shell that could be held comfortably in one hand. Schick's gadget caught the public's imagination and by 1937, 1.5 million were in use and the market for the new 'dry razor' was worth $20 million. Many competitors joined the field and a 'gold-rush' mentality quickly developed with many patent infringements and lawsuits. Even the well-established Gillette was forced to develop his own electric razor as it was argued that the amount a man spent on blades, creams and lotions in a lifetime, more than outweighed the initial high cost of the electric razor.
The Remington 'Close Shaver' and the Sunbeam 'Shavemaster' were launched in 1937, the latter using a larger universal brush motor with a foil shearing head, rather than the Schick's induction motor and slotted cutter. The Philips razor or 'Philishave', launched in 1939 in the Netherlands, used an alternative method of a rotating blade behind a circular shearing head. The cutting area of these early electric razors was very small, typically only one quarter of the size of those on modern razors.
The pioneer Schick razor came to Britain in the mid-1930s, followed closely by similar, British-made examples. These included the Rolls-Razor 'Viceroy' (of which there was also a non-electric, hand-cranked version), the 'Clipshave', the 'Kwik-Shave' the 'Smoothmaster', the 'Minute Man', the 'Zenith' and the 'Aristocrat'. These names conjure up the notion that in the late-1930s, an electric razor was the most up-to-the-minute gadget that the smart modern man could equip himself with. However, it was not until the arrival of American servicemen during the war that the electric razor became a more familiar item, although even then, their use was not permitted in British army quarters. Click here for a 1930s advert.
Although the claim of many manufacturers, that their model provided a closer shave than the safety razor, was doubtful, the obvious advantage of this new product was that the high-speed cutting action dispensed with the need for water and cream, allowing shaving to be cleaner, safer and not restricted to the wash basin. As a result of this versatility, the electric razor became as much associated with travel as with domestic use: the early 110-volt models imported from the USA came with resistance coils for a variety of worldwide voltages, including Britain's 240-volt system. Electric razor points were to be seen in hotels, trains, ocean liners and aeroplanes by the late-1930s.
Cordless, battery-powered razors arrived in the late-1940s, having a separate power unit. These became totally self-contained in the early 1950s with the perfection of a powerful motor that could be run from a large D-size 1.5-volt battery included in the casing. Later, the development of smaller A-size batteries allowed for a greater diversity in battery razor design. The first cordless, rechargeable electric razor was produced by Remington in 1960, followed by a model two years later that could be run either cordless or from the mains.
After 1950 the progress of plastics technology allowed more stylised shapes and brighter colours, although the simplicity and neatness of the pioneer razors was replaced by bulkier casings and more features to increase sales. More powerful motors enabled razors to have larger or multiple cutting heads. Another change was in the way that electric razors were sold: pre-war models had been sold on the benefits to the user of speed, safety and convenience, with the new appliance clearly shown. By the late-1950s, however, the public were familiar with the electric razor and the common image of a smoothly shaven man with his adoring woman (and not a razor in sight) spoke for itself. Throughout the 1050s, the razor continued to be identified as a gadget for the modern man - top Hollywood actors used them in big 1950s films such as The Long Wait (Anthony Quinn), Rear Window (James Stewart) and Sabrina Fair (Humphrey Bogart).
Electric razors specifically designed for women did not appear as a separate product until the late 1940s, although the earliest razors were illustrated being used by women in their accompanying leaflets. In 1947, Remington re-marketed their original 1937 model as the 'Lady Shaver', taking advantage of the fact that their new, late 1940s models were bigger, heavier and more 'masculine'. This started the trend whereby colour and styling was used to differentiate mens' razors from womens': by the late-1950s, Remington were offering the 'Princess' in pink plastic and Sunbeam sold the 'Lady Sunbeam Shavemaster', a circular design resembling a compact in jade green with gold trim.
