The French, ever inventive, also introduced the shaving brush in 1748, often fashioned from stiff badger hair, which made shaving more pleasurable and convenient, as soap could better soften the whiskers. This was a start in the link between shaving and luxurious pampering which we continue to embrace today. Even so, most European men continued to be shaved by professional barbers until about 1900...

18th-century French philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau, however, lamented the “effeminacy of the shaven face,” suggesting that men and women should be “more alike in mind than countenance.” Shaving, grooming, fussing, and preening all became de rigeur in London in the 1800s, thanks largely to a major fop named Beau Brummell. Mr. Brummell, wealthy thanks to an inheritance, dedicated his life to being a fashionable gent, shaving several times a day, and coiffing his hair in three parts, but he didn’t quite succeed; he accrued huge gambling debts and fled to France where he died in an asylum, much less stylish, penniless, and insane. No doubt enduring suspicion of the over-groomed male can be linked to his fate. You could be tidy, even “sharp,” but never effete or foppish. Meanwhile, Brummell’s contemporary, the brilliant and infinitely more practical scientist, Michael Faraday, found a way to add silver to razor blades, rendering them sharper and less prone to rust. Straight steel or cut-throat razors were manufactured in Sheffield, England; their blades were laboriously forged one by one by skilled metal workers. Self-grooming was becoming a huge market and technology, its ever humble servant.


A box of Jack Frost single-edge blades

In the late 1880s, the T-shaped razor was patented in the United States, but this blade still had to be sharpened and replaced. A more striking innovation occurred in 1847, when another Englishman invented a razor with the blade perpendicular to the handle. The so-called “hoe razor” was easier to hold and to manoeuver and remains an enduring design. Meanwhile, in the U.S. in 1855, King Camp Gillette was born, worth mentioning here because he would revolutionize shaving some forty years later.


King Camp Gillette, depicted on one of his products, the Gillette Blue Blade

Both events paled for a time, however, in light of a Victorian beard boom, when English veterans returned from the Crimean War. Beards ruled Britannia for all but fops and dandies (or “worse”) like Oscar Wilde. Victorian gents in all their macho glory were nonetheless great consumers of scents, soaps, and waxes, produced to keep all furry matters in check. Various English treatises at the time described beard shaving as effeminate, unnatural, irrational, unmanly, and ungodly. Scottish purists in particular condemned Sunday shaving as both despicable and sinful. Christianity had once again changed its tune regarding the importance of beards.


A box of Good Humor Blades, early 20th century

For a time, British trends and innovations in both facial hairstyles and shaving predominated, but by 1880, Americans started to lead the race. That year, the Kampfe brothers patented a safety razor which incorporated a wire guard along one edge of the razor to protect the skin. Fifteen years later, Baltimore salesman King Camp Gillette decided that he was destined to strike it rich by marketing something disposable but absolutely indispensable. In 1895, he dreamt up a disposable razor blade, an idea he acquired from a friend of his who had invented throwaway bottle caps. However, no technology for its manufacture would exist until 1901, when he hooked up with William Nickerson, an MIT engineer (and inventor of several wonders, including the push-button for elevators). They improved on the safety razor by producing a double-edge blade cut from a template which could be dropped into the top of a T-shape razor, then used, discarded, and more importantly, replaced over and over. In 1903, they went into production – and a whopping fifty razors were sold. But by 1906, 300,000 razors and 500,000 blades were purchased. A U.K. office soon followed. When World War I began, the U.S. government ordered 3.5 million razors and 36 million blades for its soldiers. By the 1920s, a safety razor designed for women appeared, women having been convinced that underarm hair was nasty and unfeminine.

Gillette's original design for a razor. U.S. Patent & Trade Office

And what of other shaving staples we take for granted today, like the electric razor or fancy foams? In 1906, W.G. Shockey patented the first wind-up safety razor, which became extremely popular until supplanted twenty years later by the plug-in. In 1925, a brushless, convenient-to-use shaving cream called Burma Shave came out of Minneapolis, Minnesota, reportedly derived from a native recipe picked up by sailors stationed in Burma. By 1936, it became a top seller and grew in popularity because of an ingenious ad campaign of hundreds of billboards with clever slogans mounted along particularly boring strips of U.S. highway. Sadly, this icon of both shaving and advertising stopped production in 1966, until it was reintroduced by the American Safety Razor Company in 1997.

The next big name in shaving was Jacob Schick, who was single-handedly responsible for the ever present distinction between a “wet” shave (i.e., razor) and a “dry” shave (i.e., electric), improving significantly on both. He invented and by 1926 marketed a magazine-repeating razor which housed twenty spare blades in its razor handle, advanced with a plunger. The consumer didn’t have to touch them and could buy clips of blades as replacements. Of note is the fact that Schick was also a U.S. Lieutenant Colonel, and during one of his stations in some godforsaken cold climate, he injured his ankle and had to crawl out of bed to crack, then melt, ice in order to shave (a story that sounds a bit embellished to me); like all inventors, he told himself that there “had to be a better way.” Sure enough, by 1927 he invented the first electric shaver, which used oscillating blades, and two years later he began to sell them. The unit was initially unwieldy because of a cumbersome motor, but by 1931, Schick sold 3,000 at the unthinkable price of twenty-five dollars. But Shockey’s wind-up razor continued to give him a run for his money until electric dry shaving caught on, especially for travellers. By the 1930s, most airplanes, ships, and trains had outlets for electric shavers, something we observe to this day. (I confess I have never dared use one, fearing a jolt from the engine or a thrust into the mirror.) Imitators quickly followed. In 1936, Sunbeam introduced the Shave Master. Remington launched the Close-Shaver in 1937, the same year the ingenious Colonel Schick died in Canada. It was clear that as long as men eschewed the beard, technocrats would be at the drawing board whipping up some pricey new twist.



Not long after, Dutchman Frederic Philips marketed the first Philishave electric razor, which had two heads and used a rotary blade. In the late 1940s, a battery-powered shaver appeared, which freed a man from his outlet. Electric razors became part of the masculine cultural landscape, suggesting both affluence and modernity. Many popular films from that era have scenes of prominent actors shaving with dry razors; Jimmy Stewart uses one in Rear Window, as does Humphrey Bogart in Sabrina Fair. In 1960, Remington introduced the rechargeable shaver and Philips announced a triple header in 1966. By 1969, one-third of men in the U.K. and two-thirds in the U.S. were using electric razors. In 1978, Victor Kiam famously “liked [his] Remington razor so much that [he] bought the company.” Until his death in 2001, his television ads proved to be as annoying as they were ubiquitous and effective. By 1981, Philips and its U.S. branch, Norelco, took over Schick’s products and trademarks. All the while, electric shaving machines grew more sleek, “masculine,” and ultra-modern with elaborate leather (or leatherette) travel cases, suggesting jet-setting savoir-faire. But as converts flocked to dry shaving, the wet shave industry would not be outdone. The race for sleek product design and “close, closer, closest” was on. Oregon lumberjacks may still have been shaving with axes in the 1930s, but an entire industry sought to convince men that a wholesome, clean shave could only be achieved by the blade. The Gem Razor Blade Company cleverly coined the phrase “Five O’Clock Shadow” to describe and discourage midday breakthrough stubble. Aftershaves started to appear – in actuality, cosmetic toners and moisturizers, though God forbid they should be called that. Virile-sounding products with associated macho mythologies emerged – Aquavelva in 1935, Old Spice in 1938, English Leather in 1949, and Brut in 1964. Aerosol foam appeared in cans in 1949, replacing shaving soap, mugs, and brushes. As it turned out, even that could be improved on – aerosol gel became the rage by 1990. Not surprisingly, manufacturers of women’s cosmetics soon developed expensive “male lines” for the discerning shaver, most often purchased by brand-loyal wives.

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