Learn About Razors Used in Hair Removal Discover Facts About Razors For Hair Removal Hair Removal Facts – Learn About Razors Facts You Might Like to Know About Shaving Razors Do You Know The History of the Razor?
Men everywhere have at some time or another had the pleasure of using a razor. Our ancestors, the cavemen, were early adopters of the hair removal idea and you can’t go back much further than that. Since then the progress of the razor has been steady with a boom in the last one hundred years.
Based on cave-painting and artefacts found, it is clear cavemen had practiced hair removal. Some archaeologists think it was to reduce the number of mites living on the skin, other think it was just part of the body adornment desires. The sharp edges of flint or sea shells would be used to scrape over the skin. Not very sophisticated but it worked.
The first metal razors were found dating from 3000 BC. They have been identified in both Egypt and India, where craftsmen have mastered the smelting of copper. Burial mounds in Denmark have revealed Scandinavians being buried with their razors. The razors were often elaborately carved and sometimes came in their own leather cases.
From then until the eighteenth century razor were just variations on this sharp blade theme. At times the practice of hair removal lost favor, but it always came back.
In the 18th century there were two new leaps forward. The Perret Razor was developed. This was an early attempt at a safety razor. The mechanism was a wooden L-shaped case which held the blade and prevented it from cutting too deep. And in England Sheffield steel improved the cutting ability of the blade, but it was found to go dull quickly.
In 1895 salesman King Gillette comes up with the practical idea of a disposable razor blade. Five years later in collaboration with an MIT engineer they develop the double edged razor blade. The blade can be mass produced cheaply as it is cut from a template. It didn’t take long for this new invention to gain popularity. In 1903 he sold 51 razors and 168 blades; the next year sales were 90, 000 razors and 123, 000 blades.
The next leap forward had its origins in World War I. Here an American Colonel, Schick, used the concept of the repeating rifle to create a repeating razor. Razor blades were stored in the handle and could be changed automatically. He later decided to sell this idea to raise capital for his big development – the electric dry razor.
Since then developments to the two main razors have been cosmetic, designed to improve the hair removal process, but in effect just tweaks on a good idea.
