We all know that if you find it on the internet, then it must be true. In the spirit of that thinking…..
Something You May Not Have Know About The Safety Razor
Shorts and Facts over on YouTube has an excellent, quick video called History of Safety Razors. Here is our summary of the video: the safety razor reached the peak of popularity after WWI, thanks to a rather smart deal Gillette made with the US Army to issue every soldier their own safety razor shaving kit. (They wanted our soldiers looking fresh, sure, but apparently lice was also an issue!) These soldiers brought their safety razors home and continued to use them, and the safety razor was king of the block until Gillette introduced the first cartridge razor, designed to be even easier and more convenient to use (not to mention more profitable for Gillette).
Then, in 1971, the razor blade arms race began with the first ever two-blade razor, which led to the three-blade, and on and on until we get to the seven-bladed, and now heated monstrosities of today’s cartridge razor world. Popular media has long seen the joke here. Saturday Night Live predicted the 3-bladed razor as a joke, and then later on, MADtv made a parody commercial of a 16-blade cartridge razor! The idea behind the multi-blade cartridge razor is that the first blade pulls up the hair, the second blade cuts the hair, the third blade cleans it up, and so on. Remember that “pull-and-cut” strategy, because we will be coming back to that later. If “pull-and-cut” sounds painful… that’s because it is.
Their Conclusion
The video wraps up by mentioning that many people are beginning to return to the safety razor as a way to save money, since the cost of cartridge razors has skyrocketed over the past few decades. That’s going to be a common theme here, but we have more evidence for the safety razor comeback than just one video.