On a Modern 28-shave Blade and Original Gillette One-month Blades

Article on Sharpologist.com

Look for my article on the ideal razor for every man, on which I collaborated with the Sharpologist himself! Click here for the article.

Today's Grandad Article

I used to surf the 'net for old Gillette razor ads. I thought they were both interesting and informative. They also provided insight into what Gillette & Company were thinking as to the use of their products.

As I recall, the original Gillette razors (c. 1903) came with a dozen blades, which were advertised to provide up to a year's worth of shaves -- yep, roughly one blade per month. And keep in mind that these weren't stainless-steel blades; they were made of non-stainless steel that was susceptible to rusting. They were also thicker than modern blades, and users were encouraged to save the blades when dull and then return them to the factory for sharpening in return for a fresh set at a discount off the retail price.

This one-blade-per-month approach may be shocking to some of us who live our lives as though virtually everything is disposable and the world is our trash can. There are many (too many) shavers who demand a new blade for every shave and mindlessly send perfectly good blades to the landfill without a second thought.

This original Gillette approach begs a question: How did the original Gillette customers get up to a month of shaves from a single blade?

Since I am on the record for years as being a shaver who routinely tries to get many shaves from a single double-edge (DE) blade, I have several possible answers to that question.

First of all, as a traditional straight-razor owner and user, I must say that no straight users get only a single shave from their razor before having it re-sharpened. The process of daily drying and stropping the straight blade allows many, many shaves before the edge needs more intensive care. This alone suggests that anyone who is swapping out a DE blade for a new one after a single use is being wasteful in the extreme.

That said, however, there are other possible explanations for early-20th-century shavers being able to use a single DE blade for up to a month as follows:

• They may have shaved less frequently -- perhaps every other day or up to as infrequently as once per week.
• They may have only taken single-pass shaves.

Both of these practices would have their genesis in the straight razor. Some old-time gents would go to the barber for their shaves, and certainly few would go daily. Others, who were straight shaving at home, likely took a one-pass, with-grain straight shave as needed and called that good.

So it's pretty safe to assume that many gents in those by-gone days did not initially acquire the habit of the daily shave, not to mention the very-close shave, until DE razors became more common, and the price of DE blades came down as more competitors entered the market.

Still, given today's high-quality stainless-steel blades, I have just today had an excellent shave with a Personna-red blade, using the blade for its 28th daily shave! Here's how I did it:

• I started with a sharp, high-quality blade. Not every blade will provide 28 close, comfortable daily shaves.
• I fastidiously care for my blades after every shave -- rinsing clean, press drying, and gently palm stropping the blade before re-installing it into the razor for the next shave.
• I also carefully clean, shake and wipe dry the razor as much as possible before re-installing a blade.
• By the way, for the record, all of my shaves were at least two-pass shaves and usually more.

The blade from today's shave is still going strong and will be used again tomorrow. So I've essentially shown that blades can be much more durable that one might think, and maybe old King Gillette was on the right track with his original blade offerings.

Happy shaving!