Gillette reckon that there are about one billion men in the world still using traditional double edged (DE) safety razors, with about 400 million of these in India. Obviously Gillette can sell these shavers DE blades from their many factories around the world that are making such blades under many brand names. But Gillette want more, they want to own the customer by tying them into a patent protected walled garden where they can’t use blades from other manufacturers. And of course they want to make more profit per blade sold.
With the above in mind Gillette has introduced a new single bladed cartridge based system razor for the Indian market called the Gillette Guard. So much for all the years and billions of dollars worth of marketing they have thrust down our throats telling us that we need an ever increasing number of blades. With the Guard they have even got rid of the lubrication strips that they have been telling us are so important.
Blades for the Guard cost 5 rupees (11 cents) which is still twice the cost of a DE blade in India (and remember the DE gives you two edges and the Guard only has one) and compares with the Fusion ProGlide blades that Gillette sell us in the West at a cost of $16.99 for four ($4.25 each) which is about 40 times the price that the Indians have to pay for their Guard cartridges. You can see that the products and pricing are based on what they can get away with in each market.
Back in July I offered 8 low price starter kits for sale at £15 each. In fact I ended up selling more than this and am rolling the offer on. This is not just for beginners, it is a good value kit compilation for any shaver. So, what do you get for the money?
Weishi razor. I use one of these myself, it is a Chinese made aluminium copy of a Gillette Super Speed and is very nicely engineered. It is a mild shaver so it won’t bite you but at the same time it is very effective at removing stubble. It is good for a beginner on two counts, firstly its light weight trains the user to exert the right pressure (none) without a lot of razor weight getting in the way. Secondly the Weishi is very rewarding of getting the right shaving angle, which is a good thing to learn. The razor comes in a plastic travel case with a single Dorco blade.
Budget boar shaving brush.The one in the picture is a bright red handled Chinese brush, previously the kit included an Omega brush. Over time other brushes may be used depending on availability. Whichever it is it will be perfectly good for the job and will see you over till the day that you buy that Simpson’s Chubby CH2 in Best Badger.
5 blades from Petersburg Products International, currently it is the 7 O’Clock in the yellow packaging. Whichever it is you can be sure that it is just as excellent, the blades coming out of this factory set the standard.
Palmolive tallow shaving stick. One of the world’s great shaving soaps at any price. Just rub this into your stubble like a giant crayon then lather up with the brush. You could use this for your entire shaving career and you would not be missing much.
Post and packing within the UK.
If you are interested I only accept payment by paypal. Email me at bruce (at) everiss (dot) com .
There are three points to this article. Firstly real, traditional shaving is not a walled garden like multibladed system shaving. The choices are infinite so you can tailor your shaving experience every day to be exactly what you want.
Secondly this is anti snobbery. Too many people in traditional shaving only want to talk about Simpson’s brushes, Feather All Stainless razors and Castle Forbes shaving cream, or similar expensive, high end kit. Yet there is stuff out there that costs a fraction of the price and is just as good, if not better.
Thirdly this article is about cheap shaving. How to have a great shave without spending a lot of money. Double edged safety razor shaving using a lather generated with a brush has been with us for over 100 years, there are no patents to prevent competition and there is lots of that competition from manufacturers in low cost developing countries. A recipe for bargains. We will be using kit from India, China and Egypt.
For this shave there will be no compromises. Everything will be of the very highest, most luxurious quality. You could shave with this combination for the rest of your life and be happy with it. The fact that it is so cheap is just an enormous bonus. So this is what we shall use:
Shaving soap. Palmolive tallow based shaving stick, less than 50 pence in British supermarkets. Say 1 penny per shave. This is one of the world’s great shaving soaps, it forms a smooth, lubricating, luxurious lather very easily and smells fantastic. In fact it is difficult to know what they could do better. This is raved about across the wet shaving community and is very highly sought after in America where it is not on general sale.
Brush. I could suggest a cheapo boar brush from the discount shop, but we are talking about luxury here. The Frank Shaving finest badger at $9.99 from China is our bargain, it is as good as big name brushes at ten times the price. A quality brush like this should last for decades so the cost is just a few cents per month. This is a really excellent brush that will easily and quickly face lather the shaving stick, then it will hold enough charge for several passes. It is luxuriantly soft yet has enough backbone to give your face a good massage.
Razor. The Lord L6 (in the L1822 packaging) would be an outstanding shaving razor if it was $30, but it is about a tenth of this in its native Egypt and can be picked up for just a few dollars/pounds in the West. This is a 3 piece Tech type razor so the blade is held very rigidly. The highly chromed head is an almost exact copy of the highly rated Merkur head and, if anything, shaves even better. This is a top razor even by absolute standards. The long handle is aluminium which gives it a nice balance and which just adds to the control you have over it. And as this has, effectively, an infinite life, the cost of using it is zero.
Blade. Super-Max in India are the second biggest manufacturer of razor blades in the world, making about 20% of all blades used and they are sold in 125 countries. 200 Super-Max Super Stainless double edged blades cost just £6. That is 3 pence per blade, which is less than 1p per shave. The blade snobs don’t like this blade and you can understand exactly why. However many more open minded shavers report good results.
So our total cost per shave is around 2 pence. This is a tiny fraction of the cost of using a multibladed system razor with a foam that comes out of an aerosol can. Not only is it cheaper, it is also better and it is far kinder to the environment.
I just shaved with this combination. The Palmolive stick, as ever, caught me out with just how good it is. Lush, lathers so easily and with that manly scent that is redolent of barber’s shops. The Frank Shaving brush was just perfect, face lathering quickly and well then holding enough for multiple passes. The razor is fantastic, light after a few weeks with the Mergress, but very wieldy with that long handle. And the blade was a little less smooth than my favoured Iridium to start with but quickly settled down to give an excellent shave. Two passes and a touch up gave the desired results with no nicks or weepers. All for 2 pence. How can anyone use an expensive multibladed system razor?
Professor Randal C. Picker is the Paul and Theo Leffmann Professor of Commercial Law at The University of Chicago Law School and a Senior Fellow at The Computation Institute of the University of Chicago and at the Argonne National Laboratory. He has written a 36 page academic paper which is available to download for free in pdf form via this website. Titled “The Razors-and-Blades Myth(s)” it takes a fresh, academic, look at the early years of the Gillette company and makes fascinating reading for anyone with an interest in traditional shaving or in marketing.
Here is an abstract of the paper to give you an idea of the content:
The Razors-and-Blades Myth(s)
Randal C. Picker
University of Chicago – Law School
September 13, 2010
U of Chicago Law & Economics, Olin Working Paper No. 532
Abstract: The razors-and-blades story offers a foundational understanding of a key area of economics and strategy: Invest in an installed base by selling the razor handles at low prices or even giving them away, then sell the razor blades at high prices to justify the prior investment. Large chunks of modern technological life – from VCRs and DVD players to video game systems like the Xbox and now ebook readers – seem to operate subject to the same dynamics of razors and blades.
At least on the paper, the competitive dynamics of this situation are straightforward and well understood. If you actually give away the handle to create the installed base, you need to recapture those loses in the blade sales. And if you are selling blades above cost, you need to be able to tie the blades to your handle or you should expect entry in the blades business to compete on the base that you have installed.
That is at least the theory. The actual facts of the dawn of the disposable razor blades market are quite confounding. Gillette’s 1904 patents gave it the power to block entry into the installed base of handles that it would create. While other firms could and did enter the multi-blade market with their own handles and blades, no one could produce Gillette handles or blades during the life of the patents.
From 1904-1921, Gillette could have played razors-and-blades – low-price or free handles and expensive blades – but it did not do so. Gillette set a high price for its handle – high as measured by the price of competing razors and the prices of other contemporaneous goods – and fought to maintain those high prices during the life of the patents. For whatever it is worth, the firm understood to have invented razors-and-blades as a business strategy did not play that strategy at the point that it was best situated to do so.
It was at the point of the expiration of the 1904 patents that Gillette started to play something like razors-and-blades, though the actual facts are much more interesting than that. Before the expiration of the 1904 patents, the multi-blade market was segmented, with Gillette occupying the high end with razor sets listing at $5.00 and other brands such as Ever-Ready and Gem Junior occupying the low-end with sets listing at $1.00.
Given Gillette’s high handle prices, it had to fear entry in handles, but it had a solution to that entry: it dropped its handle prices to match those of its multi-blade competitors. And Gillette simultaneously introduced a new patented razor handle sold at its traditional high price point. Gillette was now selling a product line, with the old-style Gillette priced to compete at the low-end and the new Gillette occupying the high end. Gillette foreclosed low-end entry by doing it itself and yet it also offered an upgrade path with the new handle.
But what of the blades? Gillette’s pricing strategy for blades showed a remarkable stickiness, indeed, sticky doesn’t begin to capture it. By 1909, the Gillette list price for a dozen blades was $1 and Gillette maintained that price until 1924, though there clearly was discounting off of list as Sears sold for around 80 cents during most of that time. In 1924, Gillette reduced the number of blades from 12 to 10 and maintained the $1.00 list price, so a real price jump if not a nominal one. That was Gillette’s blade pricing strategy.
It is hard to know what to say about that strategy. If Gillette had finally understood razors-and-blades they might have coupled their new low-end razor with higher blade prices and the two changes coincide roughly. But the other event, of course, was the expiration of the 1904 blade patents and eventual entry of Gillette blade competitors. That should have pushed blade prices down and made it difficult for Gillette to play razors-and-blades. Indeed, even with the drop from 12 to 10 blades, by 1930, Sears was selling genuine Gillette blades for the price it had been selling them prior to the packet reduction.
And all of that gets us to the final irony. No razors-and-blades during the years of 1904 patents. With the expiration of the patents, Gillette no longer had a way to tie the blades to the handles and thus, at least on paper, seemed to have no good way to play razors-and-blades. Yet with sale of razor sets to the U.S. government during World War I and the jump in handle sales with the introduction of the low-price old-style handle, Gillette’s installed based jumped rapidly and the profits followed.
And that leaves a hole in the analysis. Gillette hadn’t played razors-and-blades when it could have during the life of the 1904 patents and didn’t seem well situated to do so after their expiration, but it was exactly at that point that Gillette played something like razors-and-blades and that was when it made the most money. Razors-and-blades seems to have worked at the point where the theory suggests that it shouldn’t have. Why is that? Did Gillette succeed because of quality or were their powerful even-if-hard-to-discern-now locks – psychological or otherwise – between the razors and the blades?
I have a very keen interest in art and for some years now have run an online community for artists, Artforums.co.uk. So this picture is interesting as it combines two of my hobbies.
This picture was exhibited at The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston in 2008. They said: “It is impossible to describe Antonio López García simply as a painter in the “realist” school. His masterful paintings of the prosaic, familiar places of his world and of the family and friends comprising it reveal an unusual sensitivity to his subject. Through uncompromising study of his subjects, he has imbued the commonplace with a haunting and extraordinary character, seen in his exceptional depiction of light—at once brilliant and subdued, ethereal and fleeting, and palpable.”
Of this picture one critic said: “Sink and Mirroris a combination of two paintings: the sink at bottom, the shelf with the mirror at top. Since the bathroom is narrow, the artist had to place himself very close to the subject, causing visual distortion of the vertical lines delineating the tiles. Rather than correct this, he has created a middle area, a sort of neutral band, in which the lines of the preliminary sketch are left visible as a record of process.”
What is for sure is that it shows the accoutrements of real, traditional shaving. A double edged razor, a shaving stick and brush, a couple of blades and some aftershave. All very typical of 1967 when it was painted.
My parents retired to Spain about 30 years ago and so I have been a frequent visitor ever since. One result was being exposed to the fantastic Spanish bath soaps, Magno (from La Toja). Heno de Pravia and Maja. Every trip some of these would be in the suitcase for the return journey. And then there were the clothes of Adolfo Dominguez and his classic aftershave, Agua Fresca, one of the world’s greatest citrus perfumes which has been my favourite for decades.
This time, however I decided to see what was on offer for the traditional shaver. The number one dominant influence is La Toja shaving sticks which are for sale everywhere and which are truly excellent to use. Just like Palmolive shaving sticks in England there is a wide variation in the prices that retailers charge for these. In one shop I found an old stock stick that had different coloured packaging (dark brown) and a slightly different formulation.
La Toja also make a shaving cream in huge 150ml tubes which comes in classic and sensitive flavours. The only other Spanish brand of shaving soap/cream I could find was LEA, but the big global brands were there including Gillette cream.
When it comes to Spanish after shave balm I already had the Adolfo Dominguez after shave emulsion. This time I bought some of the La Toja “Extra Sensible” balsamo which is “con salses minerales y aloe vera” and which is rather good. There was also some BEA after shave balsam from the same company that do the LEA shave cream.
When it comes to aftershaves it will come as no surprise to find that once again La Toja are in the market with a very nice traditional smell that is “frescor y cuidato”. Also very evident in the shops was Williams Aqua Velva which is “frescor tonificante” and which has a pleasant and rather unique smell. Finally I found some Floid aftershave which is “mentolado suave” and which is very nice indeed.
The purpose of this article is not to list Spanish shaving stuff, it is to demonstrate the variety, fun and adventure that a traditional shaver can have when they travel. A similar article to this could be written with a trip to Germany, Italy, America etc in the West and, possibly more interestingly, with a trip to Turkey, Egypt, Russia, India, China or Pakistan.
Finally, due to the wonders of globalisation and the interwebs, you can buy just about everything I mentioned online.
I have written on here before about the Ace fogless shower mirror which uses a patented water reservoir to stop it misting up in the shower. The problem with this device is that it is only sold in the USA, it seems that we Europeans don’t appear on Ace’s radar. To get over this I arranged a transatlantic swap with an American real shaving enthusiast, in return for some tallow shaving sticks that are unavailable in America he sent me the mirror. And now it has arrived.
First impressions are that it is just large enough to do the job and that it is very nicely made. Finding the right place for it in the shower was the next task, somewhere where there was plenty of light and where the ergonomics worked. Then it was a case of reorganising the shelf in there to accomodate the extra kit.
First go was this morning. Using a Mergress XL with a Derby blade and a Simpson’s Duke 3 in best badger (10 times the price of a Frank Shaving finest) with Taylor’s of Old Bond Street Eton College Collection shaving cream. The mirror’s reservoir filled up very quickly and easily from the shower head and everything worked exactly as advertised, there was zero mist on the mirror and it was very easy to shave with.
Three benefits were immediately apparent compared to shaving at the sink, firstly it is possible to adapt a two handed shaving technique with the left hand feeling for the stubble and the right hand wielding the razor, this would make an immense mess if you tried it outside the shower and is very effective for getting the best shave. Secondly it is very easy to rinse the face very thoroughly of all lather, including behind the ears! And thirdly everything remained nice and warm throughout the shave.
With further practice this can only get better so the Ace mirror definitely brings a whole new element to the traditional shaving experience.
Here are some more of the early Gillette advertisements that I have scanned in. The first three look like quarter page adverts from Punch magazine from before World War 1.
The first is exhorting, presumably womenfolk, to buy men razors for Christmas, a bit brave of Gillette when giving a blade as a gift is traditionally bad luck. This razor as gift concept obviously worked because it is not uncommon to come across totally unused vintage razors, especially travel sets. The men presumably put the gift in the draw and continued using their old razor. Ingraining this gift concept in the collective conscience was good marketing because it reached new customers who would then be forced to buy the expensive patented blades for posterity.
The next advertisement is another dig at the cut throat razor and the use of barbers. It is telling men to shave themselves and is telling them how much more convenient it will be, how presentable they will be after just three minutes with a Gillette razor.
This third advertisement is getting closer to a true product advert. They use the left hand side to trumpet the superiority of the safety razor with some features and benefits whilst having veiled digs at the competition. Then the right hand side has the product, and for the first time the price. And what a product, triple silver plated in a Morocco box at the immense price of a guinea, or 21 shillings, this is not aimed at the mass market.
Finally we have a much later advertisement and from a different periodical. From the Sketch in Christmas 1926. You can see that this is a much more sophisticated advertisement. Once again they are banging on about the Christmas present angle, just like De Beers banged on about buying diamond engagement rings. And it worked for both companies. Even today you see big Christmas gift packs of system razors appearing at retailers in Q4 each year. One very nice point is that by 1926 they have a royal warrant. By Appointment to His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales. That would be the very clean shaven Edward Albert Christian George Andrew Patrick David Windsor, who 10 years later as Edward VIII abdicated as king. There was no royal warrant to the king in 1926 because George V, Edwards father, supported a very fine beard and an even finer moustache.
Alum blocks and their slimmed down form, styptic pencils, have a long history in traditional shaving. The blocks are used after a shave, rubbed over the entire face and the pencils are used as an astringent to prevent bleeding from small nicks and cuts. Alum is crystallised hydrated potassium aluminium sulphate, also the ammonium and sodium salts are very similar, and what causes the doubts about it is the presence of the metal, aluminium.
When I was young a lot of the pots and pans in the kitchen were aluminium, it is perfect for the job because it is light and conducts heat well, yet now you never see aluminium used in cooking. This is because it is toxic to our nervous system and bone structure. In addition Wikipedia says that the use of aluminium in antiperspirants is “controversial” as it is a possible factor in breast cancer and in Alzheimer’s disease, with brain plaques of sufferers showing an elevated presence of the metal. There is an article about aluminium toxicity here.
Although the use of alum in shaving is external, human skin is not impermeable and the action of shaving causes many small cuts and abrasions that do not bleed but which would ease the absorption of aluminium into our bodies. And of course styptic pencils are used directly on bleeding cuts, which must transfer some of the chemical into our systems.
There are alternatives to using alum for cuts. As I wrote in an earlier article about bleeding and shaving, a thorough splashing with cold water will stop most small nicks and weepers, the cold constricts the capillaries supplying blood to the surface of the skin. Anything still bleeding after this can be stopped by putting a small piece of paper tissue on it, this enhances the natural clotting mechanism by vastly increasing the surface area that it is working in and the tissue can then be removed after a few minutes.
Of course it is up to you, if there were a medically proven danger then alum would already be banned for human external use. However medical knowledge is very far from perfect and often lags a long way behind what is actually happening in the world. You choose.
A couple of months ago I was putting together a traditional shaving starter kit for a friend who has high moral scruples concerning the impact that his existence has on other animals. So perhaps I can share with you the issues involved.
With the razor and blade there are no big issues, obviously. These are made of metal. The only possibility for concern would be waxes and glues used in the packaging of blades, but the same applies to the packaging of just about everything in our lives.
The real problem is in making a lather, many of the best shaving soaps are made from tallow, which is animal fat and the best brushes are made from the hair of badgers that have been killed as vermin, mainly in China.
The tallow can be avoided by using creams, which are mainly made of plant oils such as palm oil. Maca Root cream from The Body Shop is a prime example.
Another way of retaining the high moral ground is to use tallow soaps where the tallow was produced without harming animals, such as the wool fat extracted from sheep wool shearing. On Mitchell’s Wool Fat soap’s packet it says “No animal suffers in the preparation of this bio-degradable product”.
And finally you can buy your soaps and creams from artisan makers who have their own high ethical standards. Nanny’s Silly Soap Company say: “I provide a range of soaps all of which are vegetarian, and most of which are vegan. The non vegan ingredients used in some of my products are honey, goat’s milk and tussah silk (wild harvested after the moth has emerged).”
With brushes badger hair is recognised as being by far the best. The first way to avoid harming animals is to use a brush with a synthetic knot, where the hairs are made of plastics derived from petrochemicals, but they are nowhere near as good as badger hair brushes. There are a number of different models of these available. Luckily “Siv” on one of the forums has done a full analysis of ten different offerings. The best value for money is the Body Shop brush and this is what I bought my friend. The best overall is the Taylor’s of Old Bond Street brush. If you have a close look at one of these you will see that the individual hairs have been mechanically flattened to vastly increase their surface area.
A better way to have a good shaving brush without harming animals is to use a horse hair brush, these are made from hairs that come from grooming live animals. The resultant brushes are really excellent and have been described as being 85% badger and 85% boar in their properties. They are common in some countries such as Turkey and Spain. I have one of these which I cannot fault. And they offer a big range of brushes made from horse hair.
So there we have it you can enjoy the luxury and pampering of real, traditional shaving whilst retaining the self satisfaction of retaining your moral superiority. But you will never get to enjoy the supreme excellence of a Simpson’s Chubby 2 in Best Badger.
