Monthly Archives: May 2022

A vintage Gillette from the Norwegian Digital Museum

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Far gone are the days when seeing something cool and old meant travelling to a museum and hope they had it in the exhibition. Today, with the information superhighway and/or a series of tubes, we can see neat old things in the privacy of our own home.

And cats. For some reason the internet is full of cats.

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All-flex pocket razor

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While a razor that can fit in a pocket – a pocket razor, if you like – is all well and good, there have to be compromises made when you want to have a razor the size of a fountain pen. The pen style shavette, the pen with a razor, and Bowlin’s patent all shared one drawback; they used proprietary, narrow blades. The compact razor we looked at a little while back avoids that issue, by being chunkier. But what if you want to retain that pen like sleekness, yet still use a full sized razor blade? Then you end up with C J Garritson’s all-flex pocket razor.

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Shave of the day 6th May 2022

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Razor: Parker 22R

Blade: “Normal”

Brush: N/A

Pre-Shave: Proraso Pre Shave Cream

Lather: La Toja canned goo

Aftershave: Barber No3 Marmara

Additional Care: Alum Block

SOTDPhoto 2022-05-06
SOTD 2022-05-06

Halfway on a whim, I decided to try the canned goo I got in Gifts&Care’s advent calendar. Not as horrible as I recall canned goo being, so I guess improved prep is alpha and omega if you’re reduced to aerosol cans for your shave. Made a mess though; uneven coverage, and had to wash my hands before I could pick up the razor.

But I tried it…

An ad for the new slotted blade

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The history of the shaving industry can be described – in part – as being a fight over control. As long as a company controls the patent, they control the manufacture – and thus the cash flow. A very good example of this is the blade. As long as Gillette’s patent for the three hole blade was in force, no one else could legally make three hole blades. Once the patent got close to expiration, Gillette started to innovate again. One constrain was that a new blade should fit old razors too – but new razors shouldn’t be able to use the old style blade. The result was a new slotted blade – but not quite the blade we know today.

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