As I briefly mentioned in a post a couple of years ago, the idea of a heated razor is old. As old as the idea of self-lubricating razors and self feeding brushes. And a heated safety razor makes about as much sense to me. It may make more sense if you’re bathroom is frigid and you don’t have endless hot water straight from the tap. And it obviously made some form of sense to Leon and Thomas J Henderson back in 1935 when they applied for a patent for their variation on the theme of heated safety razor.

So what did the two brothers¹ set out to achieve? Let us check the patent text:

The primary object of our invention is to provide in a safety razor a handle thereof which in use will apply heat only to the desired portion of the razor, that is, the head and blade, but will maintain a cool handle or grip.

From US patent 2,063,808

So in short, a razor that kept – to paraphrase a bit – the hot side hot and the cold side cold.

The heating element – marked 19 on the drawing – is wrapped around a metal stud. The razor head is mounted on the other end of the stud. Surrounding the heating element is a cylinder of insulating material. Attached to this is another cylinder of insulating material, which in turn is inside the handle.

So when the electrical wire – which hangs out the end of the handle – is connected to a suitable power source,² the heating element should heat the stud and not the handle. And since the razor head is attached to the stud, that should heat up to.

Of course, the relative coolness of the handle would depend entirely on how effective the insolation was. The patent cleverly does not suggest a specific insulator for their heated safety razor. Instead it just states it should be “a suitable heat insulating material”. Since this razor seem to be a bad idea to begin with, I propose copious amounts of asbestos.

The patent is long expired, but I cannot see anyone wanting to copy the idea today.

As usual, you can read the full patent at Google Patents.

Footnotes

1. At least I assume they were brothers, since they shared the same surname.
2. Like a wall outlet – nothing like 230VAC to brighten up the morning shave.