It’s all well and good to have a fun razor to shave with, an odd brush to make lather with, and an old soap to make lather from… but if you can’t see your own face, your shave probably won’t be great. And for those who shave in the shower, you’ll probably like a non-steaming mirror. Like the one Nicholas S Kladitis filed a patent for in 1980, for example.

The idea is simple enough in hindsight. What causes a mirror to “steam up” is the fact that water vapour will condense on a cold surface. So if the mirror was heated up, it would not fog over. To achieve this Nicholas made his mirror hollow, so the user could fill the interior with hot water before shaving. And to make his non-steaming mirror more attractive to the shower-shavers, he also tilted the mirror so water would not stay on the surface or run down the front. And he made a little shelf, which could hold a razor, a soap, and a brush.

Or, as the patent put it:

…said housing and a surface of said reflective member defining a compartment for storing a predetermined quantity of a hot liquid behind said surface and maintaining a portion of the liquid in contact with said surface of said reflective member to conduct heat from said liquid to said reflective member…

…said reflective member is oriented on said housing such that the planes including said reflective surface and said rear housing surface intersect at an angle, whereby the accumulation of water on the reflective surface is retarded…

…further comprising a base fixed to said housing for holding shaving articles…

From US patent 4,327,961

All in all there is no reason why Nicholas’ non-steaming mirror wouldn’t work. After all, a chamber of hot water behind the mirror is how all the non-steaming mirrors I found online works. And none of those had a shelf for keeping your shave gear on (I didn’t look very hard though).

If I shaved in the shower, Nicholas’ non-steaming mirror would be a very useful addition to my shave den. As it is, I just shave before I shower. It not only means my mirror don’t fog over, but it also means I can make sure I got all the lather rinsed out of my goatee.

You can read the full patent at Google Patents. And if you like old patents and shaving oddities, why not check out some of my older posts on the subject?