Shaving is saving, the advertisement promises, as long as the shaving is done with a Gillette. And in 1906 this might have been true… today? Buying the current offering from Gillette or the other big multinationals is a sure way to spend money – carts are expensive, when compared to the good old double edged blade.

But in 1906, Gillette offered a way to save both cash and time when compared to going to the barbershop. You could shave – and shave – at home in just four minutes. And shaving is saving when a single blade can be used for thirty, sixty, or even one hundred and forty two times.

Thirty shaves is about what Gillette suggests for the carts they sell today, as I discovered when I did the math on how much shaving costs a few years back. Given that Gillette blades in 1906 costed about half of what carts costs today when adjusted for inflation (5 US cents in 1906 comes out to 1.75 US dollars today – and over at Amazon the average price of a Fusion5 cart is about 3.50 US dollar). So compared to today, shaving is saving.

It is also interesting to see the reasonable wide range of different razor sets offered in 1906 (inflation adjusted price in parenthesis):

• The baseline triple silver-plated set with a dozen blades (175.17 USD)
• Quadruple gold-plated set with a dozen blades (350.33 USD)
• A monogrammed quadruple gold-plated set with a dozen blades (420.40 USD)
• A ‘standard’ combination set with shaving brush and soap in silver-plated containers (262.75 USD)
• Other combination sets in silver and gold (up to 1751.67 USD)

If you opted from the more expensive sets, you had to hope that the idea that shaving is saving held true… because your would have to save after dropping that much on a brush and razor – even if you got a dozen blades.