The self-soaping shaving brush is not a new idea. We’ve looked at various ones from 1849 and onward up until the 1980s. But what we have today is not not a self-soaping brush – it is a self-watering brush. Although you could likely use it as a self-soaping one too, with the right liquid soap.

Most – if not all – inventions try to solve some form of problem. Some are successful. Some solve problems we no longer have. And sometimes the problem is imaginary. As to which category James B Fischbach’s self-watering brush falls in… well, let’s look at his patent.

The object of my invention is to construct a brush used for shaving purposes, and to effect certain improvements of this character whereby simple and efficient means shall be provided for forcing water into the brush and for readily controlling the flow.

It is also constructed to fill itself when said brush is placed in water, and at the same time when the brush is being used it supplies the bristles or hair of said brush with said water.

From US patent 583,702

The secret is on the inside of the otherwise normal looking brush. A rubber bulb with an elongated teat sat inside the hollow handle. The tip of the teat nestles between the hair of the knot. When a operator wants to shave, he places the brush in water as normal. And then he pushes on the bulb, expelling the air. This, in turn, makes the bulb suck water through the teat. Then, while he is lathering normally, the operator can push the bulb to squeeze some of the water into the knot to hydrate it.

Yes, I’m not sure either as to what benefit this would have. A easy way to add water to lather, but I can think of other and simpler ways to achieve it.

I think we can add the patent for the self-watering brush to the list of patents that solves imaginary problems.

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

An interesting thing about old patents – especially really old ones – is that the inventions looks so… obvious today. Like this 1870 patent for an improvement in shaving-mugs. A hundred and fifty three year later is just a shaving mug. Back in 1870 Frank B Clock’s idea was a non-obvious improvement to the state of art. Time marches on, I guess – for better or worse.

The problem of how to store our brushes have been with us a long time. Store it bristles up, and the handle gets wet. Store it bristles down, and the bristles may deform. Luckily Samuel T Varian have come up with a simple shaving-brush holder that can easily be clipped onto your shaving mug. Or anywhere else, for that matter.

There are fewer patents for shaving mugs than there are for razors. Even so, some basic ideas gets recycled. A few years ago I snarked on a 1875 patent for a shaving mug where you could screw your soap down to keep it from falling out or flipping around. Just a few years later Mr Joseph Maria Blasi solved the same problem with a rather more spiky shaving mug.

Have you ever gotten fed up with how the cake of soap sits at the bottom of the shaving cup, being wet and gross and all that stuff? Me neither, but in our defence most of the people treating traditional wetshaving as a hobby have more than one soap. And most of us don’t keep it in a single shaving mug. But way back then, when a single cake of soap kept in a mug was the order of the day? I can definitely see the appeal of John Richardson’s 1892 patent for a shaving soap holder.

And it is a nice, simple idea too. But before we look closer, let us see what John wanted to achieve:

Design patents are a different breed. A utility patent, which most of the patents I write about are, protects a new new or improved – and useful – product, process, or machine. A design patent, on the other hand, covers any any new, original and ornamental design for an article of manufacture. Designs like Herman Griebel’s design for a shaving-mug, which he got a 3½ years design patent for in November of 1882.