Tag Archives: Gear

The alpha and omega of a good shave

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The one major lesson I learned after taking up traditional wetshaving is that good prep-work is alpha and omega. A great shave is built on a good prep, just like a good house is built on solid fundations, and to me prep-work includes everything you do up until the blade touches the skin.

  • I wash my face vigorously, preferable with Dr Bronner Soap. Some days – if I notice unclean skin or hints of razor burn – I use my Clarisonic face brush thingy.
  • I rinse off all the soap. Absolutely all, since soap left on the skin can ruin the lather for me.
  • I build my lather, using my choosen brush and shave soap. Some soaps requires light loading, some heavy.. some like a dryish brush, others needs it soaking wet.
  • I rinse my face again.
  • I apply the lather… getting good coverage over every part of my stubble with at least a centimeter over-coverage.
  • Then, and only then, do I reach for my razor.

You don’t build your house on sandy ground if you want it to remain standing, and you don’t shave without doing your prep if you want a damn fine shave. Simple as that.

Clarisonic face brush thingy – sort of a review

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I’ll come clean; after borrowing my Better Half’s Clarisonic face brush for a long while – so long she got me my own brushes for it – I went and bought my own Clarisonic Mia 2… in part so I can bring it with me when I travel without being spotted with a bright pink thing in my toiletry bag (and without my Better Half getting annoyed at me for abducting her Clarisonic).

First things first; I did consider getting the Alpha Fit, however reading reviews online indicates issues with the battery in that model, so I picked up a white Mia 2.
That aside, lets get on with it. The Clarisonic Mia is waterproof with no holes water can in through – this is a great thing for something meant to be used in the shower. It sits nicely in my hand, however it might be a bit bulky for someone with smaller hands. The battery last for a long time, and takes a few hours to charge when empty.

Unlike cheaper electric face brushes the Clarisonic range uses what they refer to as “micro massage”, in other words the head don’t spin around but jiggles back and forth. It might sound gimmicky, but it works rather well. Ingrown hairs and clogged pores clean right up.
It has a timer on it too, to make sure you spend enough time in each area of your T-sone… it may sound like a bit of wankery, but again it works.

The two drawbacks of the Mia 2 I’ve found so far is the amonth of space it takes in my bag when traveling and the fact that it really, really makes my nose tickle… but then I’m much more ticklish than most so don’t take that as a problem for everyone.
Is Clarisonic worth the price? The short answer is yes; it makes cleaning my face easier, and it helps clean up potential skin issues before they turn into problems. It is fairly expensive though, so if you allready have good skin with little to no issues you may not need to splurge.

A trio of magnetic razors, revisited

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Remember these old patents? Now look at this image of a magnetic safety razor I found online:

Sadly the only thing I know about it is that the photo is labeled “u magnet safety razor”, but it sure looks like it’s straight out of Mr Ames’ patents.

Gillette Toggle – patent, parts and possible revival as the Janus Razor

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The Gillette Toggle is one of the more mechanically interesting razors out there… by moving a lever – the “toggle” that gives the razor it’s name – one way or the other the razor head will either open fully to let a user replace a blade, or just a smidgen to let a user rinse the blade.

The mechanism behind the Toggle was patented in 1957, and the patent itself makes for pretty interesting reading. Several springs have to be tuned to work in harmony, and making it adjustable increases the complexity further. I mean, just have a look:

Now compare that to a traditional three piece or even twist-to-open razor… and you understand why the Toggle wasn’t a cheap razor when it was introduced. Now, the Toggle as manufactured wasn’t identical to the patent – changes was likely made to improve ease of manufacture – but it was still a complicated razor as the following drawings show:

If the drawings are a little hard to read, well, I found an image of a disassembled Toggle:

A large spring that – I guess – controls the adjusting razor head, and a smaller one that seems to control the toggle. Or it might be the other way around – this is a razor that makes my head spin a bit. It’s also worth noting all the bushings and washers that allow bits to rotate and slide in relation to each other… this is a razor that will not take kindly to gunk in the mechanism.
As far as I know – or knew, rather – the complexity of the Toggle meant that no one tried to copy it or make a direct competitor. So imagine my surprise and mechanical interest when I stumbled over a thread on my favorite shave forum that pointed me towards Janus Razors; a small scale operation bent on recreating the Toggle.
As far as I can tell it’s not a straight copy, but rather a reimagining of the Toggle adapted for modern materials and manufacture technologies… I’m probably not far of the mark when I’m guessing CNC-machining and investment castings, both technologies that were close to science fiction when the original Toggle was designed.
I’ve found a few images of what I believe is prototypes or preproduction samples:

While I don’t think I’ll get a Janus Toggle myself – limited budget, already have a fairly nice collection of razors in my rotation, and so on – but I’m tickled by the fact that someone is diving into the deep end of mechanically complicated razors and are trying to recreate the Gillette Toggle.

Somewhat disturbing early GEM advertisment

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Impossible to cut the face – sounds good.
Shaves Easy, quick and clean – great.
Pays for it self in a fortnight – perhaps a bit of hyperbole?
Every undertaker and embalmer should have one – wait, what‽

It makes sense though, in that corpses are (and were) usually shaved to make them more presentable, and if the safety razor could do it easier, faster, cheaper and with less chance of cuts and the danger of infection… sounds like a great idea to me.

Razor on a spring?

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For those who grew up with early eight bit micro computers* – such as myself – the Thing on a Spring was most assuredly a thing… but what has that Thing to do with razors?

Click for a trip down memory lane

Well… it was what I was reminded of when I stumbled upon Herr Felix Meyer’s patent for an “improved” safety razor. I imagine Herr Meyer was standing in his bathroom one morning in Germany and said to himself something along the lines of “Would this razor shave better is ze handle was not so stiff?”
And so he applied for, and got patented, an improvement that – in the words of his patents – was something like this:

In the preferred form of carrying out the invention the handle of the shaving device is made resilient, for instance, by being made or the like spring. Blade, guard and cap are either rigidly mounted together upon the resilient handle and have a common spring action, or the blade is stationary and-only guard and cap are resiliently mounted on the handle, or the cap and guard are stationary, whereas the blade is resilient.

The mechanics of having a moving blade – or moving base plate and top cap – while the rest of the razor is rigid is daunting… which may explain why the preferred form of the invention was a normal enough head mounted on a springy spring.
It is fairly clear from the description that the idea was for the razor to adjust to uneven pressure and sharpness by introducing an amount of ‘give’ to the razor, thus preventing cuts and nicks. Herr Meyer even came up with a way to adjust the stiffness of the handle:

Preferably the handle is so constructed that it does not consist of a single spring but of two coiled or other steel springs, which are inserted the one into the other, in such a manner that the handle can be made more or less rigid by adjusting the said coils, the one in the other. If instead of a coiled spring, a spiral (watch spring) is used for the handle, it is also preferable to make the handle in two parts, which can be taken apart and inserted into each other, so as to be able to again adjust the strength of the spring action at will. The object of the adjustability of the strength of the spring action is to be able to regulate the said spring action according to the growth of the beard or to the sharpness of the blade.

Reading the rather verbose text, it seem that Herr Meyer believed the flexible handle would give a shave closer to that of an experienced barber with a straight – or at least make it less likely for a new shaver to cut himself. Since we still uses razors with stiff, non-resilient handles, I’ll let you all work out how well Herr Meyer’s invention did in the marketplace…
… unlike the Thing on a Spring. That game have stuck with me and a generation of 8-bit gamers.

 *) At least those who had a C64 or C128, and I guess those with the Amstrad CPC as well. Not those sad people with a ZX81 or a Spectrum though.

Molle brushless cream

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Being a military man in the modern era, I though molle meant something quite different… Apparently, it’s pronounced “Moe-Lay.” For the “smooth, smooth, slick, slick, shave you get with Molle shaving cream!”

An early multiblade razor

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Today we’re used to the big multinationals sticking yet another blade on their razor and hailing it as the greatest breakthrough in shaving since the blunt stick… but the idea of “one blade good, more blades better” came quite soon after the Gillette safety razor hit the market. One of the earliest I’ve found so far was patented by Mr Herbert G. Harrison in 1909.

What Mr Harrison claimed in his patent was eightfold, namely:

1. A razor provided with a plurality of superposed blades, and with means for rigidly securing the cutting edges of said blades in such a close relation to each other that said edges may be simultaneously used for shaving the same spot, substantially as described.
2. A razor provided with a plurality of overlying blades and with means for rigidly securing the cutting edges of said blades one slightly behind the other and in such a close relation to each other that said edges may be simultaneously used for shaving the same spot, substantially as described.
3. A razor provided with a plurality of superposed removable blades, means for spacing said blades, and means for rigidly securing the cutting edges of said blades in such a relation to each other that said edges may be simultaneously used for shaving, substantially as described.
4. A safety razor provided with a guard, a plurality of overlying blades, and with clamping means for rigidly securing the blades in such a relation to each other that their cutting edges may be simultaneously used for shaving, substantially as described:
5. In a safety razor the combination of a plurality of superposed removable blades with curved clamping means, comprising a distance piece, for rigidly securing the blades in such a relation to each other that their cutting edges may be simultaneously used for shaving, substantially as described:
6. In a safety razor the combination of a plurality of superposed blades, a distance piece having eccentric curved surfaces; and means for rigidly securing said piece and blades in such a relation that the cutting edges will be presented to the skin simultaneously in the act of shaving, substantially as described.
7. In a safety razor the combination or a plurality of superposed blades with clamping means for rigidly securing the blades with the cutting edge of the one slightly in advance of the cutting edge of the other and in such relation to each other that their cutting edges may be simultaneously used for shaving, substantially as described.
8. A safety razor provided with a guard, a plurality of overlapping blades, an with means for securing the cutting edges of said blades in such a relation to each other that said edges may be used simultaneously for shaving, substantially as described.

Sounds complicated. Luckily the drawings makes it all clearer…
So all those words just means two DE-blades stacked with a spacer in between. I seem to recall that a razor like that hit the market a couple of years back and pretty much flopped – much like Mr Harrioson’s razor seems to have done in 1909.

Rubberset brush advertisments

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The big selling point of the Rubberset brushes back in the day was that the bristles were set in rubber – which were claimed to be stronger, longer lasting and handling hot and wet better than other ways of setting the knot. So naturally they used those alleged benefits for all it was worth in their advertisements.

The patent for the Goodwill – or rather; the Probak

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Have a look a this Gillette Goodwill razor (picture found at Mr Razor’s site), paying special attention to the top cap:

Now; look at what Mr  Henry Jaques Gaisman patented and later transferred to Gillette Co LLC, covering both the shape of the blade and the manner in which it was secured in the razor:

Look at the top cap, with the square cut-outs and corner posts. Look at the Goodwill again. Looks remarkable similar, do they not?
I do believe this is the patent that gave rise to the Goodwill – well, technically to the Probak.
Probak, I hear you say?
Turns out that the DE blade we know and love today isn’t really a Gillette blade, but the result of an attempt to work around Gillette’s patent on the three hole blade.
Mr Gaisman designed a blade that would work in his proprietary Probak razors (with oddly shaped studs – there was at least eight different base plates and top caps with different shaped studs) as well as in Gillette’s razors; but none of his razors could not accept a Gillette three hole blade, thus neatly sidestepping the patent.
With Gillette working on a similar concept at the time – using a slotted blade – the resulting patent conflict ended when Gillette bought out Probak Corp (and their parent company, AutoStrop Co). The stock of Probak razors were given away or sold cheaply (sources differs) as the Gillette Goodwill, and that is the name they are known under today.
To wrap things up, lets look at a Probak advertisement and compare to today’s DE-blade:

Apart from the shape of the middle hole – the X-shaped hole creates a lot of corners that ‘trap’ stress in the metal – the blade design is unmistakably Mr Gaisman’s, and not Gillette’s. And I only learned the story behind that because I found an old patent online… funny how things work sometimes.