So remember; guys started shaving because of wide spread military service during the Great War (and the requirement to use respirators), women started because society body shamed them into it….
I have no idea how good or a bad a soap this might have been back in the day, but I am skeptical of a soap that claims to be useful for general toilet use, shaving, clothes laundering, and cleaning of mess kits and other equipment – as well as working in hard, soaps and salt water.
What I can tell, from the images I’ve found online, is that it came in two sizes; type 1 was 2 oz (57 grams) while type 2 was 4 oz (113 gram).
“Everyone” knows about the Gillette Khaki kits from the Great War, but I hadn’t heard about the Ever-Ready in khaki before now… so here is some pictures I found online.
A little while ago I found – well, my Better Half found and pointed out to me – an old razor in a flea marked. Haggling it down to half of what the seller asked for, I brought it home and found it to be an old Gillette Single Ring with the thick top cap and no serial number. A bit of online research points to it being from between 1921 and 28, which matches the mid 30’s Gillette Blue that was in the razor when I got it.
It was foul when I got it but a bit of hot water, dish soap and toothpaste got it up and running again. Plating on the head is in good nick, but there is severe plate loss on the handle and barrel… but that is to be expected.
Today is the 17th of May, Norwegian Constitution Day! Another wonderful day in a free country, devoted to celebrating how awesome it is to be lucky enough to live in freedom and relative peace.
However; not all of us are so lucky. Not everyone are born in freedom, not everyone lives in a country where the government’s main task is to work for the benefit of the population, not everyone benefits from an implied social contract that makes the stronger help the weaker.
Some people live in war zones and in terror. Some suffers from oppressive governments. Some are seeing right now how their home countries are sliding into dictatorships or anarchy. Some simply don’t know freedom as I, as we do. And that means that even as we celebrate our freedom, even as we’re remembering those who gave their lives so that we can be free, we cannot forget those who ain’t. To paraphrase Arnulf Øverland, a 20th century Norwegian poet, we cannot accept the loss of rights that don’t affect us directly.
You oughn’t abide, sitting calm in your home
Saying: Dismal it is, poor they are, and alone
You cannot permit it! You dare not, at all.
Accepting that outrage on all else may fall!
I cry with the final gasps of my breath:
You dare not repose, nor stand and forget!
I’m not saying everyone should run of and join the military – that would be counterproductive. I’m not saying we should “liberate” those who lives in less free countries – as we well know it’s easier to win a war than to build peace. But I am saying that we cannot forget those less fortunate. We cannot be so self centred that we delude ourselves into thinking that since we’re okay, everything is okay. We should help others remember, and through the means available to us work to remember and work to improve the lives of those less fortunate. It won’t be done quickly or easily, but it wont get done at all if we don’t remember that freedom don’t come for free. Happy 17th, and enjoy your freedoms!
I just noticed that my visitor counter on my blog ticked over 75.001 unique visits, for which I’m humbled and excited over at the same time. Thank you everyone for swinging by, and happy shaving!
I am pleased to announce that readers of my blog will get 10% discount at Pereira Shavery from today until the 31th of May 2018, if you contact them by email and use the code WW10%. You can read the review of their soap in a separate post.
Their website is at pereirashavery.com and has the necessary contact information. More information on and pictures of their products can be found at their Facebook page and Instagram at #pereirashavery
To the best of my knowledge their current products and prices is as follows: Comb Sandal Wood 2 Sided 9.00 € Comb Pear Tree 2 Sided6.00 € Comb Multi-Utility Beard 6.00 € Strop Paddler Wood Small 11.00 € Comb for Beard Gromming “V” shape 1 edge 9.00 € Comb for Beard Grooming “V” shape 2 edges 10.00 € Towel Pereira Shavery Embossed 7.00 € Shavette Razors: with one finger ring 14.00 € Shavette Razor straight 12.00 € Shaving Brush Boar Hair 15.00 € Shaving Soap With Activated Charcoal in Aluminum Dish 10.00 € Shaving Soap with Activated Charcoal in Ceramic Dish 25.00 € Shaving Soap with Activated Charcoal in Ceramic Dish And Ceramic Foam Mug 52.00 € Shaving Soap plastic with Orange and Cinnamon 12.00 € Strop Belt style 40 cm with leather ties 20.00 € Strop Belt Style 46 cm Made of Cow Leather 22.00 € Strop in Beechwood and Real Cow Hide large size 55.00 €
Today is VE day. Victory Europe day; the day the Third Reich formally surrendered to the Allies, thus ending the Second World War in Europe.
In Norway it also known as Liberation Day; the day the occupying Germans figured out that fighting to the last man in Festung Norwegen to appease a dead dictator was – to be blunt – kinda stupid, and decided to surrender to the Norwegian Resistance instead.
May 8th is also Veterans Day in Norway where we honour those who fought not just in the War with a capital W, but also those who served abroad on peace keeping and peace creating missions… and given the fact that the world seems to constantly balance on the edge of a knife, there are quite a few of those.
For those of us who still serve, and those who did their duty then and now, it can be an emotional day. Our forefathers fought – and sometimes fell – to give us our freedom. We owe it to others to do the same.
Today is VE day, so even if the story originated in the Great War and not the Second it’s oddly suitable.
World War One, known at the time as the Great War or the War to end all Wars (yeah, right…) was the first war when clean shaved faces were required. The reason was twofold; personal hygiene in the trenches, and ensuring a proper gas tight seal on the respirators. Up until chemical warfare became an issue, facial hair was often encouraged and sometimes required since follicular fashion statement was all about virility and aggression,* which was seen as good military qualities. British regulations from 1860 to 1916 stated that:
The hair of the head will be kept short. The chin and the under lip will be shaved, but not the upper lip…
So yeah.. shame on you if you couldn’t grow a decent moustache I guess.
Anyhow, I digress… so such was the state of affairs up until the first couple of years into the Great War. On 22 April 1915 the Germans released a huge cloud of chlorine near Yrpes. Cue a rapid development of respirators – starting with simple pads tied in front of the mouth and ending with models that almost be mistaken for modern ones – and the end of facial hair. When the US got ready to get involved in the tussle, the US Army regulations stated that beards were not permitted, and the maximum allowable hair length was one inch. King Gillette got the job of making sure every member of the American Expeditionary Forces was clean shaven.. and the rest is history.
To summarize: This:
means you have to use these:
and that means you’ll need something like this:
which in turns leads to this:
which lead to a whole generation of young men learning to shave themselves and getting used to being clean shaven every day. And that is where we are today… beards come and go, but shaving is here to stay.
*) Same reason men in many non-western parts of the world is expected to have a full beard as soon as they are of age – they are quite literally seen as less manly without it.
Back in the day the words “electricity” and “magnetism” carried much the same meaning as “quantum” do today; something modern and futuristic. So when A L Silberstein’s firm came up with a straight razor in 1905 or thereabout which was tempered using electrical heat instead of gas or coal… off course they were going to slap a modern name of it. Say hello to the Carbo-Magnetic Razor!
I also found a few modern photos of the Carbo-Magnetic Razor; the etching on the blade is quite stunning.
