King Camp Gillette

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-Early Ad for the Safety Razor

Marketing students are always taught the genius of King Camp Gillette. He was the one who invented the safety razor with disposable blades. The razor (in this case, the "loss leader") was inexpensive; the profit was in the blades. This business idea is sometimes referred to as "freebie marketing." In 1903 — the first year the new razor was marketed — 51 razors and 168 blades were sold. Within a couple of years, Gillette had sold over 90,000 razors and some 12,000,000 blades. King Camp Gillette was born on this date in 1855.

Quote: "One day soon the Gillette company will announce the development of a razor that, thanks to a computer microchip, can actually travel ahead in time and shave beard hairs that don't even exist yet." — Dave Barry

Richard

 

[RDB]

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Quote: "One day soon the Gillette company will announce the development of a razor that, thanks to a computer microchip, can actually travel ahead in time and shave beard hairs that don't even exist yet." — Dave Barry

Richard

I'll be happy with one that gets todays. If I don't need to shave tomorrow, that would be OK too.

 

[ricoba]

As someone who has rediscovered the joy of the old fashioned shave, ie., using a double edge safety razor and shave soap and badger brush, I can tell you those old throw away Gillette razors are now once again quite popular and can be quite expensive.

Thanks for that history lesson and great picture.

If you want to learn more about the joys of wet shaving and the joy of shaving old style, check out Badger & Blade. It is to the shaving world, what TUG is to the timeshare world.