advertising of the day, and blade longevity

[nicodemus38]

I have always seen the thoughts and tales of the one pass, or even 2, maybe 3 pass BBS shave being the "goal" of everyone shaving. So whil egoign through old examples of gillettes advertising and the miracles he professed about his products the following things came up.

In his print ads, he professed the following on his blades.

12 - 20 satisfactory shaves PER blade. Thus meaning that ,,,,,

when you spent your 5 dollars on a double ring in 1904, those 12 blades were garunteed to give 300 velvet shaves.

one ad for the 1904 has a "customer letter" snippet claiming 62 shaves from one blade. but the regular ad type for the blades says 10-40 velvety shaves from a single blade.

[nicodemus38]

that's with the crummy blades of the day. The question is, why has blade longevity gone DOWN?

[CMur12]

Those old carbon steel blades could be honed, at least in theory. The older blades were also thicker, which may or may not have affected longevity. You used to be able to buy blade stroppers for DE and SE blades, and men also claimed to extend the life of their blades by honing them on the inside of a drinking glass.

Some shavers today insist that they can extend the life of a blade by hand-stropping. I hand-strop my blades because I think it makes them smoother (especially for the first shave) and because I think it helps to keep the edge free of impurities, but I haven't been able to prove extended blade life from it. There are even products offered now that are supposed to extend the life of blades in cartridge heads.

- Murray

[nicodemus38]

the advertising from Gillette all has had the same methodology for taking the razor apart, taking the blade out, rinsing everything in running water, shaking it dry patting it dry on a towel and then reassembling it for storage.

It wasn't really until the toggle and the 1958 sperspeed where I see the advertising not even mentioning the fact you should remove the blade to rinse it. At that moment in Gillette history it seems, simply open the doors, and hold the razor vertically under running water got the job done of cleaning.

And those claims of blade life, werefrom 1904-1933. So the blade technology did change but the claims did not.

[GA Russell]

Back in 1904, wasn't it common for men to shave only once a week?

[CMur12]

And those claims of blade life, werefrom 1904-1933. So the blade technology did change but the claims did not.

Nic, I'm not sure what you're saying. In your original post, you referred to claims by Gillette himself of extraordinary blade life. Now you state that these claims have not changed. If you are saying that P&G/Gillette still claims 12 - 20 shaves on a DE blade, where have you seen this?

- Murray

[nicodemus38]

that's with the crummy blades of the day. The question is, why has blade longevity gone DOWN?

thats with the pre 1940 blades. the later blades till what, 1970 get good credit of quality but the issue is,,,

why doesn't that sophisticated blade of TODAY get that kind of quality and blade life given the big "improvements" in steel, honing, and coatings?

[nicodemus38]

the thing is, I see and here how the modern blades are so much better, but its like, im always seeing how a good blade will get you 4-5 shaves. and blades that cost 3.50 for a pack of 5 blades.

So im curious if someone can explain why the cheap carbon blade from 1904-1940 was qarunteed to give 12-40 shaves before being worthless. Was replaced by stainless steel blades with chrome and platinum and ptfe coatings that can barely give a man 7 shaves at the most extreme?

[brothers]

Nic, it would probably be a guess, since we're all probably in the same boat as you here. My guess would be that none of the blanket unauthenticated statements are actually factual. The standards of longevity might be quite flexible. Could it be true that those guys who were supposed to be getting 20-40 shaves really didn't know when to quit. Maybe they were like I used to be way back when - I didn't know any better than to try to use blades indefinitely. I simply left them in the razor and used them until they completely quit working, and then I didn't really have $1.65 for a new pack of blades at the moment, so I just put it out of my mind until the next morning when I tried to shave and it was just not working. Nowadays we are quite spoiled with a thousand+++ new blades in the drawer, as opposed to never having more than 10 blades to my name when times were good, and maybe 1 or 0 when razor blades were just another source of s*** that I had to worry about and at the very bottom of my list, so we think we're rich and famous pissants who can just rip off another 4 day old blade and load up a new one. Bottom line 20-40 is probably just about as full of crap as 4-5. If you ask me (you did) nothing changed.

[CMur12]

Were the 1904 - 1940 blades guaranteed to give 12 - 40 shaves, or were they hyped to get them?

I know that with the Blue and Super Blue blades of the 1950s and 1960s, my dad used them for one shave and threw them away. When he adopted stainless blades, he got longer life out of them. The pre-1940 blades were thicker, but did they actually last any longer? I'm pretty sure that modern stainless blades outlast any carbon steel blades of the past.

Another thought: You can be sure that during the Depression, all sorts of ingenious methods were used to prolong the life of a blade and men probably tolerated a dull blade much longer than men do now.

These days you can't use deceitful advertising that makes false claims. That wasn't true before.

- Murray

[nicodemus38]

I see deceitful advertising all over the place.
such as the healthy electric cigarette.

[CMur12]

The electric cigarette is healthier in theory and ads have been based largely on what we didn't know. With new findings in research, it will affect what can be advertised about these devices.

- Murray

[drmoss_ca]

"It was the 57th day of the new razor blade....."

The distillation of dull post-war rationed Britain.

C.

[drmoss_ca]

I misremembered: it was the 54th day. Apologies to Eric Blair.

C.

[Squire]

Back in 1904, wasn't it common for men to shave only once a week?

Yep

[Squire]

Nic back in the old days advertising claims were not so closely regulated as today and some of the "testimonial letters" reprinted in those ads were bogus.