Book review: "King C. Gillette"

[AlanL]

Adams, Russell B., Jr. King C. Gillette, The Man and his Wonderful Shaving Device. Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1978.

This book can be classified as a biography of King Gillette, or a business history of the Gillette company. My library has it catalogued as a personal biography. Actually, it's more like a biography of the company. As a combination of bio, marketing strategies, and business history, it reads very well. The author has us sail from one epoch in the company's history to the next along the tides of technology breakthroughs and waves of economic undulations. Along the way, we learn about the answers to some interesting questions: Why was the first razor priced at $5 without allowing any discounts? How did Gillette thrive after the expiration of its first patents? How did a lawsuit against a small hardware store expose the company's own potential patent infringement liabilities? What does "Atra" mean? (There are two answers.)

If you want to read all about the business and technology surrounding the history of blades, this is the book for you.

Oddly, however, the book is rather bereft of much of the history of the safety razor between the open-comb New and the Trac II. The Super Speed gets briefly mentioned only twice, as appearing in early television advertisements; and the adjustable is mentioned only because Schick advertised how "dangerous" the adjustable was. Yet the omission of the development of the one-piece (TTO) razor is particularly glaring, when we read "Researchers had developed a razor-blade dispenser that did away with paper wrappings and promised to help thwart the strong competition from the Schick injector razor." (p. 201) Well, that new dispenser is specifically designed to work with the TTO razor, so to leave out the development of that razor in tandem with the dispenser is inexcusable.

To offer a history of Gillette and its products that barely mentions the Super Speed (which was manufactured and sold for 40 years! — longer than any other razor in the company's history) and only incidentally mentions an adjustable without being specific about the fat handle ("Fat Boy") or the Slim, to completely ignore the safety bar (closed-comb), Tech, and Super Adjustables, creates such a wide gap that it leaves this reader a bit unsatisfied. Written with the "complete cooperation of Gillette officials," (p. x) it could be that the author also wanted to cooperate and push on to the next generation of shaving systems and emphasize the new Trac II. After all, in 1978 the TTO was yesterday's news.

Still, there's much to enjoy in this book. These other threads mention it.

After the Adams book, the succeeding 20 years of the company's history is covered in Cutting Edge: Gillette's Journey to Global Leadership by Gordon McKibben.

 

[Sydney Guy]

So what does "Atra" mean and why didn't they simply call it the Contour as they did outside the US?

 

[AlanL]

So what does "Atra" mean and why didn't they simply call it the Contour as they did outside the US?

The first internal use of the name "Atra" was during development of the Trac II. A rejected alternative was the Australian Test RAzor, where it was originally consumer tested. It was also known as the Contra, for it had opposing blades that allowed you to shave while stroking up and down, "much like the cutting edges of a potato peeler."

The version of razor finally issued as the Atra stands for Automatic Tracking Razor Action.

 

[Medic82]

Just placed an order for a copy. Thank you AlanL for making me spend more money.

 

[Sydney Guy]

Interesting that they test-marketed it in Australia. Any idea what year that was? I bought one of them in the mid-to-late-70s and IIRC it was always called the Contour here.

 

[AlanL]

Interesting that they test-marketed it in Australia. Any idea what year that was? I bought one of them in the mid-to-late-70s and IIRC it was always called the Contour here.

"Consumer testing" probably does not involve marketing or selling. The razor was probably provided free to selected consumers for testing and feedback. This might be worth quoting at length:

The Emperor scheme was in time melded with another project, in which two conventional blades were spaced in tandem array. Merged, the two efforts were given the equally royal designation of Rex.

Meanwhile, off on still another track, the ingenious Britishers came up with a razor whose narrow blades faced one another much like the cutting edges of a potato peeler. Wielding this model, a shaver could adopt a scrubbing motion, and shear off his whiskers on both the up and down strokes.

As almost simultaneous work proceeded on the Rex and opposing-blade projects, it grew apparent that the twin-bladed Rex razor presented some problems: among them was the tendency of whiskers and shaving cream to clog the space between the two blades, rendering them less efficient. The facing blades proved more immediately promising, however, and by 1967 such a razor was consumer-tested in Australia. It was called Contra at the time, but was later name Atra, an acronym for Australian test razor. Results were encouraging, and Gillette prepared to launch the new product in the United States sometime in 1972 — a timetable that was advance by a year when Wilkinson introduced its new bonded-edge blade in 1970. (pp. 267-8)

So what happened to the original potato peeler Atra? And why did the Rex come out first as the Trac II?

[To solve the clogging problem of the Rex,] Gillette designers in South Boston were called upon in the fall of 1970, even though they were busily preparing final plans for the production of the soon-to-be-launched Atra. One of them, a young mechanical engineer named Frank Dorion, found extra time to devote to the tandem blades, and by November he had come up with a way to virtually eliminate clogging: he perforated the narrow blades to allow shaving cream and sheared-off whiskers to flow through, and designed a comblike metal spacer to hold the flexible blades in rigid alignment. (p. 268)

 

[gearchow]

What a nice review. I have this book and I'm slowly getting through it. I only read at night as the last thing I do before falling asleep and anything Science Fiction gets priority. Probably not the best policy given some of my dreams.

Are you an English major? I ask because your review with criticism reads like there a certain training. For instance, if I was asked to review this book, I would have said "It's about King Gillette. He started the company Gillette. He's dead".



-jim

 

[Buford T. Justice]

... for it had opposing blades that allowed you to shave while stroking up and down, "much like the cutting edges of a potato peeler."

Gillette probably figured out this helped the blades last longer as going one direction while shaving stropped the other blade.

 

[Sydney Guy]

he had come up with a way to virtually eliminate clogging: he perforated the narrow blades to allow shaving cream and sheared-off whiskers to flow through

"Virtually eliminate" my ***. I used a Contour/Atra for years and clogging of the blades was a constant issue, despite rinsing it under running water after every shave. No wonder this is an authorised biography/history.

 

[AlanL]

"Virtually eliminate" my ***. I used a Contour/Atra for years and clogging of the blades was a constant issue, despite rinsing it under running water after every shave. No wonder this is an authorised biography/history.

Heh... Didn't sound as bad as the disclaimer for the McKibben book, which was actually commissioned by Gillette.

I also used an Atra for decades, and swiped between the blades with a toothbrush almost every rinse.

 

[pauls51]

I still rip out the Atra occasionally to remind me what a PITA it was to shave with!

 

[BBrad]

I borrowed the Adams book through my state library, and purchased the McKibben book when I had the opportunity.

Both are great and highly-recommended reads for Razorheads who long to learn and understand more about the hardware that we either love, hate, or tolerate!!

 

[drandall]

one of the most interesting bits from the book was that early on, gillette had a trade-in program for blades where they would exchange old used blades for a lesser quantity of new ones.

what nobody knew was that gillette re-stropped these used blades, repackaged them and then sold them as brand new.

which proves that while gillette has a long tradition of shaving innovation, it has an equally long tradition of screwing over customers.

 

[AQOSS]

I really appreciate the book as a biography of King Gillette and history of the Gillette brand. Is seems to be comprehensive and well researched. It is not a book written with the focus on the razors. There is information about the Gillette “Adjustable“, but neither it nor “Toggle” appear in the index, for example. For a book with the chronology and images of razors consider “The Complete Gillette Collector’s Handbook“ by Philip L. Krumholz (1992).

 

[Kel Varnsen]

It was also known as the Contra,

People probably didn't like having to shave by going:up-up-down-down-left-right-left-right. And the "B" and "A" buttons on the handle were probably extra confusing.