Yep. Some of the brainwashing started in 1950.Television is part of the answer.
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Yep. Some of the brainwashing started in 1950.Television is part of the answer.
Just imagine if you had to get up every morning at 5 am and straight shave in cold water because you had to.
You are doing something very wrong if you can't get as good a shave with a cartridge as you can with a DE.
I DE shave because I like to, period. There's nothing better about the shave, nothing you can't get with a good cartridge.
I think I've heard that it had something to do with Gillettes Patents running out, and being Gillette they just completely canged the market with new products and patents to stay on top of the game.
Great answers, Tom.
First, as some of you know I am one of the more experienced shavers (my wife says I can't use the word old) being 70 years old so I have first hand knowledge of why men did what they did.
I agree with Tom it is not a question of anyone being brainwashed. Rather, most men never learned the correct way to shave. Back when I started using a DE there was no B&B (or even the Internet! ). You had to learn how to shave by trial and error or if someone taught you. The concepts of beard reduction, multiple passes, correct angle, proper prep, different qualities of soap and cream, different razor blades, etc. were unheard of. I remember my father constantly having nicks and cuts when he shaved. Hardly a day went by that he didn't have bits of toilet paper sticking to the cuts on his face. So, when Gillette came out with a simple system that took the skill set out of shaving he was a ready candidate as were many other men of that era.
I was one of the few men who returned to DE shaving after trying the multiple razor heads for the first time. I know at the time I found the Gillette system easier to use and got fewer nicks with it. However, I never got a close shave with that system. So I returned to my Gillette DE razors and began to use my FB and Slim most of the time. (My first razor was a TTO which, unfortunately, I no longer have.)
Back then I did a three or four pass shave - but not the way you do it now. Later I began to use a FB or Slim most of the time. As for razor blades: there was only one, Gillette Blue. Later I recall that Wilkinson came out with a SS razor blade that IMO performed a lot better than the Blues.
My first pass with the adjustable would be N to S with a setting of 5. I would then do a S to N pass at a setting of 5. Next I would do another N to S pass at a higher setting anywhere from 7 to 9. I would then use that same setting for a S to N pass. However, many friends and associates thought I was nuts to spend so much time shaving when you could get acceptable results from using a cart razor and do just one pass. We didn't call it a BBS shave back then - just a smooth shave - and that's what I wanted.
It's not laziness, the people who say it is are the same ones who live in homes full of modern conveniences, drive modern vehicles, and buy groceries and other necessities at modern stores or the internet. Does that make them lazy? It's not marketing and a desire for profit, that's what prompted King Gillette to design the first single ring and disposable blades, and before that the first safety razors made by the Kampfe Brothers and before that the companies that made straight razors. Every company that ever sold a razor or blade did it for profit.
What caused the demise of the "traditional" shave was the introduction of the Wilkinson Bonded Razor System in 1970 and the Gillette Trac II in 1971. Both were quicker, safer and easier than anything else and that's all that mattered to men and women at the time. I seriously doubt that many men who were shaving at that time used words like "luxurious", "pampering", "zen" or "me time" when they discussed shaving. It was a task no different than brushing their teeth or combing their hair and anything that saved a few minutes was readily accepted. It's no different today than it was in the early 70's or the late 1800's.
I think it's a bit disingenuous to proclaim the double edge or single edge razor as the only acceptable method of shaving, when in fact, they were originally designed and advertised as a "modern" replacement for the "old fashioned" straight razor because they were easier, safer and quicker to use.
People are lazy. Most people will take the half-assed approach if they're able. Why put effort into it? Changing my own oil in my car is easy and cheaper than taking it somewhere, but many able bodied people just don't bother.
The definition of, "rude", per Webster, envelopes both vulgar and unlearned. I was neither.
For an hypothesis to be considered true, it must be 1) repeatable, and 2) generalizable.
For the record, I use straights, DE and SEs fairly interchangeably, with an edge in proficiency to the SE class.
Now, to my original point- while individuals may have made perfectly reasonable choices, regarding the costs/benefits in choosing the "next generation" of shave technology, undeniably, it was at the cost of teaching the following generation the full spectrum of options available, hence, socially, a large block of knowledge is lost, across the larger social spectrum.
This has resulted in the rather cult-like atmosphere around straights and honing. I enjoy them, but sheesh!
How many men are able to form and harden iron? Make planks from raw lumber (aka, trees)? This may seem "extreme", but fundamentally, the loss of this once common knowledge from the common currency makes our society much more fragile, and no, the "man of today" is not what he would have been 150 years ago.
Eric Erickson noted that extended childhood was the mark of civilization, but that it left men with life-long developmental scars. The loss of this particular father-to-son transition of information is symptomatic of a much greater loss- surrendering heritage to social whim.
As for canned shaving cream replacing soap pucks, that was probably a convenience and time deal. No more wet mugs and brushes to deal with. Rise foam came on the market in the late 1940's and canned goo had a 2/3 market shave a decade later.
I tend to blame the demise of the DE razor on marketing claims that the cartridge systems could get a closer shave in one pass using less time and with reduced nicks than DE razors. Remember that carts came to the market in the late 1960's and early 1970's when truth in advertising was still a developing concept.
Great answers, Tom.
First, as some of you know I am one of the more experienced shavers (my wife says I can't use the word old) being 70 years old so I have first hand knowledge of why men did what they did.
I agree with Tom it is not a question of anyone being brainwashed. Rather, most men never learned the correct way to shave. Back when I started using a DE there was no B&B (or even the Internet! ). You had to learn how to shave by trial and error or if someone taught you. The concepts of beard reduction, multiple passes, correct angle, proper prep, different qualities of soap and cream, different razor blades, etc. were unheard of. I remember my father constantly having nicks and cuts when he shaved. Hardly a day went by that he didn't have bits of toilet paper sticking to the cuts on his face. So, when Gillette came out with a simple system that took the skill set out of shaving he was a ready candidate as were many other men of that era.
I was one of the few men who returned to DE shaving after trying the multiple razor heads for the first time. I know at the time I found the Gillette system easier to use and got fewer nicks with it. However, I never got a close shave with that system. So I returned to my Gillette DE razors and began to use my FB and Slim most of the time. (My first razor was a TTO which, unfortunately, I no longer have.)
Back then I did a three or four pass shave - but not the way you do it now. Later I began to use a FB or Slim most of the time. As for razor blades: there was only one, Gillette Blue. Later I recall that Wilkinson came out with a SS razor blade that IMO performed a lot better than the Blues.
My first pass with the adjustable would be N to S with a setting of 5. I would then do a S to N pass at a setting of 5. Next I would do another N to S pass at a higher setting anywhere from 7 to 9. I would then use that same setting for a S to N pass. However, many friends and associates thought I was nuts to spend so much time shaving when you could get acceptable results from using a cart razor and do just one pass. We didn't call it a BBS shave back then - just a smooth shave - and that's what I wanted.