Why did men stop shaving traditionally?

I really like HoosierTrooper's response above.

Anecdotally speaking, whenever I ask older gentlemen why they stopped DE shaving (including my dad), their response is fairly uniform. They all say: "I always cut myself."

This suggests to me that wet shaving skills slowly degraded over time. It took a website like B&B to re-educate folks. I wonder if it also could be that in the quest for "better living through science", modernity, time-saving, etc., people started using canned goo en masse with DE's, further degrading the quality of the shave experience. I know my dad used Gilette foamy in a can with a Gilette DE (topped of with Old Spice) in the 70s and early 80s, before switching to an electric...food for thought.

I think one of the main reasons I have a beard was because I disliked shaving with a cartridge shaver. I was never taught to shave with anything different. I have a vague recollection of going to a supermarket, faced with a range of Gillette and Wilkinson carts and going eeny meeny miney mo.
For many years the carts did me - quick neck shave in the shower, close enough. quick, easy, in and out in 2 minutes.
Then I got infected with a B+B virus and am contemplating shaving off the beard to justify the amount of items I have acquired over the last couple months.
I spend more time building a lather now than I did Mach 3 shower shaving before.
There's a learning curve, it's more time consuming, it's a PITA at times, but it's also glorious when it's done right.

HoosierTrooper said:

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.

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Again, well said.

My dad doesn't use a DE because he thinks it takes too long. However, he lathers an Omega shaving cream with a Simpson's badger brush, but I think that's cut down on the irritation enough for him to be happy. He is always curious about my latest changes to my DE set up, but I think he just doesn't have the time in the morning to do multiple passes.

I learned on a Sensor Excel and switched to Mach 3 when the price on cartridges came down from insanity. I was never able to do a half decent job on my upper lip until I switched to an electric, but I got insane amounts of irritation with those things. Now it's always a DE, or an Atra when I'm feeling lazy.

The marketing men behind the double blade back in the 70s were promised huge salaries if they got Joe Soap to give up his good old DE I guess!
They used every trick in the book to brainwash the male public in first world countries making them believe the double blade was amazing new technology!
The first blade lifts the hair and the second cuts it! Hang on does that mean that the first blade was less sharp? This theory has never been proven and now
we have more blades than a Ninja warrior in a plastic cartridge that costs the same as 50 DE blades!
A football hero or some other macho man appears in a TV commercial for the multi-garbage and the world is convinced!
That's both the power of persuasion and advertising and if you're stupid enough to buy it that's too bad!

...business. Companies can make more if they introduce "new" products. That way, people will buy a "new" one to replace their "old" one. Not neccisarliy a bad thing though: one of the causes of the Great Depression was Over Production. Basically, after WWI, millions of people bought refrigerators. So the companies made more and more of them. However, things were made to last back then, and eventually, sales dropped off, leading to massive surpluses of goods, which where then liquidated, and sold insanely cheap, thus weakening the financial stability of a company. That is why cars are only designed to last 5 years or so. Keeps companies in business...Of course, Gillette wouldnt have gone out of business if they had kept with just DE's. Thats where a bit of greed comes in. Why have x percentage of the market when we can have x+y percentage of the market...

Alejandro1969 said:

The marketing men behind the double blade back in the 70s were promised huge salaries if they got Joe Soap to give up his good old DE I guess!
They used every trick in the book to brainwash the male public in first world countries making them believe the double blade was amazing new technology!
The first blade lifts the hair and the second cuts it! Hang on does that mean that the first blade was less sharp? This theory has never been proven and now
we have more blades than a Ninja warrior in a plastic cartridge that costs the same as 50 DE blades!
A football hero or some other macho man appears in a TV commercial for the multi-garbage and the world is convinced!
That's both the power of persuasion and advertising and if you're stupid enough to buy it that's too bad!

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Just like the early marketing men who worked for Gillette, Schick and American Safety Razor were paid to "brainwash" the "stupid" public into believing their system using disposable blades was superior to the straight razor. It is no different today than it was back then. If you look at old commercials and magazine ads that have been posted here numerous times you'll see that Gillette was using famous athletes decades ago to "brainwash" the public into believing their product was the best. Schick and ASR also used athletes and TV/radio personalities in their commercials and ads to "brainwash" the "stupid" public.

Were the men and women who bought Gillettes because a baseball star advertised them, or Gems hawked by Bob Hope back in the 30's, 40's and 50's also "stupid" and "brainwashed"? Kind of sounds like you're saying our parents, grandparents and even great grandparents were stupid, brainwashed idiots for buying newly designed razors that were advertised by celebrities instead of sticking to the traditional straight razor.

Because a cartridge usually is faster and doesn't cut the user even when they go fast, and also results in a shave good enough to satisfy most customers.

Fast
very little chance of cuts
good enough


seems pretty obvious to me

Some objective observations:

• Urbanized civilization has largely removed the imperative for an individual to knowledgeably hone any cutting implement. Thousands of frowning pocketknives from 1910-1950 bear witness. Knives, starting with the $1 imports in the late 70s became disposable as well.
• A disposable DE/SE requires less personal skill, and less time investment than a straight.
• A cartridge requires less personal skill than a DE/SE.
• A cartridge does not require the handling/disposal of "sharps".

Now, not to seem "rude", but the common denominator in all of the above is a surrender of the personal discipline required for maintaining a personal tool. Certainly, there are personal decisions, weighing the trades in time, etc., versus doing manual labor, but, overall, it is biting the hook of "convenience". Aka, the reason that the average American spends 2.7 hours/day in front of the idiot-box, more, if we include texting, internet, etc..

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.

I imagine at some point, some men found it easier, less painful, quicker, and/or more convenient to shave with a cartridge system or an electric shaver. These men either taught their sons to use the same equipment or didn't teach their sons at all.

My dad bought me my first shaving kit. I got a two blade cartridge system (forget the handle name, but the carts were made by Wilkinson Sword), a shaving brush that took a "soap" cartridge. I turned a dial at the bottom (like a deodorant applicator) to squeeze some soap onto the bristles. Dad showed me how lather up and shaving with the grain. He mentioned that as beard thickened I could use an against the grain pass. He also gave me a bottle of Old Spice AS. A half hour to 45 minutes later the lesson as over. Oh and he told me to change the cartridge on the razor when it got dull.

I tried an electric razor a few years later, but that could never shave me smooth enough. It would trim the growth down low enough to pass for a shave, but never give me a smooth face. Eventually I replaced that old cart system with a never one (my sensor), then a Mach 3, then a fusion. Finally I had enough of paying through the nose every month or two (I go through a cartridge a week) and I looked into shaving with a DE razor.

I love DE shaving now, back in my teens, twenties, and even early thirties I don't think it would have appealed to me. The carts are easy, fast, and don't nick as bad. perfect for a guy more concerned with sleeping until the last possible moment before getting up and getting ready for work in the morning.

Rob72 said:

Now, not to seem "rude", but the common denominator in all of the above is a surrender of the personal discipline required for maintaining a personal tool.

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Yes it is rude. Since you discovered how to use a straight, this led you to believe that everyman who does not has somehow surrendered their own personal discipline. Wow.

Gentlemen, let's keep this to a civil discussion. If a person doesn't agree with you, just let it go. Name calling or raising the rhetoric gets us nowhere.

Theprofessor said:

+1

What he said

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+2 what they said.

dundak said:

Yes it is rude. Since you discovered how to use a straight, this led you to believe that everyman who does not has somehow surrendered their own personal discipline. Wow.

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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.

The same reason people spend 3 times as much to get fast food that is no where near as good as home cooked. Laziness.

An apathetic rip in the convenience/ennui fabric.

Per request let's stop the nonsense. I am off to learn how to scrape my beard off with pumice and a sharpened clam shell, so as not to participate in the social breakdown of men's growth in today's society.

They 'turned to the dark side' (cartridges), of wet shaving.

“May the [B & B] Force be with you.” The Star Wars legacy.

Television is part of the answer.