A safety razor is a shaving implement with a protective device positioned between the edge of the blade and the skin. The term was first used in a patent issued in 1880, for a razor in the basic contemporary configuration with a handle attached at right angles to a head in which a removable blade is placed (although this form predated the patent). Its edge was protected by a comb patterned on various types of protective guards that had been affixed to open-blade straight razors during the preceding decades. Some safety razors in present-day production retain a comb but the more common protective device is now a solid safety bar. The initial purpose of these protective devices was to reduce the level of skill needed for injury-free shaving, thereby reducing the reliance on professional barbers for providing that service and raising personal grooming standards. Prior to the introduction of the disposable razor blade by King Camp Gillette in 1901, however, safety razor users still needed to strop and hone the edges of their blades. These are not trivial skills (honing frequently being left to a professional) and remained a barrier to the ubiquitous adopting of the be your own barber ideal.
Famous quotes containing the words safety and/or razor:
“[As teenager], the trauma of near-misses and almost- consequences usually brings us to our senses. We finally come down someplace between our parents’ safety advice, which underestimates our ability, and our own unreasonable disregard for safety, which is our childlike wish for invulnerability. Our definition of acceptable risk becomes a product of our own experience.”
—Roger Gould (20th century)
“Experience has taught me, when I am shaving of a morning, to keep watch over my thoughts, because, if a line of poetry strays into my memory, my skin bristles so that the razor ceases to act.”
—A.E. (Alfred Edward)