■THE BEGINNINGS OF THE SHAVER
Do you know when and by whom the electric shaver (electric razor) you use every morning was made?

■SCHICK　　　

It is said that the electric shaver made by Jacob Schick, an American veteran, in the late 1920s was the first shaver in the world.
He left the US Army early, and realized that traditional shaving was difficult in sub-zero temperatures when he searched for gold mines in Alaska and Canada. He came up with the idea of a shaver powered by a motor.
The prototype seemed to have a structure that connected the motor and the shaver head with a flexible pipe and used it with both hands.


He joined the army again when World War I started and retired in 1919, but he came up with the idea of a razor that could replace blades without touching them directly from the automatic loading mechanism of a rifle.
He also continued to develop electric shavers and finally succeeded in commercializing them. He sold his razor company, Magazine Repeating Razor, which made razors, and focused on the electric shaver business, seeing its potential.
Magazine Repeating Razor, which prospered with razors that could be replaced without touching the blades directly, was the originator of Schick, the current safety razor.
The concept was the same as the later Schick Injector. Jacob Schick was a person who created the foundation of today’s “shaving” by himself.

According to a Time magazine article (1938), “It was mostly handmade and sold for $25 at first, but when they set up a production line and sold it for $15, it sold like hotcakes.”
Schick Dry Shaver Co. was founded in 1930, so they must have started full-scale production and sales around that time.
The first mass-produced model of Schick was “Model-S”. Another famous model was named “Colonel” after Jacob Schick’s rank when he retired.


His new business of electric shavers soon attracted many competitors.
Packard Lectro-Shaver, Hanley, Remington (Rand), Zephyr, Sunbeam, Philips from Europe, and even Gillette entered this new market.

These two Consumer Union Reports are what I have been looking for since I started this site. They are posted here with the kindness of Mr. Peter M. Jonker and Mr. Paul Spierings.
[This Consumers Union Reports available on my site supported by Mr.Peter M.Jonker, Mr.Paul Spierings and his archives data]

■ Comparing electric shavers in Consumer Union Report

【This may be the world’s first electric shaver comparison test】
Consumer Union is a non-profit consumer organization that was granted permission to establish as Consumers Union (CU) in New York State, USA in February 1936 (Showa 11) and is still active today. It issued the first issue of Consumers Union Reports in May of the year of establishment. They bought the products and posted their evaluations. The history of the organization says, “At the time of publication, it was in the midst of the Great Depression, so there was a limit to the budget and they could not buy very expensive items.” They started with about 4,000 copies of the first issue and issued 100,000 copies in 1946, 10 years later. Since the beginning of publication, product evaluations have been in three stages: “Best Buy”, “Acceptable” and “Not Acceptable”.

Electric shavers were featured as early as the October issue of the inaugural year 1936. The models covered were “Schick (model-S)”, “Packard Lectro - Shaver” and “Hanley Clipshave”.

「October 1936 issue “Three electric shavers”」

The report starts with a harsh evaluation of the “Packard Lectro-Shaver”, saying that it felt like shaving with a “lawn mower that doesn’t cut”. Both the “Packard Lectro - Shaver” and the “Hanley Clipshave” were rated as “not acceptable”, while all the testers agreed that the “Schick (model-S)” was “satisfactory”.
By the way, the selling price of Schick model-S was $15. The report asks, “Is it worth the ‘high price’ of $15?” But if you convert it to today’s currency value, it would be about $300 at 200 times, so you can see that it was a very expensive product.

Since this is the first electric shaver report, there are also detailed descriptions of “how to use” and “usage environment”.
●"If you are considering buying an electric shaver, it is essential that there is an electric socket that matches the shaver near the mirror for shaving."
●"Buyers will realize that they need to learn a new way of shaving. It will not be possible in one or two times, and it will take one or two weeks or more to master the new shaver."

●In addition, you can get a glimpse of the electric situation at that time from descriptions such as “not suitable for travel. There may not be electric sockets in trains or hotels, and the voltage may not be appropriate.”

The test article in the December 1937 issue featured 10 models, showing that many competitors had entered the category of electric shavers created by Schick.


December 1937 issue “10 Electric Razors”

The market has become more active as the number of test subjects increased from 3 to 10 from the previous year.
The headline says “Price range from $7.50 to $17.50. Even the best models cannot shave as close as a safety razor. 7 out of 10 are ‘Not Acceptable’”
The evaluation is “We tested and reported on 3 models about a year ago (including this time). There are new makers and models in the market in this year, so we tested 10 models this time, but the evaluation results have not changed much. We report with new findings”
“Satisfactory electric razors are still expensive. Schick for $15 is the ‘Best buy’. There were no particularly new and different designs among the models we tested this time. The next best ones after Schick are Remington ($16) and Velvet ($17.5), both of which are more expensive than Schick”
The individual evaluations are as follows
・Best Buy:
Schick (Schick Dry Shaver Inc. Stamford, Connecticut) Price $15, slightly prickly but satisfactory shaving. Easy to learn how to use. Popular with women. Deluxe model ($16.5) comes in a white case and is stored in a box. (Standard model comes in a leather soft case)
・Also Acceptable:
Remington (General Shaver Coro. Bridgeport, Connecticut, a division of Remington Rand) Price $16, similar design to Schick, satisfactory shaving.
【This is the model “Close Shaver” released in 1937 Details here】
Velvet (Nicholl Inc. Los Angeles) Price $17.50, similar system to Schick but has two heads, one for close shaving and the other for those who do not need close shaving, suitable for women.


Best Buy rating: “Shaving head of Schick Model S”

Schick’s blade is a combination of an “outer blade with a groove” and an “inner blade with a reciprocating groove”. The Remington Close Shaver and the Nicholl Velvet, which came in second in the Consumer Union Report, also have reciprocating grooves, and until Sunbeam came out with a mesh blade shaver, electric razors were dominated by this groove blade.
Schick’s patent application states that the width of the (blade) groove must be between 0.008 inches and 0.02 inches. (Approximately 0.2 mm to 0.5 mm)
The blade surface that touches the skin is flat, but the sides of the groove blade have a feed-in comb shape to lure in the beard and improve the efficiency of the outer blade.

■　DC or AC - The electric situation at that time

Not only Schick, but all the shavers at that time were compatible with both AC and DC.
It is unthinkable in the modern world where AC is the norm for electricity, but when electricity began to spread to the general public, DC started by Edison was the beginning of the electric business. Later, AC power based on the theory and method of Nikola Tesla, backed by Westinghouse, competed.
Edison is famous for his light bulbs, as he succeeded in using bamboo from Kyoto for the filament in the practical application of light bulbs, but it seems that his main goal was to make electricity a business, and light bulbs were just a great example of its use. Among the things he invented, there are many tools for commercializing electricity, such as “reinforced concrete” and “plywood” which are materials needed to build power plants, and “power meter” which measures the amount of electricity used.
DC had a lot of transmission losses from the power plant to the household (business) where it was used, and had to build power plants near the demand area, so it inevitably became small-scale and could not compete with AC, which could supply power from a distance with large-scale power generation.
Nikola Tesla, the inventor of AC motors and generators, was born in Romania during the Austro-Hungarian Empire and moved to the United States and worked for Edison’s Electric Light Company, but clashed with Edison’s DCism and became independent. Westinghouse backed him up and commercialized it. The superiority of AC seems to have been established around the time of the Chicago World’s Fair, but until very recently there were DC (DC) power elevators in some parts of Manhattan and GE continued to supply them.
It feels strange that the name of Tesla, the inventor of AC motors, has become the name of an electric car manufacturer with battery (DC) power. Although modern car generators are alternators that generate AC…


The rating display of Schick-Model S is “DC-AC 9WATTS” on the body and “110 120 V” on the head screw head.


By the way, the Packard Lectro Shaver was a shaver that a promoter named A.M. Andrews completed in 1934 to compete with SCHICK, and the structure is very similar to the earliest SCHICK shaver.
The blade is characterized by a cylindrical groove blade, as opposed to the square groove blade of SCHICK.
Jacob Schick died in Canada in 1937 from complications from kidney surgery, and A.M. Andrews also died the following year in 1938, but Schick and Packard continued to fight a long patent dispute afterwards.