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King Camp Gillette (1855-1932) and
William Emery Nickerson invented the world's first disposable razor blade in
1901. Until that time, portable shaving devices consisted of
a wedge shaped heavy metal blade on top of a handle. When dull, the wedge was
stropped by hand until it could no longer keep a sharp edge. It is
said traveling salesmen referred to such shaving devices as "cut-throat razors," as they were quite
dangerous to use on a train.
Gillette conceived the idea of a disposable blade in 1895. He
was told by leading metallurgists of the day that it was economically unfeasible to
mass produce such thin pieces of sharpened metal. He soon met W.E. Nickerson,
and after six years they were able to invent the equipment necessary to
produce the first disposable blade. They patented the invention in
1901 and started the American Safety Razor Company (re-named the Gillette
Safety Razor Company in 1904).
The safety razor was a huge success. By 1910, King Gillette was a
millionaire. His portrait was printed on every package of blades,
which gained him great celebrity. In personal life he believed in utopian
concepts, and wrote a number of books promoting common social advancement. Sadly, Gillette lost most of his fortune in the stock market crash of 1929. The
Gillette Company thrived independently for 101 years, and was purchased by
brand savvy Proctor & Gamble Company in 2005.
King C.
Gillette was a also marketing pioneer. He invented the Blades and
Razors Business Model of selling a razor at little or no profit, and
making more money by selling great quantities of high quality disposable
blades for those razors. The Gillette Company has also been a
text book product life-cycle innovator, with new features or products introduced every few years. This author has used the Trac
II, Atra, Sensor, and Mach III (tm) products over the past 25 years, and looks
forward to the next generation of shaving technology.
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