Middle Ages to The Crusades

476-1270AD European women carry out the bizarre beauty secret of removing all the hair from their eyebrows, eyelashes, temples, and necks.

The look to die for becoming trés chic. This is carried out masochistically by plucking and shaving every day, but a real lady who wants to represent herself in the ideal image of modern female beauty knows this is a necessity.

840AD In Spain, a famous musician and singer from Baghdad, Blackbird, opens the world's first beauty institute.

Here, students learnt the secrets of hair removal as well as how to apply cosmetics, manufacture deodorants, use toothpowder and the basics of hairdressing.

1066AD Shaving and haircuts help William of Normandy invade England to overcome Harold the Saxon of Hastings. Harold's spies ventured out before the attack and came back reporting a large group of priests seen nearby but no enemy.

The priests were William's army who they mistook for Holy Men owing to their clean shaven appearance. They also carried exaggerated pageboy haircuts.

They shaved the hair on the back of their heads but kept a short back and sides which made them look like monks.

1770 French barber Jean-Jacques Perret writes The Art of Learning to Shave Oneself - La Pogonotomie - which gives advice for the use of different shaving products and equipment. The book is the first to propose the idea of a safety razor.

French women shave their heads completely so they can wear the huge powdered wigs of the latest hairstyles.

The Perret Razor is manufactured as an L-shaped wooden guard that holds a razor blade in place. It prevents the user cutting themselves too deeply.

It still does not have any real safety and is not considered to be the first true safety razor but this is the beginning of the safety razor.

1800s and shaving and grooming for men is now a self indulgent pastime thanks to George Bryan (Beau) Brummell who is a dandy known for his impeccable manners and style of dress.

Brummell is said to have shaved his face several times a day and pluck out any remaining hairs with tweezers. After inheriting a sizeable fortune Brummell dedicated himself to be known as a gentleman of fashion.

European women are still knocking up their own depilatory creams in their kitchens. The ingredients now contain such items as oak and French white wine to be taken in a hot bath for 24 hours.

In Sheffield production begins of straight steel razors and they are in constant demand until the middle of the 1800s. These razors dull very quickly however so they have to be honed and stropped frequently in order to use over and over again.

1840 After fleeing England in 1814 to escape from paying off tremendous gambling debts possessed shaver Beau Brummell died in a French lunatic asylum.

1847 William Henson created the first hoe razor which placed the blade perpendicular to its handle, just like a garden tool. This changes forever the way that man will grip his shaver and provides more control.

It is an overnight success.

By the late 1800s Victorian man is now extremely particular over his personal grooming and is starting to use shaving soaps and after shaving lotions which are usually home made in the kitchen using cherry laurel water.

In the United States the Kampfe Brothers file a patent for the first Safety Razor featuring a wire skin guard along one side of the blade's edge. Only one side of the blade is used which has to be removed often for sharpening.

This is the best available shaving method on the market that won't cut a user unlike straight steel razors. Blades are manufactured by forging which requires frequent sharpening.

1895 - In the United States King Camp Gillette, a salesman for the Baltimore Seal Company comes up with the idea for a new type of disposable razor blade.

Over the next six years he promotes and sells his idea to backers and toolmakers in order to make his dream shaver a reality.

A Closer Shave

Man's Daily Search for Perfection

Wallace Pinfold

£12.99 - 157 pages

It appears that around 93% of men begin their day removing stubble from their face but a much smaller percentage make the best job of it. Since man discovered metal (shortly after he started walking upright) he's sought to scrape the stubble from his face without skinning himself!

In A Closer Shave Wallace Pinfold takes you on a multi-cultural and multi-faceted tour of the human face through the centuries. Containing over 200 photographs, illustrations, cartoons, wood blocks, paintings and advertisements the story of shaving unfolds. Covering how to trim a moustache, use a shaving brush and banish foggy mirrors, to historically famous beards and bald guys, to the obsession with shaved heads in professional sports.

This funny little book takes a fast and furious, funny and observative, look at getting a closer, smoother and easier shave - proving in the process that the male species' capacity for preening himself should never be underestimated.

To get your copy click here

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