"Three Reasons" – Gillette booklet from the New Improved era, ca. 1925

[mblakele]

This interesting booklet was posted earlier today to another thread, but I thought it deserved its own discussion.

Thanks to this thread about the 1905 Gillette catalog and my conversations with the winner (who should hopefully be along here shortly), I remembered that, few months ago I had acquired a similar booklet belonging to the New Improved era. This is the "Three Reasons" booklet that is referenced in this 1925 advertisement for New Improved (bottom right corner):

I'm putting up the full scan of my copy of the "Three Reasons" booklet in this thread for reference purposes.

Cover page:

Second and third page showing an article by Nickerson extracted from "The Gillette Blade" magazine:

Fourth and fifth page, continuing the article from the previous page:

Sixth and seventh page showing questions and answers:

Eighth and ninth page, continuing with the questions and answers:

Tenth and eleventh pages, more Q&As:

The last page:

It's plainly obvious in the answers to many questions that this is a marketing oriented booklet. For example, questions 1 to 7 and their answers make it sound like the New Improved is the one razor everyone needs to solve all their problems with older razors. Also interesting to note is the Q&As on pre-shave routines, questions 15 - 22. For example, in question 18, the answer says that many users find it useful to chill the skin with cold water so as to contract the pore and make the hair stand out.

Overall, it's a very interesting booklet to read, and a good a peek into the Gillette company's marketing thoughts for their New Improved razor models.

Any chance of larger images? Every pixel helps.... And may we include this in the wiki?

After zooming in a bit, I also noted many topics that are still relevant, and some that are closely debated. Often we continue to recommend similar techniques, but sometimes our rationales are different.

• Nickerson advocates face-latherering with a shave stick, and at least 2-3 minutes of prep.
• Item #21 recommends 2-3 minutes of lathering, quite a while before the 1937 Hollander & Casselman Factors article appeared in JAMA.
• Item #30 mentions that "Some users find it an advantage to turn the blade over after each shave."
• Item #37 encourages wiping the blade after each shave.

 

[thekinge]

Thanks mblakele for creating this thread. I will certainly post higher resolution pictures in the next day or so. Adding this to the Wiki is a good idea. Would this be the right place to add it?

Also of interest to me is the last few lines of the third page of the booklet (Nickerson's article), where he is discussing why people get very good quality shave one day and average quality shave the next day with the same equipment / blade. He's saying what we keep talking about, i.e., that the face was better prepared one day and not so well prepared the next day. Reading through the booklet again, it is like a "how to wet shave" guide for men of those era interlaced with Gillette marketing. Like you've highlighted mblakele, it covers quite a few topics that we discuss even today!

 

[Christian_V]

Awesome read! Tis a shame Gillette has strayed away from that old philosophy of beauty, quality, and simplicity

 

[Harry Snider]

Great booklet, I enjoyed reading it. Funny how it tells you to leave lather on your brush to dry, or rinse it out and dry it with a towel. Also like the demonstration on how to use the razor, apparently I'm doing it wrong!

 

[mblakele]

Thanks mblakele for creating this thread. I will certainly post higher resolution pictures in the next day or so. Adding this to the Wiki is a good idea. Would this be the right place to add it?

Yes, exactly what I had in mind.

As a technical aside, we like to keep wiki images in the wiki. So if you let me know when you have something a little bigger available, I can take care of uploading it from flickr. We can also link to the flickr images, which may be helpful. We want wiki images so that we still have the images if the ones on flickr ever goes away, but flickr supports larger images than the wiki does. I hope that works for you?

 

[rajagra]

as the article states "Don't use your razor like a hoe."

Hoes before woes!

 

[Foyle]

Intestingly, they recommend using moderate pressure as opposed to no pressure such as is advocated here on B&B. Thoughts anyone?

 

[SiBurning]

Now we know why it's called the Gillette Slide!

re: moderate vs no pressure... I think there's a difference between people that just want to get it over with and folks that are willing to spend time learning better technique. Gillette's always focused on the unskilled masses. I also suspect the word moderate may have lost some of its moderation over the years.

 

[mblakele]

Intestingly, they recommend using moderate pressure as opposed to no pressure such as is advocated here on B&B. Thoughts anyone?

Different audiences. "No pressure" is the right mantra for folks who are used to mashing cartridges or disposables against their skin.

 

[Jeff_H]

I think that once you've honed your skill with a DE, understand how your skin reacts to the razor, blade and soap/creme you use, pressure becomes something you can play with. You might have a very mild razor and for your skin type you can apply more than "no pressure" to compensate for the razor's mildness to get a closer shave, while not irritating your skin. From personal experience I can tell you that I can actually use medium pressure (say 4-5 on a scale of 1 thru 10) with my Merkur OC head (25c) and get a close, comfortable shave. However, yesterday I used the same pressure with my Otto Roth LC and was reminded by the razor that this is not acceptable. So, I need to adjust my pressure and angle until I learn this razor better.

I guess what I'm saying is some DE razors will allow you to use a fair bit of pressure and still give good shaves. Others will bark and bite with even lighter pressure. The amount of pressure will vary from person to person, even if the exact same razor is used. What is it we say around here for most everything? YMMV.

 

[thekinge]

Yes, exactly what I had in mind.

As a technical aside, we like to keep wiki images in the wiki. So if you let me know when you have something a little bigger available, I can take care of uploading it from flickr. We can also link to the flickr images, which may be helpful. We want wiki images so that we still have the images if the ones on flickr ever goes away, but flickr supports larger images than the wiki does. I hope that works for you?

Sure it works for me mblakele. I'll rescan the booklet in high resolution later today and post updated pictures in this thread.

 

[weizemanner]

Awesome! I love reading old shaving pamphlets.

 

[Skeezixx]

I just sent in my postcard request!

 

[alex2363]

Intestingly, they recommend using moderate pressure as opposed to no pressure such as is advocated here on B&B. Thoughts anyone?

You have to understand that there many factors that make us say less pressure. The advent of sharper blades and the various technologies that have been incorporated into today's blades are more advanced than earlier times. Today we also have better shave related products such as shave prep creams, shave soaps that hydrates our face to the point that each shave requires less pressure.

The modern blades and other technological factors have made us more a more sophisticated shaver and as a result we can advise against using pressure as opposed to what our fore Gillette Fathers recommended.

 

[77TransAm]

Now we know why it's called the Gillette Slide!

re: moderate vs no pressure... I think there's a difference between people that just want to get it over with and folks that are willing to spend time learning better technique. Gillette's always focused on the unskilled masses. I also suspect the word moderate may have lost some of its moderation over the years.

No kidding! I didn't know they told you to stroke downward on a diagonal in their booklets! I always just go straight down which is apparently the WRONG way to do it

 

[alex2363]

Yes, exactly what I had in mind.

As a technical aside, we like to keep wiki images in the wiki. So if you let me know when you have something a little bigger available, I can take care of uploading it from flickr. We can also link to the flickr images, which may be helpful. We want wiki images so that we still have the images if the ones on flickr ever goes away, but flickr supports larger images than the wiki does. I hope that works for you?

Let me know if you need any help, i know sometimes you may get too busy. I can upload and resize them to wiki.

 

[Shutterbug57]

I got a kick out of the answer to question 33. I always thought I used care and intelligence in my shaving, but I get the occasional cut or nick. I suspect most shavers get at least an occasional cut, so we are either careless or unintelligent. Interesting that they would put this in marketing literature.

 

[thekinge]

mblakele, here are the larger sized pictures as promised:

Hope this is fine. I'm happy to supply much larger sized pictures than this one, but I'm afraid the file sizes would be too large.

 

[rajagra]

Hope this is fine.

They are more than good enough. Thanks for that.

 

[Foyle]

I've read through this pamphlet a few times now. Nickerson was a shave-geek.