Sweet Shoppe Designs – The Sweetest Digital Scrapbooking Site on the Web

Happy Thursday! It’s Angie, and I’m back with another silly, obscure holiday. Did you know today is Safety Razor Day? December 2nd celebrates the invention of this low-tech tool that changed the lives of men around the world.

Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans shaved their beards – and some, their heads – to stop enemies from grabbing their hair in hand-to-hand combat. In fact, the word barbarian arises from this practice; “men of unshaven societies became known as barbarians, or the unbarbered.” Cavemen used stone, flint, and clamshells to scrape off their hair; later societies tried razors made of bronze, copper, and iron. In the late 1600s, the first steel-edge cutthroat razors were manufactured in Sheffield, England. It took considerable skill to use one of these razors without badly cutting yourself, so many men received their shaves from a professional known as a barber.

The safety razor changed everything. Popularized in the early 1900s by King C. Gillette (yes, like the company) safety razors used a thin, inexpensive, disposable blade that didn’t require sharpening. When it was dull, you simply threw it away and put a new one on your razor. The US Army issued Gillette shaving kits to its servicemen during World War 1, and the rest, as they say, is history.

For today’s Thursday Treats, in honor of this best-groomed of holidays, I’ve taken a stroll through the Shoppe and pulled out some kits and products related to personal grooming. They’re perfect for chronicling a child’s first haircut, a retrospective of haircuts past, getting ready for a special event like prom, or that time a mischievous toddler got into Mommy’s makeup. Enjoy!