SHAVING IMPLEMENTS

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXV, Issue 4745, 1 September 1924, Page 2

SHAVING IMPLEMENTS

TYPES OF OLDEN DAYS. . SOME PAINFUL METHODS. If civilised man had to rely upon the primitive "razors” of past eras to retain the fashionable clean-shaven appearance beards would inevitably become popular again. Before the bronze or Iron ages a wide variety of materials had to serve, including shells, bones, and flints —materials upon whicli a sufficinetly sharp edge could be ground. Sufficiently sharp, that is, to remove the hair, but by no means sharp enough to ensure an easy shave, writes Victor Raymond in the Weekly Telegraph. To call tho bronze age “weapon” a razor is to insult our present •extremely efficient article. There were a number of types, all cumbersome affairs, and difficult to manipulate, although undoubtedly an improvement upon the bone or flint variety. One primitive pattern had a very wide, moon-shaped body, with a ridiculously small handle shaped like that of the modern spade protruding from from one side. Another type, one used by the ancient Greeks, was shaped like the business end of a spade. . Seeing that its handle—also of the short variety—projected from the top, it was apparently \ot meant to cut the beard so much as to shovel It off. Is it surprising that our 'word razor was derived form the Latin radere, meaning to scrape ? Yet another specimen was (shaped like the head of a battleaxe, the handle consisting of a bird’s head, and a swan-like neck. Excruciatingly painful methods of shaving still obtain in some parts of the world. For instance, the aborigines of Australia shave with pieces of glass or shell. Even more terrifying are the methods employed by some of the South Sea Islanders. In some of the islands a "treacley” substance is pasted over the face, and then allowed to dry, after which it is jerked off piece by piece, bringing the hairs with it. One marvels that the natives do not all affect beards. Elsewhere in the South Seas a few hairs are selected at a time, to which is securely knotted a length of a fibrous material. The hairs are then pulled out literally by the roots, this operation being continually repeated 1 until at last the “shave” Is completed.