Safety razor

A razor with a guard between its blade and the skin, designed to reduce cuts during shaving. Common designs use a replaceable double-edged blade or a cartridge.

Razor blade: A thin cutting edge used to remove hair close to the skin. Its sharp edge cuts hair while the safety razor’s guard limits contact with skin.
Jean-Jacques Perret: An eighteenth-century French cutler who promoted a protective guard for shaving razors. His 1770 treatise described a guarded razor, an early precursor to later safety designs.
Blade gap: The distance between a razor blade’s edge and the safety bar or guard beneath it. A larger gap can expose more blade and change the razor’s cutting behavior.
Wet shaving: Shaving with water and lubricating products to soften hair and reduce friction. Most safety-razor use is wet shaving with lather or another lubricant.
Electric razor: A powered grooming device that cuts hair with oscillating or rotating blades behind a screen or cutter head. It cuts without exposing a conventional razor edge directly to the skin.
Double-edged safety razor: A safety razor that holds a flat blade with a cutting edge on each side. This classic design uses a replaceable blade exposed on both sides of its guard.
King Camp Gillette: An American inventor and entrepreneur associated with the mass-market disposable-blade safety razor. His company popularized a practical system of replaceable blades and durable handles.
Blade exposure: The amount by which a razor blade edge projects relative to its guard. Positive, neutral, or negative exposure changes how directly the edge meets skin.
Beard grooming: The practice of trimming, shaping, or removing facial hair. Safety razors can define beard edges or remove facial hair completely.
Shavette: A straight-razor-style tool that holds a replaceable blade, commonly a snapped double-edge blade. It offers an exposed edge and different handling demands from a guarded safety razor.

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King C. GilletteNarrower topic: Gillette’s invention was a new commercial design within this broader razor type.