Survey: Razors

[MTGuru]

Makes you wonder about the first guy who got a crazy idea about dragging a sharp stone or metal edge across his face.

It's an interesting question. Evidence of shaving goes back to the Paleolithic. But why? I'd conjecture that it has to do with the preparation of animal hides. Multiple someones (polygenesis) discovered they could make skins useful for more purposes by scraping off the hair with whatever edged tool they had handy. Then someone had the bright idea, "Hmm, if it works on aurochs skin, I wonder if it will work on my skin/arm/leg/face. It does!" And given human nature and culture, if a thing can be done, it will be done. Followed by a few million years of us arguing about the fashionable / practical / religious uses of shaving. There's always been strong evolutionary self-pressure on humans toward neoteny, and an attraction to hairlessness can be an aspect of that.

[ytliek]

Or possibly, after the thrown rock knocked down the bloke and the tussle ensued someone figured out they didn't like their hair/beard yanked.

[Nanohedron]

I think that once discovered, at least one early reason for the practice of shaving might well have been hygienic: it's a good way to control lice.

I also think that, as MTGuru suggested although not as specifically, this idea could have arisen out of scraping hides (and plucking fowl - if you've ever plucked a pheasant, you know how pest-ridden their plumage can be).

[MTGuru]

I think that once discovered, at least one early reason for the practice of shaving might well have been hygienic: it's a good way to control lice.

Yes, but that has to postdate and predicate the very concept of shaving. In my view, technogenesis is generally less directed and more serendipitous than that.

[Nanohedron]

I think that once discovered, at least one early reason for the practice of shaving might well have been hygienic: it's a good way to control lice.

Yes, but that has to postdate and predicate the very concept of shaving. In my view, technogenesis is generally less directed and more serendipitous than that.

Well, I did say the practice of shaving. But I'd added another supporting thought in my post above.

[MTGuru]

Well, I did say the practice of shaving.

Similarly, and from personal experience*, medical intervention could also have played a part. It's harder to treat a wound when it's buried under layers of hair.

* A bad bicycle accident once, when I discovered that my [bearded] chin traveling along a road surface makes a very poor substitute for a wheel. And the only time the whiskers were removed involuntarily, at the hands of a cheerful nurse who seemed a little too eager to depilate me.

[Nanohedron]

From whence we inevitably proceed to ... art.



Rajasthani camel fanciers have taken it to a serious level:



[ Mod Note: Here's the article: http://www.odditycentral.com/travel/uni ... tival.html ]

[Wanderer]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fiz9E9Iu3ak
Shaving with a sword

[MTGuru]

Shaving with a sword

Yep. He also demos a hunting knife, machete, and axe IIRC. And there's this guy shaving with a flintknapped obsidian blade:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWSTE6WLB0Y

[Nanohedron]

And there's this guy shaving with a flintknapped obsidian blade:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWSTE6WLB0Y

That is so cool. It don't get any more retro than that. My only beef is that he uses shaving cream, the wuss. If he has to use anything, it ought to be bear grease.

[Chuck_Clark]

Some cultures that prefer the smooth-as-a-baby's-butt approach have foregone shaving in favor of plucking the individual hairs.

Did any of you ever see the American Idol video of the guy who wanted to do his schtick in his version of drag but on the scale of hairiness came a lot closer to gorilla. When the judges mockingly suggested waxing as a price of another chance, he went out and did it.

eeyyooooouuuuucccccchhhhhhh!