You’re listening to Wet Shaving Talk powered by Sharpologist.com where we’re dedicated to preserving the art and skill of classic shaving. I’m your host Joe Borrelli and today is September 30th, 2026.
______________________________________________________________________
Today On The Show:
Dedication to Gillette Month!!
TTO Gillette Razors
Adjustable Gillette Razors
Cartridge Razors
Fall Seasonal Special Next Month!
___________________________________________________________________________
TTO (Twist To Open Razors)
Gillette twist-to-open (TTO) or “butterfly” safety razors feature an integrated mechanism where turning the knob at the base of the handle opens and closes the top doors to load or remove a double-edge blade. (wikipedia)
How to Operate a Twist-to-Open Gillette Razor
- To Open: Hold the razor firmly and rotate the bottom knob counterclockwise. The two-part top “butterfly” doors will swing open to expose the central platform.
- To Load a Blade: Carefully unwrap a fresh double-edge razor blade by its edges. Drop the blade straight down onto the center alignment posts.
- To Close & Secure: Rotate the bottom knob clockwise until the doors close completely and lock down with gentle, firm resistance. Do not overtighten, as this can strain the internal mechanical linkage.
The First Model: “Gillette Aristocrat” 1934
- Gillette officially introduced the twist-to-open mechanism in 1934 with the launch of the Gillette Aristocrat. This innovative design transformed the razor into a unified, one-piece system. By turning a dial at the base of the handle, the top cap split down the middle like wings—earning them the nickname “silo doors” or “butterfly doors”
The Mid-Century Boom: The Super Speed (1947)
- The true heyday of the TTO razor began following World War II. In 1947, Gillette introduced the Gillette Super Speed. Highly affordable and built to last generations out of nickel-plated brass, the Super Speed became the flagship razor found in millions of American households.
- The Flare Tip Trio (1950s): Gillette eventually expanded the Super Speed line into color-coded “Flare Tip” variants designed for different beard profiles: Blue Tip (mild, for sensitive skin), Silver/Regular Tip (average beards), and Red Tip (heavy, aggressive shave).
___________________________________________________________________________
Adjustable Razors 1950’s-1980’s
- In 1955, Gillette pushed the mechanical boundaries of the TTO layout by integrating an adjustable ring. Users could now turn a numbered dial (typically settings 1 through 9) to raise or lower the blade gap, changing how “mild” or “aggressive” the shave felt
- The Icons: This engineering peak led to legendary, highly collectible models like the short-handled “Fatboy” (1958–1961), the longer and leaner “Slim Adjustable” (1961–1968), and the “Super Adjustable” (often called the Black Beauty, produced into the 1980s).
___________________________________________________________________________
The Shift to Cartridges
- Gillette manufactured double-edge TTO razors in various configurations until 1988. Production ultimately ceased as consumer preference shifted away from double-edge blades entirely toward multi-blade plastic cartridge systems—beginning with the Trac II in 1971 and later the Mach3—which prioritized corporate profitability and continuous replacement cycles. Today, vintage Gillette TTO models are widely sought after by shaving enthusiasts for their superior craftsmanship and sustainable design
____________________________________________________________________________
Fall Seasonal Special
The 11th Annual Fall Seasonal Special is coming!
This show is solely dedicated to the Fall releases by all vendors and artisans alike. It’s the top show for the year and the most fun in my opinion.
This year I will bring back the “Archive” Portion of the Show for all notable items in the past that are no longer produced.
Links to previous shows:
2025, 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016
__________________________________________________________________________
Our show is powered by Sharpologist.com, “What Your Father Didn’t Teach You about Shaving”
Special Thanks to:
Mark aka Mantic 59
Most of All……….YOU!!!!
Don’t forget to check out my blog site www.shavestraightandsafe.com for the tips and interesting wet shaving stories!
Please feel free to contact me at joe.wetshavingnews@gmail.com
Subscribe to my You Tube Chanel for videos regarding some interesting wet shaving content.
Don’t forget to check out my book “The Modern Guide to Straight Razor Shaving” available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and at Pasteur’s Pharmacy in NYC.
If you’re a vendor and would like to be featured on the show please contact me!!
Transcript (Generated using Transcript LOL)
You’re listening to Wet Shaving Talk powered by Sharpologist.com where we’re dedicated to preserving the art and skill of classic shaving. I’m your host Joe Borelli and today is September 30th, 2026. All right, everyone, welcome back to the podcast here. And it’s finally that’s right, finally fall.
I am very excited. I love the fall season. And I really do love especially the fall seasonal products that come out as well. So we got pumpkin spice everything right guys that that was launched probably in July, I guess some of these places launch it.
But now it’s okay, I guess to say you want to use it, drink it or smell it or anything like that, and that’s a tradition for me coming up is bringing out my fall products tomorrow, which will be October 1st. I love doing it. It’s like a little traditional thing for me. I wake up a little earlier, I get it all organized, and that will be my primary use for the next, I guess you could say, 30 days, if not more.
I don’t know why, I was thinking about this before I was gonna mention it today, and I don’t know why I wait until the 1st of October to do it. I just kind of, I guess it’s just tradition, I guess it’s just maybe something to look forward to. Which, if you guys are out there, and that’s why wet shaving is so fun to me, it does give me something to look forward to. And that’s something that, I was talking to my wife about it recently, you always got to have something to look forward to in everything in life, right?
We work very hard, you have families, Responsibilities, gotta be an adult, fixing things, all that stuff, bills, everything that’s so stressful. It’s really important to have something to look forward to all the time. I try to do that every, almost every day. I look forward to eating, taking my lunch break.
I look forward to going home. I look forward to taking maybe a different route home just so I can change it up a little bit. I look forward to my days off, right? You know, for example, today is a Wednesday.
I’m a retail manager, so I usually take Wednesdays and Sundays off. Wednesday is kind of like my half of a day. My son goes to school until about two o’clock, and I have that to look forward to. You know, I have that time where I write, I like to do, I record podcasts, because right now it’s nice and quiet, I can do it.
And I can, you know, do some stuff for myself. I look forward to that usually after Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, I’m like, Oh, you know, when I’m off tomorrow, I’m looking forward to my day off and what I can do. So I guess what I mean is I look forward to using my fall stuff. And that’s hence why I leave it at a day on October 1, instead of using it earlier, or all year round, it gives me something to really look forward to and to enjoy, and something to work for, right.
So I and that’s I can tell you that’s what wet shaving is done for me over the years. It’s something like, you know, a mail call. You know, everybody says if you look if you ever bought anything from Phoenix artists and accoutrements, you could see the tape on the box. He always says stop jumping up and down or something.
I forgot what it said. But it’s always like your mail calls here. When I first started and I would purchase things, I would wait and wait and every day check the mailbox, right? Hopefully, it gets here.
Hopefully, it gets here soon. Really looking forward to getting my new purchase because it was so new and I was so into it. Sometimes, you would buy something on eBay that you’ve been looking for for a long time and it gives you something really to look forward to. I always have goals of what shaving or stuff that I want to purchase in the future, stuff that’s not easy to get so that when I get it, sometimes, it’s more the thrill of the hunt than actually catching it.
you know, getting that. So, I guess that’s what that brings it down to why I use my fall products only from October till November and then I kind of put them away. Sometimes I’ll revisit them here and there, but I really enjoy using them during that time. So, if you feel that way, you know, let me know, send me an email or, you know, anything and talk about it because I think it’s also good to kind of have that, also have that restraint on not using it so you can enjoy it and it really
does make the season special. So with the show this week, guys, we’re going to talk, we’re going to finalize our dedication to Gillette Month, talking a little bit about twist open razors, adjustable razors, and then cartridge razors from what Gillette has done over the years. You know, a lot of history with this company and what they’ve done in innovation. They’ve really changed the way we all shave.
and they continue to do so. And again, I’m not a spokesperson. I’m not an affiliate for the company. I just, I appreciate, you know, I guess you could say innovation and the dedication to doing better and also the ability to admit when you’re wrong, because they are very good at doing that as well.
If they make a mistake, they know to make a change and they also know, hey, you know, we did this. And then, you know, we’re going to talk a little bit about the fall seasonal special coming up. Got a few things I wanted to talk about that show a little bit of a change this year, but not so much. And then I’ve got every link, a link to every show for the last 1110 years or so.
I think this is the 11th one. Yes, 11 years. So the last 10 shows, if you want to start listening to them, then you can start listening to them on your way to work or whatever, and then get a little bit inside of what the show entails if you’re new here. So without further ado, guys, let’s get on with the show.
So we talked a little bit about Gillette’s history and what they’ve done and how they’ve innovated, but really the big one was one of the biggest designs that they did was the actual twist to open design. So the Gillette TTO, we call it, or twist to open, You can also say butterfly razors. A lot of people call butterfly safety razors because they open up like a butterfly. They feature an internal mechanism that when you turn the knob, the base handle opens and close the doors without you having to one hand.
Well, you have to hold it one hand, but basically you don’t have to do a three-piece razor. It opens it up for convenience. You put the blade in and then there you go. So operating one is very simple.
You open it, you basically hold the razor firmly. You can use one of your hands, two fingers on the handle, and then the other one just rotate it counterclockwise. Open it counterclockwise and the doors will open up and it will have like a little stop. Don’t force it or anything like that.
And then to close it, it’s the same way, just clockwise and that’s it. Put the blade in there. It makes it nice and safe, easy. You can also utilize it for cleaning.
You can just pop it open a little bit, clean it out before you take it out, and then take the blade out safely. Loading the blade again, you want to make sure you unwrap the blade out of the paper, put it right in there. I mean, it’s very simple to do. If you guys have done a three-piece razor, then you’ll really enjoy doing a twist open.
So a lot of people want to know about like twist open razors and they see different designs out there. But Gillette really did come out with this particular design, which has been replicated. A couple other companies do it. I know there’s some, you know, clones out there and stuff like that.
I think Feather, I have one that’s a twist open Feather razor that’s really good. And they’ve done that. But the original twist open razor was produced in 1934, which was the Gillettis Aristocrat. Now this was launched and the design came out with the one piece twist open, turning the dial and everything, and they started to nickname the silo doors I guess, or they called them the butterfly doors and those doors that opened and closed.
Now from this design up until the 1980s, the twist-to-open design really stayed about the same. Really, I think more along the lines of perfected in the late 40s and then moved on to really stay the same until the end of 1988 when they stopped making Gillette twist-to-open razors. I digress, let’s keep going on the timeline. So the Earth Star Cat came out, was very popular, sold a lot, a lot of advertising as usual with Gillette, especially fourth quarter for the holidays, and they decided to continue to innovate the Razor.
So there was more of a mid-century boom in the 1940s. You want to fast forward to 1947, which is really… the heyday, you can say, of the twist-open razor right after World War II. So, they introduced the super speed, and this razor was, really, it was, they brought the price down, it was very affordable, and it was built to last with changing around the plating.
They started using a nickel-plated brass instead of using, you know, just straight, I think, I believe it was just straight brass they were using for a little while there in different metals for the older models. And they did this to make it a little bit better. After the war, a lot of people were coming home and a lot of people were starting to get back to their normal lives and they wanted good quality products. And you remember Gillette sent out razors with the US military during their time in World War II.
Many of them had those khaki sets, right? They were issued, government issued. So they came back and they wanted to continue with Gillette. And these were perfect razors in order to get going, I guess you could say, and what better way to do it than to make it affordable and make it a little bit better quality and to also, I guess you could say, make them easier to use and nicer,
right, all around. So they took the SuperSpeed and they decided, you know, we’re going to make this razor really easy to make. Nickel plate it so it’s nice and good quality and then you know the guy and then the average you know man can continue to buy our blades and Purchase this razor which they are very familiar with the brand already So, the Superspeed did very well until about the mid-50s, 1950s when they eventually, I would say early to mid-50s maybe, where they came out with the Superspeed and they noticed that everybody wanted kind of a different, hmm, I guess you could say aggression level.
You know, some guys were like, hey, I love my Gillette Razor, but I want it to be a little bit more aggressive or a little bit less. So, they came out with the Flare Tip Trio, you could say. And this was the silver tip, we call them, which is the regular one, which is just like a middle grade. Then you had the red tip, which is very for aggressive beards or aggressive shave.
And then you had the blue tip, which is more along the lines of sensitive, very mild. I’ve owned all three and I could tell you that I love to travel with the blue tip. I think for traveling, I think whenever I go anywhere, if I’m gonna bring a razor with me, I usually bring a blue tip with me or I bring in maybe a, you know, usually like a razor rock, I guess you could say a three-piece razor, right, one of their three-piece razors.
Something that’s affordable, something that I can easily, that’s going to shave me very well. I usually like a very sensitive mild shave when I’m shaving, when I’m traveling, just because I don’t want to cut myself in case, you know, I don’t want anything to happen. And something that I can easily replace, like there’s plenty of blue tips out there. You know, I think that’s one of my favorite ones.
The red tip is very, it’s more aggressive. And then if you think about it, they’re more along lines of blue tip would be one to three. The regular silver tip would be three to six. And I guess you would say, or four to six, four to seven.
And then seven to nine would be the red tip. If you’re looking at, you know, aggression levels with like an adjustable razor. So and that’s kind of where it moves up. And here’s a picture if you look in the show notes, this is a picture of my my 1979 recently just tuned up Gillette razor, Gillette Super Adjustable, that my grandfather, this razor actually started it all for me, right?
I’ve told you about this before. When my grandfather passed away in 2011, I went through his stuff, I found this razor and started researching it and really this is what got me started. Now the razor was in really good shape, the problem is, It was it’s just old and I use it quite often So it kind of started falling apart and I had to you know, fix it So I tried to take it apart and fix it myself Didn’t work out too.
Well, so I sent it to razor Emporium and they did a basic tune-up for me and they fixed it up and they got the spring back in they repaired it and And other than a little crack in the handle, which I said I was okay with keeping it like that, mainly because it was more of a heirloom razor, and I think I’m the one that did the crack anyway, that razor came back in perfect working condition. I was very impressed with what they did, and now it’s now a usable razor for me. So my grandfather’s razor is back, and it’s back in good condition.
I can shave with it again. But this is about 1955 where they really started to look at hey, how can we do adjustable razors, right? Everybody’s something now How can we get the sensitive medium and aggressive shave all into one? they came out with the adjustable razor and this was probably the best-selling one of the best-selling razors of All time for Gillette and you can think of it.
They sold millions and millions of these over the years from 1955 till about 1988 the aggressive the adjustable razor was produced by Gillette and and millions and millions were sold. So you have an adjustable razor now that combines all the best of the flare tips, right? It has all of the adjustments. So you can get one razor and it would be perfect for any gentleman that want to use it.
Charge a little bit more for it, not too much, they’re about 150. and market it everywhere. They did a lot of testing for this razor. As you guys have known, if you’ve read my work, if you read some of the stuff we’ve done on Sharpologist, some other podcasts, you had the bottom dial, you had the toggle, you had the red dot, you had a bunch of different razors that they came out with
to test different areas, different testing markets. And really they wanted to get customer feedback from real people to see what they would prefer. And the design that you see is what you had the adjustment dial in the middle and then you had the twist open on the bottom just like a regular super speed. And that’s what came out and that’s what millions of people shaved with for about 30 years almost.
Some of the iconic models, as I mentioned, you had the highly collectible ones that people are looking for, our regular Fat Boy made from 1958 to 1961. That is probably the most popular. Over 6 million of these razors were made. And I think this is probably one of the most popular, if not most shaved with razors in the vintage world for vintage collectors.
You have the better one, which I think is the best race the personally my opinion is the best made adjustable or twist open razor from Gillette was the some adjustable which was from 1961 to 68 that’s the slim This one was basically everything a fat boy was, which is a little smaller, but to me, I feel these are better made. I’ve seen less problems with the ones that I own. I’ve never had an issue with one that I’ve had, and I use them quite often, and I think that their clicking mechanism, everything’s on point.
I think Gillette really had it nailed on this one. I think they really did well with that and probably why so many people get it. And then you have the right after that the super adjustable which is often called the black beauty which was produced from about 1968 and a half 1969 all the way down to the 1988 when Gillette made their last adjustable razor. So adjustable razors became really popular until really, you got to talk about the, you know, the 1970s when Gillette started looking into different options.
They looked into, okay, we’re going to start, we manufactured double-edged twist-open razors. These razors are great, but they’re also, you know, They’re very, I guess you could say bulky, they’re heavy, they’re expensive to make, products are getting, materials are getting more expensive. As you guys can see, in the 1970s, they started transitioning more to plastics, to aluminum instead of nickel-plated brass. They started using a little bit different quality products, bigger adjustment valves, didn’t look, you know, I don’t think it was as great as it was like when I said with the slim, which I think was at the peak.
So these twist-open razors are getting more expensive, so they were looking at alternatives, and that’s when they came out with the TRAK-2, which is about 1971-ish, and it was released, and then people started using it, started noticing, hey, this is better, it’s safer to use, it’s got two blades on it, gives me even closer blade, a closer shave, and guess what? Those cartridges cost about four or five, maybe 10 times more than a regular safety razor blade. And you had to buy the cartridges from Gillette, you had to buy them to use that razor, and it did give you a good shave.
So in the 1970s you started seeing a boom on that, a lot of people started switching to it. Gillette did it in very good fashion, they did a lot of testing, they did cheap models where they’d send them out and let people try them for free. and then you would have to buy the blades back. So I think if you look at it, it’s a genius way to do it.
You had these cartridge razors come out, and then you notice they shave closer, you advertise it, two blades, you don’t have to use the double-edged safety razor blade anymore. It’s a little bit safer on your skin, you may not cut yourself as much, it’s already got a guard in it and everything, and it’s readily available, and we’ll charge a little bit less for the unit, but the blades we’re gonna charge 10 times more. So great, great advertising, great move. And quickly, this razor started to take out the twist open razors and also the adjustable razors and become the norm all the way up until about 19 in the 1980s, when Gillette decided, hey, we’re going to see production in the United States razors and and for the for
this in the United States market. And we’re going to go strictly with cartridge razors and continue to innovate from there. You went from The Track 2, you had a couple other models as well. Then you started going to the Mach 3, which I believe is one of the longest running, if not the, like we talked about on the last show, one of the longer running models, but also probably one of the better, well-known Razors.
This is still a Razor, I mean, I got it on my 18th birthday back in 2001. So I remember it was sent to my parents’ house when I was a kid. It was my first Razor, and Gillette used to do that for everybody, so that was the one that got sent to me. and a lot of other, probably millions of other kids out there as well.
And then finally, guys, they went to more modern style. Now you have fusions, all that stuff, but really it’s stayed about the same. I think Gillette learned from their ribbon, from the Techmatic, we talked about it, that first cartridge razor they came out with, the ribbon style blade, which was a disaster, and then they went to the Track II, which became much more popular. I have, I’ve never used a Track II, believe it or not, but I have been looking at them on eBay, and I plan on purchasing one to try it, because you can actually still buy Gillette Track II blades, cartridges, in like Walgreens and stuff, and Walmart has them.
They’re expensive, but they’re still available, and I was thinking, you know, what way to try is to get a vintage one, try it with some new blades that are available from Gillette to this day, because obviously there’s still a demand for them, right, if they’re still selling them. And well, guys, that about concludes, I guess, Gillette Month. I know it was kind of over the span of a little bit longer than a month, and I apologize for that, being very busy, skipping some shows here and there. It’s not really convenient for you guys, the listeners, but I do apologize.
Really, it’s on me, so I’m working on getting a little bit better with the schedule. I’ve been recording more out of my car and stuff like that. It’s a lot easier. Actually, car is really good acoustics too for podcasting, believe it or not.
But we’ll get there and continue to keep bringing the show and some good stuff. I hope you guys really did enjoy a dedication to Gillette Month. I think it was really fun. And with that, I’m also doing some more work on vintage Gillettes.
I will be coming out with some more writing on it in the future. And I will be sharing it with all of you guys here, hopefully in the next couple of months. And it’ll be a nice special little project that I’ve been doing and hopefully you guys get to enjoy that as well. A lot of research, a lot of research and a lot of calling people and talking to collectors and just trying to figure out stuff about Gillette.
It’s not as easy as you would think and I know there’s other guys out there that have done it. and they have done very well. You know, Matt from Razor Emporium, great Gillette collector. This guy is really all on it.
And he’s done a lot of great things on this kind of subject. So, utilizing some of his work and talking to him, he’s great. And then a lot of other collectors out there too. Believe it or not, there are a lot of people that are still very knowledgeable in these old razors and still know about them when they came out.
So it’s really cool to talk to him about it. Because I was, you know, and really thinking about the other day, my son is, he’s seven. So I think when he gets to be my age, he’s not going to have any more original like Gillette guys out there that hey, I bought a toggle, I bought a bottom, I bought a fat boy brand new. all that during those really key times, the 1960s and 70s, 50s, 60s, and just talking about, yeah, I remember my first Gillette Razor was a toggle, or talking to those guys, yeah, I bought one, I put it in a sock drawer, or I kept it forever because it
was such a cool gift, I never wanted to use it. He may not be able to experience that, so making sure that we have writing podcasts, all this stuff out there, and YouTube videos out there for the future generations is really important. All right, so I did want to talk a little bit about the Fall Seasonal Special, because I do know that there are, yes, there are, here and there, some new listeners here. So what is it about the Fall Seasonal Special, guys, that’s so special and why I keep talking about it?
Well, it is my favorite show out of the year. It is the most labor-intensive, most informational show that I do yearly. And this is something that I’ve done for 11, this will be the 11th year, and talking about just all the fall seasonal products. Now, every year there were so many items coming out differently, from different vendors and all this, and everybody would always talk about, oh, what’d you get?
Did you try that? Oh, I didn’t see that. And I said to myself one day, you know, what way to do it? than to have a show dedicated just to all this stuff.
And I do the research and I’ll, you know, do the work, right? I’ll put it all together. And then all the listeners can go in there. It’s a little bit longer.
It’s like around 30 to 40 minute show. And they’ll have a show to where they can hear just me discuss what’s out there, what’s new, and give them like a little firsthand where to find these things. And it received a lot of positive, you know, feedback. I received like a lot of guys look forward to it.
Now, over the years, guys, I’ll be honest, I think, you know, last maybe two years or so, AI has helped out tremendously for you guys to find this stuff. You know, before it used to be just Googling and going on sites. I can tell you right now, the first few years, I literally had to go into hundreds and hundreds of vendors, go on their website and check to see if they had anything, because they would not, you know, a lot of them would not put it in there. You know, they would say, oh, I’m not gonna put it in on new releases or anything like that.
You know, there are limited capacities just like me. And with small businesses, it’s hard to do that. So I would research and research and look and look through everything and go through hundreds. I had a database of over 120 vendors at one point that I was going through and come out and get it.
Now AI makes it a little bit easier, but you know what? I still don’t really use AI for it. I still go through every website and still see it because AI does miss some things. At least now it still did last year and it’s been doing it this year.
So I’ll definitely continue to put the work in. This year, I’m also bringing back the archive portion, which is going to be items that were featured in the past releases that got a lot of, I guess, a lot of attention and were really cool and innovative. So, we’ll do that in the beginning and then talk about all the new fall stuff coming out from all the vendors that you know and love. So, really looking forward to doing this show for you guys.
It’s going to be up in the next month. Though usually the last show of October is when I do it, and then it’ll give you some time to enjoy it on Halloween and hopefully give you a little something to listen to on your commute to work or just hanging out at home, you know. Drinking a nice pumpkin spice coffee or a pumpkin beer, one or the other, anything you want. So there are links to the previous shows in there guys from 2025 to 2016, so feel free to go through it and listen to them and get a little insight of what’s going on over the last 10 years.
And that concludes the show for this week, guys. Again, I apologize for being a little bit off on the schedule. It’s here and there. It’s just life gets you sometimes.
It’s a little busy out there. It’s very busy. The older I get, for some reason, I get busier. I don’t know why, but I guess we all do.
I wanted to let you guys know, remember, don’t forget our show is powered by sharpologist.com, which your father didn’t teach you about shaving. And special thanks to Mantic59 for everything that he does for the wet shaving community, and also most of all you guys, the listeners. Don’t forget to check out my blog, ShaveStraightAndSafe.com, and also feel free to email me anytime, joe.wetshavingnews at gmail.com. Don’t forget, check out my book as well, Modern Guide to Straight Razor Shaving, available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and at Pasteur’s Pharmacy in New York City.
Alright guys, until next time, shave straight and shave safe. Bye bye now.
