In 1895 King C. Gillette had a wonderful idea. He was fed up with having to use a cut razor every morning so he set about designing a wafer thin, incredibly sharp blade that could be held together by a safety clamp. It took him eight years to perfect the design and when it went on sale in 1903, he thought he had been wasting his time for in that year only 51 razors and 168 blades were sold. The following year, however, he knew it had been worthwhile, 90,000 razors were sold and 12,400,000 blades.
