What Am I?A featured mystery object of the month

Print a “What Am I?” sign. Add a “clue” in the text box, print, and post on your bulletin board. Post a different clue every day or so and see who can identify the mystery item.

Then plan a “What Am I?” discussion and other related activities.

Do you know what I am? Here are some clues:

1. I’ve been around in one form or another since 3000 B.C.

2. The ancient Sumerians made me out of animal fat and wood ashes.

3. A product similar to what’s used now was first developed in England in the early 19th century.

4. Through the years, I’ve been made into tablets and cakes.

5. I was first packaged in a tube in the 1920s.

6. After World War II, I was put into an aerosol can.

7. I was made into a gel in the 1970s.

8. These days, I’m most often found in the bathroom or shower.

9. Once used almost exclusively by men, I was formulated specifically for women in 1986.

10. I’m similar to soap, but I’m not exactly soap, and I have a different purpose.

11. One of the most important things I do is provide lubrication.

12. The majority of men in the United States use me in the morning, although some use me againin the evening.

13. I’ve been the subject of many national advertising campaigns; one particularly successfulcampaign featured roadside signs.

14. About 90 percent of American men use me at least once a day.

15. The average American male starts using me between the ages of 14 and 16 years old.

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16. Using me is something of a ritual symbolizing one’s manhood.

17. Some people use me for pranks, but I have a number of other “good” uses in addition to mymain purpose.

18. Even though I look like something you’d put a cherry on top of, don’t try and eat me.

19. I am white, foamy, and generally smell good.

20. Men with both moustaches and beards avoid using me altogether.

Can you guess what I am? With all these hints, you’re probably just a whisker away from guessing what I am. That’s right—I’m shaving cream.

Print a copy of the pictures to pass around as you share and discuss the information in the article with your group

Introduction

Do you remember the saying “Shave and a haircut, two bits”? It is so familiar that even when tapped out with your knuckles most people can supply the words. There was a time when men routinely congregated at their local barbershop for shaves, haircuts, and good ol’ male bonding. The barber would lather his customer’s face with liberal amounts of shaving cream and then expertly apply a straight razor at the peril of every last whisker. Let’s learn more about the razor’s companion—shaving cream.

History

Cave paintings show that people have been altering their appearance by growing and removing hair since prehistoric times. Sometimes our ancestors plucked hair, but most often they shaved. Thousands of years ago, Sumerian men used oil or a combination of animal fat and wood ashes to create a lubricating concoction that lathered slightly and made shaving a bit easier. Ancient Romans also used a crude form of soap made from animal fat and lye to shave. But none of these very basic soaps provided the thick, stiff lather and lubrication that comfortable shaving requires.

While soap and soap-making techniques improved throughout the world, and beards were sometimes more popular and sometimes less popular, shaving methods and tools really didn’t change much until after the 17th century. In Europe, fashionable men—and occasionally women—were shaving their heads to accommodate elaborate wigs and wanted something that would make the process less painful. But it was not until the 1800s that high-lathering preparations made especially for shaving, rather than soaps adapted for the purpose, began to emerge.

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Truefit and Hill, the world’s oldest continually operating barbershop, created a special lathering formulation for use in its London shop in 1805. But the first shaving soap product that could be purchased for use at home was Vroom and Fowler’s Walnut Oil Military Shaving Soap, sold as foaming tablets beginning in 1840.

Can You Guess

1. How fast does a man’s facial hair grow? About half an inch amonth.

2. How many whiskers does the average man’s face have? Between5,000 and 25,000 whiskers.

3. How much time does the average man spending shaving? About60 hours a year.

4. How much of their lives do men spend shaving? The averageman spends about five months of his life shaving.

5. How many men worldwide shave with a blade or a razor? About1.3 billion.

6. When does facial hair grow faster—day or night? It grows fasterduring the day.

7. Where do the majority of American men shave—at the sink or in the shower? Over 80 percentof men shave at the sink.

8. About how long does it take the average man to shave his face? About 3.5 minutes.

9. Do American women prefer a man to be clean shaven or have facial hair? About 70 percent ofwomen prefer a clean-shaven man.

10. Who shaves more often: men between the ages of 18 and 24 or those over 35? Men betweenthe ages of 18 and 24 shave an average of four times a week; those over 35 shave about sixtimes a week.

11. Where is the greatest concentration of hair on a man’s face? The greatest concentration is onthe chin and upper lip.

12. How many whiskers are removed from a man’s face when he shaves? The average shaveremoves 20,000 to 25,000 hairs.

Shaving the Modern Way

By the early 1900s, manufactured shaving cream applied with a brush was widely used. Scientist George Washington Carver created a shaving cream with a peanut oil base that lathered well and had a long shelf life.

Iconic Burma-Shave shaving cream got its start in 1925 when liniment, the Burma-Vita company’s original product, wasn’t selling well and owner Clinton Odell decided to formulate a brand of brushless shaving cream. The shaving cream used many of the same ingredients as the liniment, including oils and scents “from the Malay Peninsula and Burma.”

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Originally sold in a red and white tube packed in a red and white box, Burma-Shave was later available in half-pound jars. At its peak in the 1930s, it was the second-best-selling shaving cream in the United States. Its popularity was fueled by the roadside signs that were at the heart of the Burma-Shave advertising campaign until the company was sold to Philip Morris in 1963.

Burma-Shave

Minneapolis, Minnesota, was the site of the first Burma-Shave signs in 1925. Six small consecutively reading signs, with the last one naming the product, were placed at the shoulder of the highway, where they could be easily read by motorists passing at speeds under 25 miles per hour. Burma-Shave signs could be found in almost all 48 states. The exceptions were New Mexico, Arizona, and Nevada. In those early days, advertising executives determined that these three Western states didn’t have enough automobile traffic to warrant inclusion

in the campaign. Massachusetts also missed out on Burma-Shave signs because of the state’s high-priced land rental and overgrowth of roadside bushes and trees on roadsides.

The original signs were created in red and white (to match packaging) and orange and black. The orange and black signs were discontinued after a few years. Special white and blue signs were produced for South Dakota because, in that state, red and white roadside signs could only be used for official traffic notices. The signs generally featured all capital letters because they were considered easier to read. For the first few years, two to four sets of signs were created each year and rotated throughout the country. By the late 1920s, the humorous messages usually rhymed:

Every shaver / Now can snore / Six more minutes / Than before / By using / Burma-Shave

Your shaving brush / Has had its day / So why not / Shave the modern way / With / Burma-Shave

Sales Pitches and Safety Messages

Later, with major company growth in the 1930s, 19 different sets of signs were developed. Some mocked soap and shaving brushes as old fashioned, and some were specifically targeted toward wives:

Shaving brushes / You’ll soon see ’em / On the shelf / In some / Museum / Burma-Shave

Does your husband / Misbehave / Grunt and grumble / Rant and rave / Shoot the brute some / Burma-Shave

Burma-Shave was the first advertiser to provide a road safety message along with its sales pitch:

Hardly a driver / Is now alive / Who passed / On hills / At 75 / Burma-Shave

Past / Schoolhouses / Take it slow / Let the little / Shavers grow / Burma-Shave

If you dislike / Big traffic fines / Slow down / Till you / Can read these signs / Burma-Shave

As interstate highways and faster speeds made reading a sequence of six signs difficult, Burma-Shave cut back to one, two, or three in a row.

Covers a multitude of chins

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And during World War II, many of the signs had a patriotic theme:

Let’s make Hitler / And Hirohito / Feel as bad / as Old Benito / Buy War Bonds / Burma-Shave The last sign disappeared in 1963, when Philip Morris bought the company and decided to end roadside advertising. The final slogan was:

Our fortune / Is your / Shaven face / It’s our best / Advertising space / Burma-Shave

Discussion Starters

1. Do you remember Burma-Shave signs? Did you ever see any of the ones mentioned here?

2. Where did you see them?

3. When did you last see them?

4. Did you ever use Burma-Shave or know someone who did?

World War II and After

During World War II, wartime rationing of just about everything cut back on the ingredients available for making shaving cream. Many manufacturers stopped making it entirely, and some changed their formulations so that their shaving cream lubricated but didn’t lather up. When the war and rationing ended, shaving cream came back better than before. In 1949, Carter-Wallace introduced Rise shaving cream in a pressurized can. Ten year later, over 60 percent of the shaving cream market was devoted to this easy-to-use, quick-lathering product. Next came shaving gels in the ’70s, and in 1993, Proctor and Gamble patented a foaming gel—the best of both shaving worlds.

Women and Shaving Cream

Shaving cream was considered an exclusively men’s product until relatively recently. In May 1915, a fashion spread in Harper’s Bazaar featured a model wearing an elegant sleeveless evening gown. If women were to wear this bold new style, the copy read, they must first see to “the removal of objectionable hair.” The shorter dresses and sheer stockings of the ’30s and ’40s made “the removal of objectionable hair” on legs equally important.

In the past 100 years, shaving legs and underarms has become standard grooming practice for women in North America and most western countries. But it was not until 1986 that the first shaving cream exclusively for women—Hers—was marketed.

Discussion Starters

• What kind of shaving cream do you prefer? Why?

• When did you start shaving?

• Do you remember when pressurized cans were first introduced? Did you like them? Howabout gels?

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©Activity Connection Care Package - approved for free distribution - What Am I? (Shaving Cream pictures) - June 2014

©Activity Connection Care Package - approved for free distribution - What Am I? (Shaving Cream pictures) - June 2014

Burma-Shave signs

©Activity Connection Care Package - approved for free distribution - What Am I? (sign)