Thus was born the giant of the single-use products business

The blueprint dates from November 15, 1904. Drawn with great precision, it shows an elongated handle, a toothed piece, a few small screws, and a thin, sharp metal blade. It is the patent for the shaving machine invented by King C. Gillette, an American entrepreneur who understood the commercial potential of disposable products before many others.

Gillette's empire was born from that drawing, one of the best-known brands in the world, now part of Procter & Gamble's catalog. The giant acquired Gillette in 2005, and since then, it is not known exactly what part of the business corresponds only to the brand. What is clear is the enormous penetration it has in markets like the Spanish one, where its share has exceeded 77%, according to data collected in CNMC resolutions. However, how did King C. Gillette manage to turn such a small and everyday object into one of the great businesses of modern consumption?

The revelation of a bottle cap

King Camp Gillette was born in 1855 in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, United States, but grew up in Chicago. As a young man, he worked as a salesman for the Crown Cork & Seal Company, a company dedicated to manufacturing metal caps for bottles. It was this job that sharpened his eye for understanding what people buy, what they need, and which objects can turn into a round business. Over the years, this obsession began to focus on a simple idea: finding an everyday product that, after being used, would need a replacement.

The spark was ignited by William Painter, founder of the company where he worked and inventor of the single-use metal cap. Painter suggested he think of a similar product: something that, once used, would be thrown away and force the consumer to buy another. Gillette applied this logic to the world of shaving. At a time when many men still shaved with razors or blades that needed constant sharpening, he created a safe razor with a thin, cheap, and replaceable blade. The idea was powerful, but materializing it was not easy: it took him six years to turn it into a functional model and blueprints suitable for patenting. The main obstacle was technical. It was necessary to manufacture very thin steel blades, cheap enough to be replaced and effective enough to shave well.

The situation did not change until Gillette met William Emery Nickerson, an engineer trained at MIT who helped him develop both the system and the machinery needed to produce it on a large scale. With him and other partners, Gillette founded the American Safety Razor Company in 1901. The beginnings were difficult: in 1903, the first year of production, the company only sold 51 razors and 168 blades. But in 1904, with the system already patented, sales soared to 90,884 razors and 123,648 blades. From then on, the company adopted the name Gillette Safety Razor Company and began to expand outside the United States, with a commercial office in London and a blade factory in Paris. Gillette was not just selling an object: he was selling a system, and in that system lay the seed of the empire that would eventually flourish.

The acquisition by P&G

The definitive consolidation of Gillette arrived with the First World War. When the United States entered the conflict, the army began to distribute shaving kits among the soldiers. The brand took advantage of that momentum to turn a habit that was not yet fully widespread into a fashionable routine. Millions of men got used to shaving every day with their blades, and, once the war was over, Gillette knew how to retain this custom. From then on, the company grew at great speed, strengthened its international presence, and refined its business model: it was not just about selling the razor, but about ensuring the continued purchase of refills.

The brand knew how to adapt to the technological and commercial changes of the 20th century and gradually absorbed competitors. In 2005, this journey culminated with the purchase by Procter & Gamble, in a deal valued at approximately 57 billion dollars, the largest in the group's history up to that point. The integration was completed on October 1st of that year, and Gillette became part of the North American giant's large global catalog.