Philishave was a

brand name A brand is a name, term, design, symbol or any other feature that distinguishes one seller's goods or service from those of other sellers. Brands are used in business, marketing, and advertising for recognition and, importantly, to create and ...

for

electric shaver An electric shaver (also known as the dry razor, electric razor, or simply shaver) is a razor with an electrically powered rotating or oscillating blade. The electric shaver usually does not require the use of shaving cream, soap, or water, kno ...

s manufactured by Dutch electronics conglomerate

Philips Koninklijke Philips N.V. (), simply branded Philips, is a Dutch multinational health technology company that was founded in Eindhoven in 1891. Since 1997, its world headquarters have been situated in Amsterdam, though the Benelux headquarter ...

, under its Personal Health division. In recent years, Philips had extended the Philishave brand to include hair clippers, beard trimmers and beard shapers. Philips used the Philishave brand name for their shavers from 1939 to 2006, before phasing it out in favour of the Philips brand. In the United States, Philips shavers were sold under the

Norelco Philips Norelco is the American brand name for electric shavers and other personal care products made by the Personal Care division of Philips. For personal care products marketed outside the United States, Palau, Micronesia, and the Marshall I ...

brand, before being co-branded as Philips-Norelco.

currently has two production centres for shavers:

Drachten Drachten (, ) is a town in the northern Netherlands. It is located in the municipality of Smallingerland, Friesland. It had a population of around 56.098 in 2023 and is the Friesland#Urban areas, second largest town in the province of Friesland. ...

, in the Netherlands, and

Zhuhai Zhuhai; Yale romanization of Cantonese, Yale: ''Jyūhói''; Chinese postal romanization, also known as Chuhai is a prefecture-level city located on the west bank of the Pearl River (China), Pearl River estuary on the central coast of southern ...

, in China.

History

The Philishave shaver was invented by Philips engineer Alexandre Horowitz, who used rotating cutters instead of the reciprocating cutters that had been used in previous electric shavers. The shaver was introduced in 1939, though initial production was limited due to the outbreak of

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

(the production facility in

Eindhoven Eindhoven ( ; ) is a city and List of municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality of the Netherlands, located in the southern Provinces of the Netherlands, province of North Brabant, of which it is the largest municipality, and is also locat ...

, the Netherlands, was overrun by the German Army in 1940). After the war, a slightly improved version of the cigar-shaped single-head shaver was introduced. A more

ergonomic Ergonomics, also known as human factors or human factors engineering (HFE), is the application of psychological and physiological principles to the engineering and design of products, processes, and systems. Primary goals of human factors engi ...

egg-shaped single-head model was introduced in 1948 and was designed by US industrial designer

Raymond Loewy Raymond Loewy ( , ; November 5, 1893 – July 14, 1986) was a French-born American industrial designer who achieved fame for the magnitude of his design efforts across a variety of industries. He was recognized for this by ''Time'' magazi ...

. Global sales increased markedly after a double-head model was introduced in 1951. In 1952, production of shavers shifted from Eindhoven to a new production facility in

, the Netherlands. A triple-head model was test marketed in Australia and New Zealand in 1956, but would not be introduced globally until 1966. In 1980, Philips introduced the ''Lift & Cut'' Philishave shaver, invented by Eduard W. Tietjens, with lifters which pull whiskers slightly before cutting, allowing for closer shaves. The brand name Philishave was phased out in 2006 so shavers now bear only the Philips name. Philips is now co-branding their shavers sold in the US as "Philips Norelco" in preparation of a phase-out of the

name. Philips have celebrated their 80th anniversary in the electric shaver business by marketing special 'Heritage Edition' shaver models reviving the Philishave brand.

Models and parts

According to instructions supplied with the units, the shaving heads need cleaning every 2 months and replacing every 18 months. However, not all Philips spare parts will fit well on all Philips shavers. Heads are given an "HQ" number, such as HQ2, HQ3, HQ4, HQ5, etc., and this number should normally correspond with the first digit of the model number of the shaver. An exception is the 6000 series which takes HQ8 heads. Although the heads do look much the same, attempts to fit the wrong HQ number may fail; for example, an HQ5 head will not correctly engage with the spindle on a shaver model designed for an HQ3 or HQ4 head, due to a small extra piece of plastic in the centre of the HQ5 drive socket. Care should therefore be taken when choosing replacement parts.Style Recap
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References

External links

Philips shavers official website
{{Philips Philips products Products introduced in 1939 Shaving Dutch inventions

History

Models and parts

See also

References

External links