In the 1770s a French master cutler named Jean-Jaques Perret published his first book on the art of shaving oneself. Perret also invented a ‘safety razor’, but did not think to patent it, therefore forfeiting great riches. Within a short time, a number of newfangled razors with varying degrees of the promised ‘safety’, were flooding the market. Designers all over Europe were getting in on the act and producing razors for men to shave themselves, including one with the bizarre name of the ‘pig scraper’.
Source: Moustaches, Whiskers & Beards, Lucinda Hawksley