Just bought a tuck of the Gillette Wilkinson stainless blades from a local shop in a small sleepy town I am in. This is the "rural" India where agriculture and everything around it rules as does DE Shaving.. The tuck is something I have never seen in Mumbai. So they do not seem to sell different packages to different markets in India. I opened a blade to shave today morning on a hot and 85% humidity conditions to find this ...
Wow. First, I didn't know Gillette and Wilkinson were associated. Second, that is bold advertising inside the wrapper. Clever.
Here is the information that Giovanni of Razor and Brush told me approximatly a year ago. Please notice that this includes no information from me and this does not represent my opinion or any knowldge from me in any way this is mearly what Giovanni told me. Giovanni says that Proctor and Gamble has under license from Wilkinson in Germany started to make some models of Wilkison blades more sepcifically the blades from India. The blades made by the company from Germany and England are made by Wilkinson employees. I make no representations that this information is correct I simply say that this is the information that Giovanni gave me.
wow, I hope Proctor and Gamble and Wal-Mart never merge...everything in the world would come out of one factory
Its both yes and no on this information piece There is a history. In India during its earlier socialistic industrial obsessions (which thankfully is long past), MNCs could not enter Indian markets with 100% stake holding to promote Indian partners and industry. Gillette , Pepsi and the Coke's of the world entered via surrogate Indian affiliates with 49% stake with 51% being local Indian affiliates (the boards were always controlled by the mother ships). Thankfully Indians saw the futility of this stupid exercise and gave up this policy. In that era Gillette entered as "Indian Shaving Products". With the Perestroika and Glasnost ringing a familiar bell, the liberalization allowed 100% stake holding. As part of Indian Shaving Products and the potential of Wilkinson as a DE brand, Gillette aligned with the Wilkinson through the Indian Shaving arm. More here http://myiris.com/shares/company/writeDet.php?icode=indshapr
You mean it's not like that already? I swear, half of China must be taken up by a gigantic furniture factory -- and the other half is making clothes. :happy102
I noticed that on my Indian Wilkinsons, too. More than a little surprising, not to mention ironic. These blades are being exported to shavers who have given up multiblade cartridges for traditional DE shaving. Thank God for India, the land of traditional wetshaving!
Gillette once owned part of Swedish Match which at the time owned Wilkinson Sword. Before they were made to sell their share in Match they transfered some rights to themselves like the Wilkinson name in North America, India & Brazil. This is why you only see Schick products now in the US as Gillette owns the Wilkinson Sword name for trading in the US. Any Wilkinson product now sold in the US or India is made by Gillette. For some reason Wilkinson managed to keep or were given back the right to use the Wilkinson Sword name in Europe. Gillette were made to sell their share in Wilkinson for legal reasons. Best regards, Paul
Gillette once owned part of Swedish Match which at the time owned Wilkinson Sword. Before they were made to sell their share in Match they transfered some rights to themselves like the Wilkinson name in North America, India & Brazil. This is why you only see Schick products now in the US as Gillette owns the Wilkinson Sword name for trading in the US. Any Wilkinson product now sold in the US or India is made by Gillette. For some reason Wilkinson managed to keep or were given back the right to use the Wilkinson Sword name in Europe. Gillette were made to sell their share in Wilkinson for legal reasons. Best regards, Paul
ok, here is what I thought: Wilkinson is a part of Shick corp and therefore a part of Enigizer holdings.
Stora sold Wilkinson Sword To Eemland, based here in the Netherlands. Gillette had a 22% equity interest in Eemland. Eemland sold all non EC and North America business to Gillette in around 1990. The EC/EU, UK and US monopoly and trade authorities decided that this was not in the public interest and Gillette was forced to sell their interest in Eemland and reverse some of their territorial gains such as Turkey and Eastern Europe. I don't believe that Gillette has the North American rights but I could be wrong. Wilkinson Sword was subsequently sold to Warner Lambert in 1993. Unfortunately I unable to post the web links.
The US business was sold back to Wilkinson but the actual trading name in the US is owned by Gillette. Here are two links about Wilkinson: http://www.answers.com/topic/wilkinson-sword http://www.competition-commission.org.uk/rep_pub/reports/1991/301storakopparbergs.htm Best regards, Paul
