A Cutthroat Business

How can you get people to pay more to shave? That's the eternal question in the $6-billion razor business. Hair grows at the same rate year in and year out, and there are few activities more banal than shaving. But the Big Three razormakers — America's Gillette and Schick and France's Bic — have all come up with a cheeky answer; the very same cheeky answer. And so, after years of relatively peaceful coexistence, competition among them is about to become cutthroat.

The three firms have jostled for shelf space for three decades, but in the past they...