Shaving in the Harry Potter world [duplicate]

Question

I was wondering how shaving is carried out in the world of HP.

I remember someone getting a razor (from Bill and Fleur?) but can't remember the book. However, a razor is a very broad term. As the magical world seems to shun the muggle world; candles and lanterns rather than electric lights and torches for example, do the wizards use a straight edge blade, or a DE safety razor?

I do recall something about using just a wand to cut someone's hair (by Mrs Weasly?), is there any record/note/head-canon of shaving carried out via a cartridge razor, or anything of the like?

I would have thought it would be included in some format at the school, after all they're all of the age where they'll have to start shaving (or getting a beard).

This is not about how Harry got his hair cut, or about hair cutting. It is about shaving and the tools that are used for that task. For hair cutting, it is suggested that a wand is an accurate enough tool, but shaving (which is a more precise task) may want a better, more refined tool.

Answer 1

Harry gets a magic shaver:

The other packages contained an enchanted razor from Bill and Fleur ("Ah yes, zis will give you ze smoothest shave you will ever 'ave," Monsieur Delacour assured him, "but you must tell it clearly what you want... ozzerwise you might find you 'ave a leetle less hair zan you would like...")
_{Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, chapter 7}

This is basically all of the information we have on shaving in HP.

So I'd assume that everyone has a shaver, much like in our world.

Answer 2

It's important to remember that this is a book with a teenage boy as a hero, written by a woman with no first-hand experience of teenage boys! Shaving, growing pains, voice breaking - all distinctly absent.

However this is also very much in keeping with the tradition of British school stories from the 1800s to just after WWII. Enid Blyton, Elinor Brent-Dyer and Angela Brazil produced a large number of works featuring teenage girls at boarding-school, but none of them ever mentioned periods, mood swings, breast growth, or any of the other experiences of teenage girls growing up. The same was generally true of all children's fiction of that time. Protagonists were portrayed as having full adult capacities, just in a smaller body, which generally reflected how teenagers were viewed at that time. It's not quite true to say that the teenager was "invented" in the 1950s, but that's certainly the first time they were viewed as a distinct group between childhood and full adulthood.

One of the distinctive characteristics of modern children's authors such as Jacqueline Wilson is that they tend not to gloss over the less attractive features of teenage life. Rowling though was consciously reviving a very much older tradition of children's fiction, and that tradition has no place for growing-up and sexuality.

So yes, the books make no mention of shaving, or periods, or pretty much anything else beyond the characters getting taller.

Answer 3

The only reference to a shaver in Harry Potter would be in the 7th book, Deathly Hallows.

The other packages contained an enchanted razor from Bill and Fleur.

It's Harry's 17th birthday, the time one is considered an adult in the Wizarding World, so he probably received the shaver to shave off his excess hair.

This shaver works exactly the same (except for the talking part) as the real-life ones:

"but you must tell it clearly what you want... ozzerwise you might find you 'ave a leetle less hair zan you would like..."

---

For Mrs. Weasley's case, she most probably preferred to use her wand over a shaver, which is technically a 'Muggle contraption'. Others who share a view probably use their wands instead of shavers as well.

She is seen to dislike stuff that are related to Muggles, as shown in The Order of the Phoenix — Christmas on the Closed Ward:

Harry knew that her disapproval of Mundungus was battling with her dislike of traveling without magic; finally the cold outside and her children’s pleading triumphed, and she settled herself into the backseat between Fred and Bill with good grace.

some of these old Muggle remedies . . . well, they’re called stitches, Molly, and they work very well on — on Muggle wounds —” Mrs. Weasley let out an ominous noise somewhere between a shriek and a snarl.

Hence, in Deathly Hallows, Mrs. Weasley is seen cutting Charlie's hair with her wand and not a shaver:

Charlie’s arrival came as a relief to Harry. It provided a distraction, watching Mrs. Weasley force Charlie into a chair, raise her wand threateningly, and announce that he was about to get a proper haircut.