An electrical appliance for performing a cutting action on hairs present on an area of skin (7) comprises at least one assembly of a driven internal cutting member (5) for cutting off the hairs and an external cutting member (6) which serves for contacting the area of skin (7) and also for covering and contacting the internal cutting member (5). The cutting members (5, 6) are designed such that friction between them is related to their condition of wear in a predetermined way. Information relating to an actual condition of wear of the cutting members (5, 6) is determined by measuring a parameter related to the friction between the cutting members (5, 6) and processing the parameter, and such information is indicated to a user of the appliance.

An integrated shaving mechanism (ISM) comprises a 28- x 50-mm perforated arbor of 40-mm cylindrical radius supporting a 50-m 300-mg inverted-headfoil-like cutterfoil with a 2540-mm cutting pattern, held slideably under an attached complementary-patterned headfoil. Arbor, cutterfoil, and headfoil provide a few-mm thick shaving mechanism coupled to a shaver body having a motor and eccentric drive shaft that in minor design variations scans the cutterfoil either 1-mm in reciprocation (R-ISM) or 1-mm-R in circulation (C-ISM) at 0.16K-cpm. With its 10-cm.sup.2 area of 0.7-mm-spaced cutting edges capable of firm facial contact, it cuts short hairs at up to 10 the rate of conventional shavers for fast closest-cutting. Arbor-supported cutterfoils and headfoils can be fabricated as thin and lightweight monolayers and multilayers of hard materials and coatings by mechanical and non-mechanical processes. ISMs can be embodied in the size and shape of reciprocator and rotary shavers.

A beard trimmer having a handle, a motor and a head portion. The head portion comprises at least a first long hair cutter unit for trimming hair that is provided with a first outer cutter and a first inner cutter.

A beard trimmer which has a handle, a motor and a removable head portion. The head portion has first long hair cutter unit for trimming the hair length that is provided with a non-foil type outer cutter and an inner cutter. A first comb unit is provided having comb elements located adjacent to multiple cutting slots of the outer cutter. One comb element is provided on each of the opposite sides of the outer cutter. Each comb element provided with a row of comb teeth and comb slots separating the comb teeth from another. Each of the comb teeth has a tooth skin contact surface which is located on an elevated upper level relative to a cutter skin contact surface of the outer cutter.

A beard trimmer which has a handle, a motor and a removable head portion. The head portion comprises at least a first long hair cutter unit for trimming the hair length that is provided with a first, non-foil type outer cutter and a first inner cutter.

The present invention relates to an electric shaver. More particularly, the present invention relates to an electric shaver comprising a handle and a shaver head including at least one cutter unit having a drivable cutter element and a shear foil, wherein said shaver head is connected to said handle by means of a support structure which in some cases may provide for some movability of the shaver head relative to the handle. Said shaver head and/or said at least one cutter unit may have an elongated contour with a main axis extending transverse to the handle's longitudinal axis and substantially parallel to a cutter oscillation axis of said cutter element. The shaver head is spaced apart from the handle with a gap defined between a bottom face of said shaver head and a top face of said handle, said gap forming a ring-shaped contraction in the outer contour of the shaver around said support structure and giving access to the support structure bridging said gap.

A rotary electric shaver includes a head connected to a blade setting base of a main body. The blade setting base has a setting part in which a plurality of blade units are disposed, and a blade frame that holds the setting part. An inner blade part of the blade unit has an inner blade member, and a base part joined to the inner blade member. An outer blade part of the blade unit has an annular outer blade member having a sliding contact surface and a plurality of slits formed in the circumferential direction, a disk-shaped cover, a ball, and a support. A part of the ball surrounded by the cover and the support protrudes from the cover.

A shaving apparatus (1) having a first shaving unit portion (7) connected to a main housing (2) and accommodating a single driven input member (9) rotatable about an axis of rotation. A second shaving unit portion (8) of the shaving apparatus has a hair-cutting unit (12) and a drive unit (13) which transmits a driving force from the single driven input member to an internal cutting member (19) of the hair-cutting unit. The second shaving unit portion is manually rotatable relative to the first shaving unit portion about the axis of rotation of the single driven input member. An adjustment system (24) has a sensing unit (28, 29) configured to have an output property which varies with the angular position of the second shaving unit portion relative to the first shaving unit portion about the rotational axis. The adjustment system adjusts an operational parameter of the shaving apparatus in dependence on the output property of the sensing unit.

The invention relates to a shaving head comprising at least one cutting unit (7, 7A, 7B). The cutting unit comprises a ring-like skin-supporting tilting member, being tillable relative to a shaving head main body (4, 8) about a first tilting axis, an external cutting member, an internal cutting member, and a retainer. According to the invention, the retainer is a multi-purpose retainer in that it provides simultaneously a locking function, a secondary tilting function and an anti-floating function. By virtue of the multi-purpose retainer, the shaving device delivers a high shaving performance and is also easy to clean.

The invention relates to a shaver, comprising a handle, at least two rotary shaving heads, driven by at least one drive shaft which protrudes from said handle, and a support structure for supporting said shaving heads onto the handle so as to have their joined shaving surface (S) extend substantially perpendicular to said at least one drive shaft. The support structure is configured such, that a space (A), restricted at one side by the shaving heads and at the opposite side by the handle, is substantially open to its remaining, surrounding side.