When `Losing Face’ Wasn’t Just an Expression - The Lost Manly Art of the
Barbershop Shave
Some cultural institutions burn themselves out and disappear dramatically -
communism and disco music spring to mind (though disco occasionally
threatens to make a come-back; we must be ever vigilant!) and nobody is
really very sorry to see them go. Others slip quietly out of existence
without anybody noticing and leave our lives just a little poorer. This is
especially true in the world of men.
This is not meant so much in the political or social sense as it is in the
realm of actual material objects. Men have lost a lot of very cool stuff
over the past century that used to lend an aura of manliness and dignity to
their lives - fedora hats, hip flasks and pocket-watches spring to mind. Oh
sure, we still have chewing tobacco, but somehow it’s just not the same.
One of the biggest losses - and one that seems to have disappeared with
little or no fanfare - is that of the barbershop shave.
Ask any of the old-timers - particularly a barber - and they will tell you
that Saturday used to be shave-day. It was the day when men and boys would
go to the barbershop to kick back and pamper themselves - not that any man
would have used that particular phrase. The boys would read decades old
issues of Superboy while their fathers and uncles would talk politics, argue
over the Red Sox and get a close shave. This (much like the Sox’s losing
streak) went on for decades.
Then, suddenly it was gone.
Almost overnight, sometime in the 1960s or ‘70s, men stopped getting shaves
at the barbershop. Today, most barbershops don’t even offer the service.
Walk into any barbershop and ask for a shave and you will get an odd look -
not like you are talking nonsense or anything, but a vaguely embarrassed and
uncomfortable look, as if you’d just brought up a family scandal. You’ll
get a vague, mumbled explanation - ``Nah... don’tdothatanymore...’’ - and
you might even be asked to leave the shop.
The odd thing is, all barber still know how to give shaves - they are
required to know in order to receive their licenses. According to Lynda
Elliot, an Administrative Supervisor for the New Hampshire State Board of
Cosmetology, Barbering and Esthetics, knowing how to give a good shave is,
by definition what makes you a barber.
``The only real difference between a barber and a cosmetologist is that
barbers know how to shave and cosmetologists can give manicures,’’ she
explains. ``Now, most of them will tell you that there’s a lot of
difference in technique - barbers use clippers much more (in cutting hair)
than cosmetologists do, for instance - but from the point of view of
licensure, that’s the only difference.’’
Elliot says that even though few barbers give shaves any more, they still
can and the State has a vested interest in making sure that
they still know how to give them. ``In point of fact,’’
she says, ``that is something that the barbers are very protective of. The
barbers themselves don’t want that taken away from them.’’
So what’s the deal? Why don’t barbers give shaves anymore?
``There’s a lot of reasons why we don’t do them anymore,’’ says Roy Carroll,
co-owner of Keene’s Elm City Barbershop. ``First of all, what are you going
to charge for it?’’
It comes largely down to economics, Carroll explains. Professional barber’s
razors only hold their edge for a limited amount of time, so unless he gives
a lot of shaves and has his equipment ready to go, in order to give a shave,
a barber has to recondition his razor, which takes at least 20 minutes.
Then, it takes another 15-20 minutes to give the shave itself. As in all
businesses, time is money. In the time it take him to give a good shave, a
barber can give three or four haircuts. ``If we charged for our time,’’
Carroll says, ``we’d have to charge 35-40 dollars and who’s going to pay
that for a shave?’’
Carroll says that barbershop shaves were already largely a thing of the past
when he got his barbering license in the early ‘70s. ``Once the safety
razor came out, that pretty much did in the barbershop shave,’’ he says.
``At this point, they don’t even make the equipment like towel-steamers
anymore; you can’t even find them.’’ He says that the outbreak of AIDS in
the early ‘80s and public nervousness about blood hammered the final nails
into shaving’s coffin. ``If I’ve done 30 shaves over the past 30 years,
that would be a lot,’’ he says.
Don’t tell that to Donna Coveno Tremblay, however. She is an administrator
with Michael’s School of Hair Design and Esthetics in Manchester, New
Hampshire’s only barber-school. She predicts that barbershop shaves are on
their way back into fashion. With the current ``retro’’ popularity of
old-fashioned things like cigars, swing music and martinis, she thinks that
it is just a matter of time before well-heeled customers start demanding
traditional barbershop services like shaves and shoeshines as well.
``Corporate America wants to go back to the detailed care and attention that
a professional shave gives,’’ she says. She points out that barbering is
one of the world’s oldest professions and that men have been getting shaves
for thousands of years. In light of that, the trend against shaves over the
past 30 years is just a short-lived aberration. ``We’re bringing back the
detailed customized care that a real barber can give, she says.
That might be easier said than done, however. All professional barbers seem
to agree that in order to give a good shave, a barber has to give a lot of
them to keep his or her skills and equipment sharp. It is a skilled job and
you have to stay in practice. In order to do that, a barber would have to
give two or three shaves a week - a level of business that few barbershops
would be able to sustain, except in a very specialized shop in an upscale
urban area, perhaps. Because there is much more to a professional shave
than slathering somebody’s face with shaving cream and scraping it off with
a Bic.
``It’s something that takes a large amount of skill,’’ explains Sarah
Jennison-Ritchie, a master barber-instructor at Michael’s. A good shave is
a multi-stage process, she explains. First, a man’s face is covered with
hot lather which is put on with a shaving brush made of boar-bristles or
badger fur. Then, hot, steamed towels are put on his face to soften the
beard. Depending on how tough the man’s beard is, this may be done several
times. Then comes the actual shaving. Most barbers who do perform this
service still use a straight-razor; this itself involves a lot of skill.
``The toughest part is shaving the Adam’s apple and the cleft in some men’s
chins,’’ Jennison-Ritchie says. ``Personally, I keep some sort of towel
with talcum powder on it at this point in case my hand starts to get
slippery. (Good to know!)’’ The man may have to be shaved more than once -
Men with fine, Scandinavian features are easily shaved, while others with
darker, heavier beards may have to be gone over again.
At this point, (traditionally) many barbers would give a facial massage.
This would relax the client enough to make it all the more traumatic and
``bracing’’ when he got hit with the aftershave. When he had finished
thrashing about in agony, the barber would apply a little talcum powder,
collect his two bits and send him on his way.
``It’s one of the oldest services ever offered,’’ Jennison-Ritchie says.
``It’s like anything else - it’s so much nicer than if I do it myself.’’
