Got to thinking of the scene from **Rounders **where Matt Damon’s character just completed a marathon poker session and Ed Norton says, “I know what you need…” and then cut to a scene in a barber shop and Damon getting a full-treatment shave from a local barber.
Me? I’ve never had one. (Does the average Joe Barber even know how to do these anymore?)
Also while the whole hot towel to the face, barber sharpening up the ol’ razor, lopping of the chin whiskers and then application of after shave would seem more than thorough…I dunno, it doesn’t appear all that appealing.
I thought it would be cool, but it really wasn’t. It was just a barber taking a lot of time to do what I could have done faster. And it wasn’t really any closer a shave.
I had a barber shave me once in Arizona, just before a wedding I was in. I had had a beard for about 4 months. It was the best shave I’ve ever had. Hot towels, two shaves, smooth as a baby’s bottom. And no pain. That was the only one I’ve had, so I don’t know how important the particular barber was to the outcome.
Well, I tried giving myself one once, when I worked as a barber in a town where I shaved everyone that didn’t shave themselves. It didn’t work out so well.
I love it. Not all barbers offer the service though they can do it.
Rounders was set in NY which has similar laws to MA. In order to be a barber you must be licensed. The license requires you be able to shave with a straight edge.
It’s my understanding that barber tyros learn by scraping shaving cream off balloons.
It was very popular among US military in the Phillippines. After the shave, the barber would give you a flailing finger-chop shoulder massage, then grasp your chin and snap your neck like a chiropractor (rather unnerving in its similarity to snapping your neck like an assassin).
There’s just one place around, that I know of. And he doesn’t have the steam box for the towels either. But he does have the old fashioned shaving cream dispenser.
Bees, they’ll trim a goatee or any other kind of beard for you.
I haven’t ever gotten a professional shave, a manicure, or a pedicure and I do not understand the point either. I don’t understand any fascination with shaving techniques whether they be fancy Mach razors or straight blades. I have to shave every day anyway and a two blade disposable that I keep soaked in baby oil does the job just fine in about 45 seconds flat. The whole exotic shaving thing seems more than a little metrosexual and twee to me.
It would be like hiring someone to steam your asshole after you take a shit and wipe it down for you with the finest cotton towels. Sure, it would work but it is a overly indulgent and completely unnecessary.
Had it done once. It was a disaster, honestly–lousy shave, and since it was the middle of summer and I was sweating, my face burned all night. It’s possible that I didn’t have enough growth at the time–shaving when I have less than a couple days worth of whiskers tends to be an unpleasant experience for me, and I don’t get a very good shave besides.
On the other hand, the place where I get my hair cut now does do the razor shave on the back of my neck, and it’s perfect every time. No ingrown hairs, no nothing. And the hot towel is awesome. I’d almost pay for a shave and tell them to skip the actual shaving just so I could get the hot towel.
I guess I count as “other,” because I’ve had the back of my neck and my sideburns shaved with a straight razor as part of a haircut. The stylist was a young Korean woman, not some ancient Joe the Barber.
Around the same time as when their antlers fall off?
In my state, new barbers aren’t allowed to use straight razors, but the old ones were grandfathered in. I think the cut-off (yuk yuk) was sometime back in the 90’s, so there’s still some of them around, but you really have to look to find a barber who’s allowed to do one.
