Men Grow Hair for More Than Facial Expression

There is a whole school of thought that finds facial hair sexy--from Clark Gable’s mustache to Elvis Presley’s sideburns.

On the other hand, a differing school finds stubble rough and raspy, and those who agree are backed up by the research department of a razor company that claimed: “Dry beard hair is extremely abrasive and about as tough as copper wire of the same thickness.”

Beards were once much more prevalent than they are now, which had less to do with fashion and more to do with the fact that the safety razor was not invented until just before World War I.

The invention ended up in every soldier’s kit because gas masks fit better on a clean-shaven man.

The new grooming device also gave birth to the belief that even being under enemy attack and crouching in trenches without hot water was no excuse not to be well-groomed.

Once shaving became so easy and inexpensive that virtually anyone could do it, everyone suddenly was required to do it. Facial hair went out of fashion in mainstream America.

Lately, whether a man shaves has been overshadowed by the intrusion into corporate America of things such as ponytails and earrings.

Straight razors have also been enjoying a comeback, but only because most of the men who remember what they were really like back in 1901 have died.

It was no accident that it was called a “safety” razor. Before its invention, men had to learn to shave with what was essentially a murder weapon without losing bits of nose or lips in the process--or pay a barber to do it for them.

That was the reason so many men had beards prior to World War I--and why women did not shave their legs and underarms. Only a crazy person would attempt to do so with a straight razor.

Beards have been part of dressing for success for male psychologists ever since Sigmund Freud, and they have been success symbols for college professors, Zen practitioners, Harley-Davidson mechanics and lumberjacks.

In Hollywood during the 1980s, many successful directors sported beards--Francis Coppola, Wes Craven, Brian DePalma, Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese.

Now, however, there are many clean-shaven top directors--Oliver Stone, Kevin Costner, Barry Levinson, David Lynch, Jonathan Demme. Scorsese saved off his trademark goatee.

Politicians are almost always clean-shaven these days. Abraham Lincoln had a beard, but the last time we elected a president with any facial hair at all was William Howard Taft in 1908.

Mustaches have a mostly sinister reputation, primarily because of Adolf Hitler, but there are exceptions, and they make some men distinctive. Consider Salvador Dali’s surrealistic growth, and Clark Gable, Gene Shalit, Walter Cronkite, Tom Selleck and Burt Reynolds.

Facial hair and hard-line communists seem to go together--Marx, Engels, Stalin, Lenin, Trotsky and Fidel Castro.

Men who appear to grow beyond stubble but never get to a full-fledged beard include Yassir Arafat, Bob Dylan and Phil Collins.