Facts on Shaving, in a Nick of Time

We’ll wager a razor that you don’t know a few of these facts about shaving, as detailed in “A Closer Shave” (Artisan, 1999), by Wallace G. Pinfold:

1. Number of hours the average American man will spend shaving in his lifetime.

2. The length of the longest mustache on record.

3. The length of the longest beard on record.

4. Reason Fidel Castro originally grew his beard.

5. The bestselling after-shave in the United States.

6. The medical term for razor burn.

7. Year in which the first narrow-bladed folding straight razor was introduced.

8. Fact or fiction: Human hair continues to grow after death.

9. Number of hair follicles covering the human body.

10. Rate at which human hair grows.

Answers: 1. 2,965; 2. 10 feet, grown by Birger Pellas of Sweden; 3. 17 1/2 feet, grown by Hans Langseth of Norway; 4. his supply of Gillette Blades was cut off; 5. Old Spice; 6. pseudofolliculitisbarbae; 7. 1680; 8. fiction; 9. 5 million; 10. 0.35 millimeters a day or 1 centimeter per month.