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An early ZZ Top fan.
Photo courtesy of
fastfancydress.co.uk
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Well, apart from aqueducts, sanitation,
roads, &c., as acknowledged in Monty Python’s The Life of Brian, the Romans gave Europe the craze for depilation. Indeed, Roman bathhouses
were full of the yelps of Romans (and Rowomans, let’s not be sexist, here!)
having excess body hair removed as hirsuteness was considered as being barbaric.
Indeed the words barbaric and barbarian come from the Roman word barba, or beard.
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| Eheu!!! Quod nocet!!! |
Depilation was performed all over the body using
tweezers and slave labour – even such sensitive bits as the armpits were
denuded using this eye-watering method.
And it is about
beards that I want to talk yet again. Readers of my blog might remember this post.
In the last few months, I have had a change of mind and am now once again clean-shaven. This obviously entails shaving and the corresponding purchases
of essential shaving tackle – face scrubs, aftershave, razors, skin toners, moisturisers, shaving foam, &c.
Well, actually,
let’s pass on the shaving foam. I shave like a Roman. Do I use tweezer-wielding
slaves? No. I use oil and not the expensive shaving oils that you find on the
High Street. I use either olive oil straight from the bottle – obviously if it
has been in the chip pan it has lost a lot of its properties and gained some crusty bits . This may seem an
extravagance, but compare the price of a litre of Extra Virgin olive oil to the
price of a small bottle of shaving oil. Alternatively, I use baby oil. Both
have many other exotic uses, but try shaving with them. It’s cheap, natural,
moisturising and gives excellent results. Ea.
I take it that you are one of these swashbuckling types that will only countenance (pardon the pun) a naked blade as beard removal equipment. I was given my first electric shaver as a wedding present and have used such ever since. Why anyone would wet-shave is beyond my understanding.
ReplyDeleteThen again, I am one of those people who could not grow a beard if you paid me a fabulous sum to do so and shaving every other day is good enough. In fact, I forgot my shaver when we went to Berlin and consequently did not shave until we got home again. I doubt whether anyone so much as noticed.
I am indeed a blade-blandishing shaver. I find the whole wet-shaving process a rather meditational experience: the splash of the water, the glide of the razor, the bracing tonic of the aftershave - and all done in the echoing silence of a tiled bathroom.
ReplyDeleteThe clatter and friction of the electric shaver do not allure me in the least! Still, were I fortunate enough to have a Johnny-Depp like lack of beard, I too might be an enthusiastic adept of the electric shaver.