Dear Kid,
“He that hath a beard is more than a youth, and he that hath no beard is less than a man. He that is more than a youth is not for me, and he that is less than a man, I am not for him.” ― William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing
Happy December! It’s the start of a new month which means (among other things) that No Shave November is over (until next year). In honor of The Big Shave, I thought I’d share some Interesting Facts About Hair.
1. The average man’s face contains anywhere from 5,000 to 25,000 whiskers. The Grinch has more. Super huge thank you to Peg and Mitch for the tickets—we had a great time last night!
2. Cave drawing from as early as 10,000 BC depict men with clean-shaven faces and men with short beards. Billboards near those caves show ads for shavers (especially around Christmas).
3. Ancient Egyptian barbers regularly shaved their clients with razors and pumice stones as a beard was considered an indication of personal neglect. It is generally still considered a sign of poor personal hygiene if you’re female. It’s sometimes a sign that you play professional sports and you’re in the playoffs.
4. Alexander the Great noticed that the bad guys (anyone he was fighting) could easily grab his soldiers’ beards and therefore insisted his troops fight with clean-shaven faces.
5. In Shakespeare’s day, men often swore by their beards (which seems odd for something that can be shaved or reshaped so easily. Just kidding–different beard, see?) It was quite fashionable then for men to dye their beards. Kind of the way teenage girls treat their hair these days although I don’t think anyone in the Bard’s day went with blue or pink.
6. Peter the Great of Russia imposed a tax on beards, which was collected at every town gate. Can you imagine how US politics these days would react to the notion of taxing hair, tattoos, or piercings? Wait—I’ll be right back when I stop laughing.
7. Human hair grows about a centimeter a month (except when you have a really bad haircut in which case it grows about a centimeter a year.) Hair grows faster during the day than at night.
8. The longest mustache on record was 10 feet. The longest beard recorded was 17.5 feet. Why they are on record and not on a DVD or Blue Ray, I couldn’t say.
9. Wet hair is much weaker than dry hair—which is why many people prefer the ‘wet shave’ methodology.
10. Pseudofolliculitisbarbae (say that 10 times fast) is the medical term for razor burn. Clogged sink is the term for thinking about the Grinch shaving.
Enjoy your newly shaven face and travel safe back to school. Finish up the semester strong, kiddo. See you in a few weeks.
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