Shaving, Wet Shaving in our Barbers.

Daily Telegraph

Wet shaving: the joys of the traditional barber's blade

Wet shaving is enjoying a remarkable renaissance and there is an exquisite luxury to having someone else do all the work.

By Jasper Gerard
Published: 7:00AM GMT 25 Jan 2010

Razor sharp shaving: PAUL GROVER
PallMallBarbers.com www.PallMallGrooming.com

"Do you know why a barber's shop always displays a red and white pole in the window?" asks Richard Marshall, proprietor of the Pall Mall Barbers in London. "It signifies blood letting. London Barbers were originally surgeons. In the United States, the poles are red, white and blue representing the vein."


Gulp. I'm about to have my first wet shave courtesy of a traditional barber and am starting to rather miss my little Bic razor at home. It might not be very stylish, but nor is it as threatening as the glinting straight blade, or "throat cutter" as it is known to these follicle swordsmen, advancing towards me.

Wet shaving is enjoying a remarkable renaissance. Cool young dudes no longer use hairdressers, preferring traditional barber shops, where they will be shorn and shaved. There is, I start to see, an exquisite luxury in having someone do it for you. In the old days, barbers were tiny havens, gentlemen's clubs in all but name, where peers might toddle off for quiet afternoon naps. Now they have morphed into rather snazzy emporia furnished with funky retro kit.
There has also been an increase in sales of straight blades to brave souls who try this at home. A colleague, who has a sinister-sounding German cut-throat complete with leather strap to wipe the blade, describes his shaving ritual, somewhat alarmingly, as his "Sunday morning therapy."

The Pall Mall Barbers (formerly the Pall Mall Toilet Salon) has been on its central London site since 1896, but was recently updated by Marshall. "We have young guys wanting Forties and Fifties haircuts, as well as MPs and actors," he says. "It is that crossover between modern and traditional."
Gentlemen used to visit their barber for a wet shave at least once a week, but until recently this custom had all but disappeared. "Aids killed the traditional barber," says Ben Hardwick, who spends an hour shaving me with extraordinary care for £30. "But since we've had changeable blades it has taken off again."
The choice is limitless for the male grooming enthusiast. Surfing for venues, I was confronted by a photo of a bare-chested chap offering ''back, sack and crack'' treatments "for the guys". No such exoticism in Pall Mall London, even if Hardwick calls me a wet-shave virgin.
As various potions are rubbed into my skin and I'm buried under hot towels (to open the pores) I start to understand the appeal of the wet shave. I like the ritual and the care. Even the shaving cream is warmed, so it feels wonderfully sensual.
Hardwick spends ages brushing in the cream, "getting the bristles up". I'm shaved twice, downward with the grain, then up against the grain with a fresh blade. I'm shaved in reverential silence and this adds to my relaxation. "It probably isn't the best idea to move your Adam's apple with a blade at your jugular," he shrugs later.
He scrapes with painstaking care, rather like a picture restorer removing layer upon layer of grime. "Some barbers don't see anything wrong with giving you a nick, but I'm always very careful," he soothes. The skin is pulled tight to avoid snags, an increasing hazard as our faces deteriorate from the ice-rink smoothness of Macaulay Culkin to the rougher terrain of W H Auden. We finish with cold towels (to close pores) and aftershave.
"Men come in on their wedding day as brides don't want shaving rashes," Hardwick says. "Women love the smoothness." I always assumed that was an advertiser's myth, but feeling my chin I'm amazed. Even I like touching my face. Yet another lesson to be filed under "things you should have known when you were young and single".
"I bet," Hardwick smiles "you haven't felt that smooth since you were 12." I also feel curiously reinvigorated. I suspect barbers are more demonised than demons and visiting one is a little pleasure I heartily recommend.

• Pall Mall Barbers London is at 27 Whitcomb Street, London WC2 (020 7930 7787). Wet shaves £30
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