By now there will be some sprouts of growth just south of many male noses around the city, as men keep a stiff upper lip in the battle against cancer.
The Movember initiative is a moustache-for-cash fundraiser whereby men grow their lip hair during the month of November as advertising of their participation, then shave it off at the end in exchange for pledge money. It has changed the global conversation on male-specific forms of cancer and engaged men in the cause like never before. Proudly sporting their 'staches - be they plump philtrum pillows a la Tom Selleck or Sam Elliott, or wispy oris sprigs a la James Franco or Michael Cera - every guy has social permission to laden the lip in support of cancer initiatives.
"It started as a small movement by a few guys in Australia - they call themselves the mo bros, and I think there were only six of them that got it all going - and it has become something like the ALS ice bucket challenge: a global movement," said Margaret Jones-Bricker, regional director for the Canadian Cancer Society.
The local society has anecdotally felt a positive bump from the Movember initiative, even though it is a movement possessed by the Prostate Cancer Canada organization. There is no local chapter of that group so many in Prince George collect their pledges and turn them over to more local cancer endeavours.
The Movember movement has also changed the facial hair industry. Perhaps by coincidence, or perhaps not, there is also a coincidental big beard fad going on in popular culture, by which young men grow beards akin to the Robertson men in the hit reality show Duck Dynasty.
All that growing has led to much trimming of the facial hedges. A resurgence has occurred in male grooming, particularly for the good old-fashioned shave.
The longest serving barber in the city, George Blanis at the Days Inn closing in on his 50th anniversary, said it used to be commonplace but now "I have four or five guys, but they are dependable, guaranteed once a week for each of them."
Blanis, affectionately known as George the Barber, said the facial treatment has to be done with care especially in the dry winter air. It is a treat for a barber to do a shave, he said, which is perhaps why he still remembers his first one as a professional.
"It was Cliff Haste in 1964, and he still comes to me. It used to be he came twice a week, now it is once a week, but for 50 years," Blanis said. "The secret is in preparing the face. It's nothing to do with the whiskers, it's the way you treat the skin."
Barbers don't use electric shavers or pencil-handled safety razors that men use in their household shaving kits. For centuries, and still today, the barber's shave is done with a straight razor - a glistening thin blade on a hinged handle. It looks more sinister switchblade than innocent trimming tool.
The act of the barber's shave has consequently had a bipolar image in popular culture. The mention of the straight razor shave just as easily conjures up the steamy photographic scene snapped by Herb Ritts for the August 1993 cover of Vanity Fair showing supermodel Cindy Crawford in bathing suit straddling chanteuse kd lang in a barber's chair dressed in pinstriped suit. Lang's face is semi-painted in shaving cream; Crawford is holding a straight razor to the singer's throat as though doing the shaving.
Contrast that to the pent up violence on the edge of the straight razor beheld by Whoopie Goldberg's character in the movie The Colour Purple as she silently wrestles her subservience to her domineering husband, played by Danny Glover, by dutifully shaving him, and the urge to slash his throat to end his constant abuse. His blithe instruction: "cut me, and I'll kill you."
Tara Edmunds said she felt the fear of the thin steel's power the first few times she shaved a client in her barber's chair.
"I'd say it is a lost art. A lot of guys come in here and are shocked that we do it," said the veteran barber at Tommy Gun's in Pine Centre Mall. She trained under barber Sharon Short at 3rd Avenue Barber Shop downtown more than a dozen years ago. "The first-timers are stiff as a board because you're coming at them with a blade, but unless you get razor burn easily, they all leave feeling fantastic."
The shave has become more than just a menial removal of facial growth. Settling back in the shave position is the start of a long pampering process that involves towels emitting steam being wrapped around the face, creams and lotions being soothed into the facial skin, firm massage of the neck and scalp, and then the artwork of the razor. In Edmunds's hand, the blade skates over the skin like a painter's brush. There is no pulling or pinching, just the sleek slikkity-slakk sound of whiskers being whisked away.
Because a deadly weapon is dancing on your jugular region, and even a slight flinch from, say, an unexpected noise, might cause the blood to flow, the relationship between client and barber is more perfunctory like that of patient and doctor. Talking can be deadly so words are rare and spoken like a ventriloquist.
It is undeniably relaxing, though, and almost meditative in its blissful pacing. Many men fall asleep in the chair, Edmunds said.
No two shaves are the same, she said, because everyone's facial growth is like a fingerprint: unique to the owner.
"It's becoming really popular with younger guys, and I remember one guy in the summer was in his 80s and hadn't had a straight razor shave since his 20s," said Edmunds. "He told me at the end he sure wasn't going to wait another 60 years for the next one."
Tommy Gun's manager Megan Goertzen said the overall team does 20 to 30 shaves per week. There is significant demand in the spring and summer during wedding season when entire groomsmen parties will come in for a group shave just before the ceremonies and certainly Movember has become a factor in their business planning.
For the month of November, for example, the shop is giving free moustache trims for those participating in the cancer initiative, and each of those who come in on Nov. 30 to shave off the whole thing will trigger a $10 donation from Tommy Gun's to the Movember campaign.
"It reminds me a little bit of the spirit we see around the Relay For Life, in that a community can take something and do it together as a group effort," said Jones-Bricker. "And it is a good thing when those moustaches are grown and people ask why. I think it is wonderful that there are charities with good methods for raising funds and also doing that extra bit of awareness raising."
