Athletes and hair

Hamman is among a growing number of athletes using their hair as self-expression and to develop a unique and marketable persona. In a curious reversal of roles, it's the super macho men of sports who are primping and preening far more than the lady jocks.

That's from an interesting article in USA Today about professional athletes and hairstyles. The bald-by-choice look doesn't get as much play as the long-haired look, but it's still a great read for anyone interested in the role hairstyles play in self-expression.

Cash crop

The hair removal market (excluding shaving) represented an estimated $8.3 billion global market in 2001, with $3.8 billion in the United States. The world market is expected to grow to an estimated $11.1 billion by 2005, with commensurate increases in the U.S.

That quote's from a press release by a company that thinks it's found a better way to remove hair permanently. Human trials on its product (which targets a certain gene to "permanently disrupt hair follicle integrity") won't likely be starting until 2006, so it's too soon to talk seriously about it.

I'm just amazed that there's that much money to be made by removing hair.

The plight of the traditional barber

This Associated Press article in the Grand Forks Herald talks a bit about the decline in the number of barbers in the US in recent years, and how they're losing ground to hair stylists, even among male customers.

One question I've been asked numerous times is if I know of a barber that will give straight razor shaves. It's a dying art. For the record, I've never been to a barber, and don't know of any off-hand that shave with a straight razor. However, the article mentions one, in case you're somewhere near Bismarck, North Dakota.

Twenty-three-year-old Travis Zenker is the first new barber in Bismarck in more than 20 years, Schock said. [...] He is one of the few barbers, including old-timers, who still uses a straight razor for shaving and trimming.

Errol Brown

The Liverpool Daily Press recently had an article about 1970s pop singer Errol Brown. Brown was the lead singer for Hot Chocolate, and is probably best remembered for the song You Sexy Thing. He still tours occasionally, and will be touring the UK soon.

The 55-year-old bald-headed singer who has to shave his head regularly began shaving it early in his career. "My hair was beginning to recede," he admits. "I thought I would be very cool and become the first pop star to shave his head. My girlfriend at the time was encouraging and told me it looked good."

I'd have to agree with Errol's girlfriend: the look definitely suits him.

Bald women blogging

Bald Ladies' Journal is a LiveJournal blog community for women who shave their heads. I found the following notice on their front page interesting:

Community membership is closed in an attempt to keep those here solely for fetish purposes out.

I know from personal experience that there is a large hair fetishist community out there. When I added a Women's section to my site a while back, traffic jumped dramatically. Alas, it wasn't from women who wanted information about how to shave their heads (which is what the section on my site was intended for), instead it was a bunch of guys who wanted to see pictures of bald women.

I don't personally care what other people are into: it's a wide-open world, after all. But pretty soon, comments to a log entry I had made on the subject consisted primarily of guys trying to meet bald women, giving out phone numbers, trying to arrange meets, and other stuff that goes well beyond what I had intended for my site.

So good luck to the Bald Ladies' Journal. I hope everything goes well for the community.

Shaving as protest (and support)

Saw this story from WANE-TV:

The assistant to Notre Dame's president has shaved her head to protest Tyrone Willingham's firing as football coach.

Chandra Johnson says she'll remain bald until the Irish win a national championship, something that hasn't happened since 1988.

Shaving one's head has often been used as a form of protest. Now that more people shave their head regularly, it doesn't stand out as much as it used to, but since this was a woman shaving her head, I think people will notice and ask her about it.

Johnson's protest is in support of a colleague. Shaving heads is often used as a show of solidarity too. I've read a lot of stories lately about people shaving their heads to support someone with cancer. Like this story:

After chemotherapy treatments, the 7th-grader at Stillwater Junior High School noticed his hair falling out in clumps. Within a day Jake’s good friends, Cody Jansen and Jesse George, came over to shave their heads with him.

Luke Buerkley, a traveling basketball teammate, suggested that all the players shave their heads to show support.

More than 70 people gathered at the Martells’ house Oct. 8 for a Friday night barbecue and impromptu head shaving party, Jake’s dad, Larry Martell said. [...]
About 24 people, adults and kids alike, shaved their heads that night.

People can support organizations this way too.

Jill Saward, 39, who was brutally raped at her Ealing Vicarage home in 1986, will be raising much needed funds for Abused People's Help In Sexual Trauma (APHIST) based in Wolverhampton, by shaving off all her hair at their Christmas fair on Friday, December 10.

King of Shaves wins award

FHM, a men's magazine, recently gave out awards for men's grooming products. As described in this press release, King of Shaves won in the wet shaving category.

King of Shaves AlphaGel DDS Natural Unmentholated Shaving Gel was voted Winner in the hotly contested 'Best Wet Shaving Product' category.

King of Shaves beat out strong competition from Gillette, Wilkinson Sword, Nivea for Men and Clinique for Men to scoop the top awards.

I've never tried any King of Shaves products myself, but I have gotten emails about them. All of the comments I've gotten so far have been positive, so the award confirms the general impression I've been getting about their products.

More holiday gift suggestions

To add to my previous gift-giving advice:

Actress and "It Girl" Mischa Barton and celebrity stylist Phillip Bloch created a 2004 Holiday "It list" at the behest of the Gillette company. As fortune would have it, Gillette's M3Power razor is at the top of the list. It's always convenient when the sponsor's product is number one in their hearts, isn't it?

If you're looking at fancy razors for the holidays, there's also the new HeadBlade S4. It's a limited-release item at the moment, so if you're interested, order soon.

Quattro legal, after all

According to this press release, Schick-Wilkinson Sword just won a victory in court against Gillette. A while back, Gillette had claimed in court that the Schick Quattro razor infringed on Gillette's patents.

"We are very pleased with the court's ruling that QUATTRO does not infringe Gillette's patent," said Joe Lynch, President, Schick-Wilkinson Sword. "Gillette has been very aggressive at attempting to impede the launch and sale of QUATTRO around the globe.

Gillette was also required to repay Schick-Wilkinson Sword's legal costs by the court.

Schick-Wilkinson Sword recently shot back at Gillette with their own court case.

M3Power vs. Quattro, yet again

Given their recent legal battles, I thought I'd post a different type of conflict between these two razors.

kltv.com put the Schick Quattro and the Gillette M3Power "head to head", so to speak. Their conclusion? They liked the M3Power. I didn't find any serious difference between the two, myself, so I tend to go for the cheaper one.

High tech and razors

In an article titled When we really don't need new technologies, Andrew Kantor writes:

The fact is, razors aren't computers. You can't introduce a faster or more powerful model. Once your face (or legs) are smooth, they're smooth. Period. That M3Power razor is not going to cut my face any closer; the hairs just can't get shorter than zero. It's technology for technology's sake and nothing more.

Has he got a point?

It's an interesting question. With Gillette being taken to court due to some claims about their latest razor, it's worth asking, certainly.

Of course, there is something he left out. Shaving isn't just about getting the closest possible shave, though that's what tends to be advertised. Shaving products can improve by making the experience more comfortable, and if technology contributes to that, then it's not just technology for technology's sake.

But that still leaves us with the question, does adding this kind of technology to razors really benefit the consumer, or is it simply a ploy to make more money from gizmo-obsessed consumers?

At least one person who emailed me about the M3Power suggested that it's not about the closeness for him. He finds the M3Power's vibration feature to be soothing and feels less irritation as a result. He considered it worth the price.

For me, I think there's more flash than substance ot the M3Power. I still prefer the regular Mach 3 for my shaving needs.

To protect and shave

Is Your Scalp a Constitution-Free Zone?

Here's a curious item: in the United States, it's apparently legal for the authorities to remove your hair. That's right, the cops could shave your head, and there's nothing you can do about it.

And make no mistake. Under the Third Circuit's approach, the police can shave the hair of anyone who appears in public at any time. They do not need to have any reason whatsoever for suspecting the unwitting shavee of a crime.

Of course, I don't object to shaving one's head, but I figure it should be a choice left up to the individual, not something forced upon them by the authorities.

Granted, this isn't the type of thing that's too likely to happen to most people, but it's scary to think that it can happen.

Looking for a stocking stuffer?

Plumpstocking.com names Pacific Shaving Company’s All Natural Shaving Oil as the best stocking stuffer for men, according to this press release. If you've seen my review, you know I wouldn't mind getting this for Christmas. Shaving oil is that perfect small gift that any man would love.

Old razor blades

In this story by the QCTimes' Bill Wundram, the author shares a story about discovering thousands of razor blades that he had used over many years.

FOR 25 years, after safety razor blades were dulled by my whiskers, I would drop the blades into a little slot in the back of our metal medicine cabinet. Through that quarter-century, this little repository grew rusty around the edges, but of course, I kept dropping my used blades into the slot.

...

Now I know what happened to them. When Mike Bush, present owner of the house, remodeled the bathroom he tore out the medicine cabinet.

"Down in the wall, resting on a cross-joist, were these thousands of razor blades," he said to me. "I presume most or all were all used by you. Here, take them."

Doing some math, he figured he had 3 pounds of razor blades, which worked out to 2,495 blades. He also figured he used each blade twice, so they represented 13.67 years of daily shaving.

It almost makes me curious about how many razor blades I've gone through in my life, and how many more I'll go through before I don't need to shave anymore. Not curious enough to try to figure it out, but it's my idle thought for the day.

When the bald get hungry

If you're bald, Gary's Uptown Restaurant and Bar in San Jose, California wants to give you a free lunch.

That's why, every Wednesday at Arnold's white-tablecloth eatery, bald guys -- and gals -- eat for free. Gratis. Nada. Nothing.
That's right, a full meal free for the follicly challenged. Partial baldness earns a partial discount. Bad hair transplants? A 10 percent surcharge, he jokes.

It's too bad for me that I live in Winnipeg. If I ever make the trip down to California, though, I'll think about stopping in.

M3Power in court

According to this website, Wilkinson Sword (maker of the Schick Quattro) has filed suit over Gillette's marketing claims for it's M3Power razor. Apparently, Wilkinson Sword wasn't buying into the claim that the M3Power's micro-pulses actually made the hair stand straighter.

Colin Hutchison, European vice president for Wilkinson Sword, says Gillette's claims about their new razor seemed improbable to them. Their scientists examined the razor and found Gillette's claims to be incorrect.

Undoubtedly, Gillette will fight this in the courts, but it should be interesting to see how this plays out.

Personally, I'm with Wilkinson Sword on this one. I doubt very much that the vibration feature (micro-pulses sounds so silly) actually makes the hairs stand up. I'll be really curious to see if Gillette can produce any evidence that it does what they say it does.

Shaving heads for charity

The possibility of shaving someone's head seems to be a good motivator for some people, something that Principal Chad Carmack of Dickinson High School (in Delaware) recently discovered.

Apparently, school officials were trying to figure out how to improve their previously dismal efforts at raising funds for the United Way. From the article: "At one point during that conversation Carmack laughed and said, "what do you want me to do, cut my hair?""

That seems to be exactly what people wanted.

School nurse Donna Watson, clippers in hand, approached Carmack with a wide grin. Students began chanting "All Off! All Off!" as she started shaving Carmack's head. Others, cell phones pressed against their ears, called friends to report every move Watson made.

Way to go, Principal Carmack.

Under the helmet

REUBEN DROUGHNS, Broncos Running Back

"I've been shaving my head twice a week since my freshman year in high school. I do it myself. I do it every game morning or on Saturday night before the game. It makes me feel good and tough. It gives me that edge. I'll always shave my head."

What's under my helmet

A bet is a bet

Never make a bet you're not willing to follow-through on. Ken Waltz made a pact that if the Red Sox won the World Series, he'd shave his head. He never figured it would happen. But nothing's impossible.

Shaving one's head is not something I would recommend. Now people can call be chrome dome. People can rub my head for good luck (bad luck if you're me). I'm afraid to go outside without a hat on for fear of getting a sunburn or having the sun glance off my head and blind someone.

So apparently he didn't like it. But the photo included in the article actually doesn't look too bad. Maybe if he gives it a chance, he'll grow to like it.

Wear sunscreen

A few years ago, Mary Schmich wrote a newspaper column in which she pretended to give a commencement address to a graduating class. It was a pretty cool column, and started getting distrubuted over the Internet, although at first people were saying that it was a real commencement address done by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. Credit was eventually sorted out, and it even became a song that was popular for a short while.

Though the column was wide-ranging, there's one piece of advice that almost everyone remembered: wear sunscreen.

When I first shaved my head, I was quite pleased with the results, and often went about with my head completely uncovered. It's no surprise, then, that I managed to get a bad sunburn fairly soon. It's a painful experience, and the proper price to pay for not protecting my scalp. I was even foolish enough to try shaving a couple of days later. That was extremely painful, and the proper price to pay for not giving my scalp a chance to heal properly.

We really should wear sunscreen any time we're outdoors for more than a short period of time. This applies to everyone, of course, but us baldies need to pay special attention, since people often forget to put sunscreen on their heads. Once your head is burned, it's very visible.