So I’m perusing the December issue of GQ the other day at the doctor’s office — hey, it was either that or a magazine about tractors — when I noticed a startling similarity among the sullen young males used in the magazine ads to sell us expensive watches, cars and colognes: Almost all of these brooding young models were sporting stubble on their cheeks and chinny-chin-chins.
It was the same sort of stubble my dad used to sprout at the end of a long weekend. Come Monday morning, of course, he would be cleanshaven again, just like most of America’s males who didn’t sleep under a bush somewhere.
Stubble didn’t sell back then; Noxzema did.
Those were the days when football great Joe Namath scraped off the lather on TV while some blonde in the background cooed, “Take it off, take it all off.”
What trendy things men do with the hair on their faces, of course, has come and gone over the years — from mutton chops to soul patches, and sideburns to mustaches.
Still, this stubble thing seems in danger of outliving the usual fad expiration date. And it doesn’t help that various online studies have shown that women rate stubble as more attractive than cleanshaven faces.
No word on whether any of these women have actually rubbed up against such prickly faces.
As to where it all began, male grooming expert (now there’s a job title for you) Lee Kynaston said in a Daily Telegraph story online that all this encroaching stubble among us is linked to the global economic crisis and “the exploitative attitude of big shaving empires.” As a result, he adds, men turned to stubble “as an act of resistance against corporate domination.”
Oh, please.
Let’s try gazing into the mirror, instead. Kynaston, who sports a beard, admits that he wanted to compensate for “going thin on top.” Yep, it’s rare these days to find a baldheaded man who isn’t growing it out to some extent on the other end of his head.
Stubble can also help hide a weak chin or jawline, or toughen up that baby face.
There’s also the laziness factor. According to research by Gillette, a man will spend 32 days removing his facial hair over a lifetime — which somehow equates, according to The Daily Telegraph, to “shaving the surface of two tennis courts.”
Grass courts, we presume.
Still, keeping that sexy stubble from morphing into a beard takes some doing — and the right kind of razor. Obviously, Noxzema, a blonde and a safety razor will no long do the trick.
Enter the stubble trimmer, specifically designed to cut and maintain very short facial hair, also known as the 5 o’clock shadow.
For a mere $59.99, with free shipping, you can order the Philips Norelco stubble and beard trimmer which comes with 18 — yes, 18 — length settings, ranging from 5 o’clock shadow to ZZ Top, we assume.
This little number also features a lithium-ion battery, multifunctional display, travel lock and vacuum mechanism, to collect all those troublesome trimmed hairs.
OK, run that little number by me again, would you, about how the unshaved face is really an act of defiance against an exploitive shaving industry.
