It's hard to say just when man first took an interest in removing hair from his body but it is fair to say that it has gone on since the days of the caveman. This premise is borne out by the fact that crude cave drawings have been found depicting short-bearded or beardless men. Excavated tweezers and razors of stone (with organic handles), or horn have been carbon-dated to the Neolithic or late Stone Age periods, whilst other cultures saw men singeing their whiskers with burning twigs!
Several reasons exist for hair removal over the ages. These range from minimising the breeding of lice and fleas to eliminating the beard as a hand-hold in combat. Some trimming was needed to enable early man to eat, whilst being superstitious, a heavy beard was associated with old age and approaching death. Somewhere along the line entered vanity!
The word 'barber' derives from the Latin 'barba' for beard and hence 'barbarians' referred to tribes who were bearded. Records show that the earliest barbers were the most prominent men of their tribes, often being medicine men or priests. Primitive man believed that individuals were inhabited by both good and bad spirits which entered the body through the hair.
The barber, therefore, became the most important man of the tribe as they believed that bad spirits could only be driven out by cutting the hair. During religious ceremonies, the hair was left hanging loosely over the shoulders to allow the bad spirits to depart. Then the hair was cut and tied back tightly in the prevailing fashion, preventing the bad spirits from re-entering and the good spirits from leaving. Wherever legends and superstitions about the hair abounded, barbers flourished.
About 7000 years ago, the Egyptian men of the upper classes not only shaved their beards and heads but also shaved their entire bodies every third day. Their barbers had tweezers and razors in the shape of small hatchets, with curved handles, and they carried their implements in open-mouthed baskets. Tombs from 4000 B.C. show hieroglyphs explaining the use of these tools. Finely chipped obsidian blades fastened securely to slate handles were utilised by the Mesopotamians in 3000 B.C., whilst the Samarians of 2000 B.C. were also clean-shaven.
A sarcophagus design from Crete around 2000 B.C. shows clean-shaven men, and goblets show clean-shaven warriors. In 1230 B.C., Hittite soldiers were beardless, whilst Ramases II wore a tie-on beard over his clean-shaven face, represented by the statue in Luxor, Egypt.
As early as the 5th century B.C., barbers came to the fore in Greece. Statesmen, poets and philosophers came to have their hair and beards trimmed as the role of the barber became an art form. The barber shops of ancient Greece turned into centres for social, political and sporting news. The importance of the tonsorial art in Greece is shown by the defeat of a prominent Greek because his beard did not match that of his opponent!
A tweezer-like device, the 'bow-shears' appeared in Messina around 500 B.C. and was used effectively in Egypt, Greece and Scicily to trim short both hair and beards.
Around 334 B.C., Alexander the Great influenced grooming practices by showing the absence of a beard, explaining that it gave his Macedonian warriors an advantage by not allowing their Persian enemies the ability to grasp their beards in hand-to-hand combat. This was as a direct result of the Mecedonians under his leadership having lost several battles to the Persians who had grabbed their beards and speared them. The civilians followed suit and shaved off their beards, too.
296 B.C., Ticinius Mena came from Scicily to Rome, where barbers had hitherto been unknown, and introduced shaving which soon became the fashion. The barber shop became the focal point for daily news and gossip and the free men of Rome often devoted several hours a day to their appearance. Roman ladies had a hairdresser among their slaves, whilst rich nobles had private tonsors (as the barbers were called). So highly prized were they that a statue was erected to the memory of Rome's first barber.
With the coming of Hadrian as emperor, beards once again came into fashion, when he grew one to cover the warts and scars on his face. The people of Rome followed suit.
Caesar's rise to power again shifted fashion to the beardless, as he was clean-shaven. As can be seen throughout history, state leaders were often the leaders of fashion and consequently, people were always ready to follow the prevailing style.
Many passages in the Bible refer to the barber's trade. As a health precaution, Moses commanded all those recovering from leprosy to be shaved. Whilst the prophet, Ezekiel, refers to the ancient custom - "Take thou a barber's razor and cause it to pass upon thine head and upon thine beard." Contemporary razors were made of flint and oyster shell.
Galen, the Greek doctor and philosopher of the first century A.D. set down writings on barber customs and cosmetic practices.
During the first ten centuries of the Christian era, the majority of the population, including the nobles, could neither read nor write, so the most learned were the monks and priests who, in turn, became the physicians of the Dark Ages. As many diseases could be fatal at that time, 'bloodletting' became the most popular attempt at curing them and barbers were given the task of assisting. This continued until the twelfth century. In 1163, at the council of Tours, it was decreed that it was sacrilegious for ministers of God to draw human blood and so began the era of the barber-surgeon, which was to continue for the next six centuries.
The 'Worshipful Company of Barbers', the oldest barber organisation in the world, was established in 1308. Richard le Barbour supervised the trade in London, visiting establishments on a monthly basis to rebuke any barbers acting disgracefully or entering less reputable trades. He also had the power to prevent unauthorised persons from practising the profession. Sanctioned by the King and Council, he was able to enforce regulations and even commit violators to suffer prison sentences.
Until 1416, barbers were allowed to practice surgery and dentistry but complaints that barber-surgeons were making people sick instead of well highlighted the fact that they were attempting too much. After abuses by some barber-surgeons had come to the attention of the Mayor and Council of London, an ordinance was passed in 1416 forbidding their care of sick people in danger of death or maiming, unless presented to a member of the Master Barber-Surgeons Guild within three days.
In the 14th and 15th century, Englishmen generally did not shave regularly and rarely bathed more than once a month. In response to the necessity to attract men to the barber's profession, Edward IV, in 1462, granted a charter for the Guild of Barber/Surgeons. Until then, only barbers practised surgery, albeit primitive, though new discoveries were frequently being made, making it impossible for any one person to keep up with developments in surgery, dentistry and barbering. For a long time, nothing could be done to prevent barbers from acting as surgeons but under Henry VIII, an act of parliament of 1540 incorporated the Guild of Surgeons with the Company of Barbers, restricting members of the latter to bloodletting, tooth extraction, cauterisation and barbering.
During Henry's reign, wearers of beards were prohibited by the authorities of Lincolns Inn from sitting unless certain penalties were paid, whilst in later years, Elizabeth I taxed beards of more than two weeks growth according to a man's position in life - a lowly man paid 3s. 4d. a year!
In June, 1745, under the reign of George II, an act of parliament was passed which separated the functions of barbers and surgeons after the surgeons had petitioned for the severence. The latter were given the title of 'Masters, Governors and Commonality of the Honourable Society of the Surgeons of London'. This was dissolved in George III's reign and subsequently replaced in 1800 by the 'Royal College of Surgeons'.
The renaissance of limited facial hair began around 1815 and endured as the 'Romantic' or 'Beau Brummel' period for the next thirty years.
In 1847, William Henson, a London inventor, developed a hoe type of guarded razor with limited success, nearly thirty years before the Kampfe Brothers brought out the 'safety' razor known as the 'Star'. In 1870, the average barber worked a ninety hour week compared to the sixty hours worked in the cutlery industry; the public expected him to work six weekdays and then Sunday morning for pre-church shaves!
The next shaving innovation came from King Camp Gillette after trying to come up with a disposable product with which to make his fortune. While using his Star safety razor one day, he came up with the idea of a wafer thin throwaway blade. The first patent was taken out in America, meanwhile, for an electric 'dry' shaver. When war broke out in Europe, millions of Gillette's 'Khaki Sets' were contracted by the U.S. Army to supply the men in the trenches. Gillette's popularity was boosted dramatically and as a result of permission being granted to the men to keep the razor sets, sales of blades soared.
Women now started to shave their armpits (euphemistically termed 'smoothing' by Gillette, who along with Curvfit first recognized the opportunity and exploited it). The modern woman now shaves her legs but World War II saw the razor used widely for this purpose when there was a dearth of silk stockings, substituting shaving and leg 'markup'.
In 1961, Wilkinson developed the first commercially-successful blade to glide over the face, the edge being coated with polytetrafluoroethylene and today the emphasis is on the constant development of improved edges, smoother coatings and better lathers and preparations at affordable prices. Who knows what the future will bring next?
