each year in the uk we waste £320m on razors alone, so surely it's time jaw warmers came back into fashion
he that hath a beard is more than a youth, and he that hath no beard is less than a man.
so said beatrice in shakespeare's much ado about nothing and, as a long-term sporter of a full chin's worth of facial fluff (and occasional wearer of a highly dubious "mo" for for charity), i can but agree. according to social psychologists, beards also convey a sense of authority, masculinity, strength and sincerity and once the romans started shaving them off they quickly became associated with non-conformity.
so is it any wonder that growing one might be considered the height of frucool – that is being both frugal and cool?
now i know what you're thinking. in following my previous foray extolling the virtues of local beer with a missive about beards, this whole frucool blog series is merely a ploy to make hairy real ale fans trendy. what next you ask? the frucool socks and sandals combo? but when you look at what we spend each year on removing the follicular sproutings from our faces – £320m a year in the uk on razors alone – you start to realise there's a frucool rationale for nursing a jaw warmer into life.
beards have swung wildly in and out of fashion over the years. ancient greeks were nothing without their whiskers (eight out of 10 ionians said their cats preferred them), and the spartans actually used to punish criminals by shaving off parts of their beards. this was probably to make them look ridiculous or more effeminate. or like noel edmonds. which would be punishment enough for all but the most heinous crimes. conversely, tsar peter the great introduced a beard tax in 1705 in an attempt to encourage russian men to smarten up and move with the rest of europe from fuzzy-framed chops towards a fleshier faced freedom.
but the real death knell for the popular beard was the unholy alliance between the mass marketing manipulators of the advertising industry and the razor blade manufacturers. ever since planting the first seeds of insecure doubt around the effect your bushy bristles might have on the opposite sex, the sharp practices of the mad men have been seducing us with ever closer shaves. these must by now be removing thin slivers of our faces in the process.
following the mach 3 (three times closer!), quattro (four blades!) and now fusion (five blades! missed opportunity here for use of the name "quintessence"), we must be approaching the limit of how many cutting surfaces you can jam on to the head of a disposable plastic razor.
apart from the expensive throwaway cutting equipment though, shaving also involves a panoply of lotions, ointments, foams and gels for before, during and after you've taken the blade to your skin.
apart from the economic and environmental cost of all the aerosols and packaging involved, the irony is that softening your stubble with warm water and then lubricating your skin with a little olive oil is probably just as effective as all the pricey potions they splurge so much marketing budget on convincing us to buy (one leading company in the uk plans to spend £35m over the next four years alone). shaving foam is arguably more useful as a visual guide to which bits of your face you've already scraped, rather than for any friction reducing properties it might provide.
admittedly, current high-profile public beards in the media don't necessarily convey a particularly frucool image. the bewildering blundering of both joaquin phoenix and david bellamy, in their services to rap music and climate change activism respectively, aren't exactly role model material. but that shouldn't stop us at least considering abandoning the expense and environmental impact of shaving for a bit and indulging ourselves in a bit of ruminative furry chin-stroking.
i'll leave the final words on frucool facial hair to the psychologist robert pellegrini. his investigations into public perceptions of hirsute men found that
the male beard communicates an heroic image of the independent, sturdy, and resourceful pioneer, ready, willing and able to do manly things. in conclusion, it may very well be true that inside every clean-shaven man there is a beard screaming to be let out. if so, the results [of this work] provide a strong rationale for indulging that demand.
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在英国，人们每年单独在剃须刀和刮面刀上的花费是3亿2000万英镑，所以现在是暖颌器重归流行的时候了。
“有胡子的人年纪不小了，没胡子的不像个男人。”
莎士比亚的名著《无事生非》里的比阿特丽斯曾经说过，作为一个长期做包括整个下巴在内的脸部美容的使用者，我也只能同意了。根据社会心理学研究者的所说的，胡子也表达出一种权威的含意，男子气概，孔武有力和忠诚的感觉，罗马人一旦开始刮掉胡子，他们很快的就变得不好打交道了。
所以长个胡子能够看做是frucool——一种节俭和冷清的生活方式的标志，这有什么惊奇的吗？
现在我知道了你在想什么了。接着说我以前在一封关于胡须的信中，曾经短暂地赞美过本地啤酒的优点，这整个的frucool博客系列只是一个策略，用来吸引那些长满毛发的散装啤酒的爱好者。下面你要问什么呢？ frucool式的穿着袜子的凉鞋？但是当你看到，我们每年单独花费3亿2000万英镑在剃须刀上以剔除毛囊的萌芽，你就开始认识到frucool生活存在的理由。
最近这些年来，胡须曾经反复的在流行趋势里出出进进。古希腊人是不蓄胡须的（十个里有八个艾奥里亚人会说他们的猫更喜欢胡须），斯巴达人确实曾经以削去罪犯的胡须作为对他们的惩罚。这可能使他们看起来有点滑稽，或者更多的有些柔弱。或者像诺埃尔·埃德蒙兹那样。怎么样才能对那样十恶不赦的罪犯们作出足够的惩罚呢？相反的，彼得沙皇在1705年，提出征收胡子税，试图鼓励俄罗斯男子变得漂亮起来，并且和欧洲的其他家伙们一起行动，从毛茸茸的下巴解脱出来，变成个小白脸。
但是广告业与剃须刀制造商之间的达成了一个不怎么光彩的结盟，他们大肆销售的剃须刀正式宣告了蓄胡须这种潮流的尽头。从那时起便种下了一个不安的忧虑的种子，那就是你浓密的两鬓会对异性产生不好的印象，这个明显是“广告狂人”（一部美剧名称，译者注）中的欺诈手段已经诱使我们走向更远的极端。到如今， 这些人一定还在打算在这个过程中去除我们脸面上的薄薄的脸皮。
从mach 3(吉列生产的剃须刀片，后面的几个名词均是吉利生产的剃须刀片产品。译者注)，到quattro(4个刀片)以及现在的fusion(5个刀片！错过了继续使用“quintessence”这个名字的机会)，我们一定正在接近这个极限，那就是你能使用这个一次性塑料刮面刀的刀头割多少次表面。
尽管开销很大的广告传单削减了设备的费用，刮毛也涉及到一套装备，包括在先前准备，使用过程中，以及对你的皮肤动了刀子后这几个程序中，要用到的各种洗液，油膏，泡沫以及凝胶剂。
除了这些经济花费，要使用的喷雾剂以及包装材料对环境的消耗之外，具有讽刺意味的是，用热水软化你脸上的短而硬的胡茬子，然后用一点橄榄油润滑你的皮肤，这个小方法所起到的效果，相比与他们花费如此之多的预算来说服我们购买昂贵的材料，可能一样有效（一个在英国领先的公司打算在接下4年里投入3500万英镑的费用）。泡沫刮胡膏是一个可论证的更加有效而且可以看得见的方法，它能去除你脸上已经刮过的剩余的小块地方，而不是可能带来的任何减少性能的摩擦。
的确，当前的在媒体中姿态鲜明的公众胡子们不一定要表达出一种特别的frucool的形象。虽然杰昆·菲尼克斯和大卫·拜拉米在他们的各自的说唱音乐和气候变化行动中，让人感到眼花缭乱与浮躁，准确的说，他们并不是行为榜样的好料子。但那不应该停止我们对此的一些思考，放弃昂贵并且对环境有不利的刮毛，让我们小小的安抚下长满胡须的下巴。
我想对心理学家罗伯特·佩里葛里尼说说自己的最终看法，是关于frucool式长满脸部的毛发的。他深入研究了公众对于长满毛发的男人的看法，这些调查显示，有胡须的男性通常传达出一种英勇的形象，包括独立自主，坚定不移和有头脑的拓荒者，随时有准备，乐意和有能力作出许多勇敢的行为。综上所述，有一个结论可能很真实，那就是每个光鲜的男人的内心里都有一个多毛发的男人在高声说让他出来。如果是这样的话，那么这个工作的结果就为满足需求提供了一个有利的理由。