Tunisian straight shave...

[Kevan]

Don't know if this has been posted before, but here's a video of an American getting a straight shave in a Tunisian barbershop. This barber looks like a true professional, though look what he does at the end with dental floss! Weird.

The guy has pretty fair skin and his face looks irritation-free after the shave. Impressive.

[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxwbT6e7uws&feature=rec-HM-r2[/YOUTUBE]

 

[DSB]

I like the traditional Tunisian music playing in the background (it's the theme song from Beverly Hills Cop).

Nice shave. Too bad there are close to zero barbers in the U.S. still practicing this art.

 

[Hughies_online]

With new health regulations, its getting so much harder to get a decent barbershop str8 shave. The last one I had, the barber used a bic disposable

 

[Kevan]

When I was 19 (and in my first year of college, so it was 2004, maybe), I didn't shave for a month through the cold winter weather, I didn't have a full beard because of my uneven growth (and I still have uneven beard growth at 25). Anyway, I decided that I wanted to get the beard shaved off, so I looked for my childhood barbershop. The guy still did straight shaves there from what I remembered. And for the record, this was years before I got into wetshaving.

Anyway, thankfully the shop was still open. The barber was 83 by now, still cutting hair, and still shaving by the looks of things, as he was shaving a guy when I came in. I was the youngest person there by an average of 50 years).

Since the barber's hands didn't shake, I decided to trust his ability and I asked for a shave when it was my turn. He looked at me and asked "How old are you?" I told him I was 19. He asked if I was in college by now, and I said yes. Then he told me he couldn't shave me, but he'd trim my beard to a manageable length for $3. I asked him why, and he cited new health regulations.

.....Yet he happily shaved the old guy that was in the chair when I came into the shop. I never did figure out why he refused to shave me.

 

[JoeH]

Looks like the barber "threaded" the fine hairs off the guy's face. They use the same technique here in NYC to shape eyebrows.

Thanks for the post!

 

[StillShaving]

When I was 19 (and in my first year of college, so it was 2004, maybe), I didn't shave for a month through the cold winter weather, I didn't have a full beard because of my uneven growth (and I still have uneven beard growth at 25). Anyway, I decided that I wanted to get the beard shaved off, so I looked for my childhood barbershop. The guy still did straight shaves there from what I remembered. And for the record, this was years before I got into wetshaving.

Anyway, thankfully the shop was still open. The barber was 83 by now, still cutting hair, and still shaving by the looks of things, as he was shaving a guy when I came in. I was the youngest person there by an average of 50 years).

Since the barber's hands didn't shake, I decided to trust his ability and I asked for a shave when it was my turn. He looked at me and asked "How old are you?" I told him I was 19. He asked if I was in college by now, and I said yes. Then he told me he couldn't shave me, but he'd trim my beard to a manageable length for $3. I asked him why, and he cited new health regulations.

.....Yet he happily shaved the old guy that was in the chair when I came into the shop. I never did figure out why he refused to shave me.

Interesting post. Could have been many reasons. Sounds like he just did not want to bother with giving the shave. Given his age it could have just been a bad day for him, meaning he was already tired or was feeling some stiffness or pain. Few 83yo could work as a full time barber. Looks like he has a long time customer base to which he probably feels more indebted to (and vice versa) so he wants to continue with services that have been long since been provided to his buddies/customers. Where the expectations are well understood. Since you were just a young whippersnapper he may have felt that he would not live up to your expectations, or just he did not want to bother, so he gave you a polite excuse.

 

[keenedge]

Thanks for posting this. I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Tunisa around 20 years ago. Unfortunately I never got a shave there. That is where I started shaving with a straight though.