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When I was young there was this advert on TV that featured a man, his wife and a toddler daughter. The advert was either about a shaving cream or a shaving gadget.
It was set in the girl’s bedroom, very early in the morning and the mother would appear fully dressed and ready to leave for work. When she gave the girl, still half asleep, a peck on the cheek, the girl would say “Bye Mummy”.
A few minutes later, the dad would walk in to bid the girl goodbye and after giving her a peck, she would still go: “Bye Mummy”. The idea was that the shaving product that was being advertised was so good the child couldn’t differentiate between her dad and mum because both their cheeks were smooth.
I liked the advert because it was interesting and entertaining. Then, I had no idea that I would become a barber and start dealing with matters of beards. I was made to believe the face should be shaved clean until I joined the male grooming business and the concept in that advert became irrelevant.
Nowadays most men love it rough (I mean the beard) and you would rather kill them first before you cut it off. For example, my assistant, Zad, can spend the whole day in front of a mirror admiring a few countable pieces of hair he calls a beard and I wonder since when did beard become a determining factor for being a real man.
A client once gave me a reason for not shaving his beard: “You see, I have a potbelly and I might get sick one of these days and when I am taken to the hospital, a doctor might mistake me for an expectant woman and carry out a Ceaserian section on me.”
What a reason! Another one told me there was a time they were arrested with some friends on their way home from watching a football game and one of them didn’t have a beard. The police had to touch him in the nether regions to confirm if indeed he was a man before booking him in a cell!
Beards can also confer respect. This came from a client who said that in ushago if you board a matatu and you are beardless, you are expected to stand up and leave the seat to the elderly when the matatu is full.
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My dad would defend his decision to grow a beard by arguing that in case of a fatal accident, it becomes easier to identify men by their beards. So beards are the new cool thing and men who aren’t privileged to have it go to the extent of using enhancement oils to grow it.
Quite several men that I have interacted with who struggle with beards confessed to keeping them just to please their women and “Mama anapenda hizi ndevu zangu, hataki nizinyoe,” is a common phrase at the kinyozi.
Before something else comes up and replaces this beard effect, let’s just sit back and enjoy the unfolding episode of The Bald and the Beardful.
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