Wet Shaving • Fragrances • Bath and Body • Candles and Sprays

Shaving the Roberts Method: An Appreciation
by Edward T. Linenthal, May 2003

In his wonderfully quirky late nineteenth-century book The Toilet and Cosmetic Arts in Ancient and Modern Times, Arnold J. Cooley informs his readers that “in all ages of the world, and among nations and peoples in every grade of life and civilization, and under every condition arising from geographical position and climate, the toilet and cosmetic arts, dress, fashions, and hygiene have…occupied the attention of mankind, and exerted their interest over them. Indeed, their origin was coeval with that of the sins of our race, and their existence may be traced back to the expulsion of our first parents from Eden.”

One need not necessarily inhabit Cooley’s biblical cosmology to be fairly quickly convinced that humankind has been enduringly entranced with one of the chief preoccupations of those who practice the “cosmetic arts”: hair. In The Unconscious Significance of Hair, for example, Charles Berg observes that the presence or absence of hair, “its length, texture, curl, colour, all have their effects upon us and influence our likes and dislikes and our judgments.” And, notes historian Wendy Cooper in Hair: Sex, Society, Symbolism, “Once the human race discovered that hair was good-tempered, pliable, and regenerative, and could be cut, shaved, shaped, dyed, braided, crimped, curled, waved, puffed, padded, and frizzled, it proceeded to use hair in a vast variety of permutations of length, style, and color, in the long continuous search for novelty, beauty, and status sometimes called fashion.”

Think of the powerful symbolism of men’s hair! It has, for example, expressed virility (the biblical story of Samson) and sexual restraint (the tonsured head of a Christian or Buddhist monk), humiliation—in the forced shaving of the head of a prisoner or collaborator, or the beards of Jews. Depending on when one lived, long hair or short hair, a clean-shaven face or a bearded face could symbolize either civilization or barbarism. Recently, the right of American citizens to have beards when their religion forbids them to shave—Muslim policemen, for example--has clashed with workplace restrictions and had to be adjudicated by the Supreme Court.

The history of shaving is, of course, intimately intertwined with the changing symbolism of men’s hair. In America, men have both been fascinated with Cooley’s “cosmetic arts,” and fearful that such fascination revealed that they were not “real men,” a tension between, in historian Kathy Peiss’s words, “an emasculated dandy,” or a “gentleman of rank.” Since the colonial era, however, she observes that “men continued to pay attention to the mirror. Shaving paraphernalia, hair dyes and ‘rejuvenators,’ bay rum and brilliantine were all sold on the market throughout the nineteenth century. Barber supply catalogues featured face washes, colognes, tinted talcum powders, and ‘cosmetique,’ a perfumed waxy substance used to touch up gray hair. Except for shaving and hair care, however, cosmetic practices among men became largely covert and unacknowledged.”

Barbershops, of course, were male space where attention could be paid to the “cosmetic arts” without fear of blurring gender boundaries. There is now an interesting literature of nostalgia about the “vanishing” barbershop as a relic of supposed “simpler” times in America. It was a “special environment,” writes Mic Hunter in The American Barbershop: A Closer Look at a Disappearing Place, “with its familiar sweet smells, soothing snip of scissors and hum of electric razors, relaxed schedule, and idle banter.”

The revolution in men’s shaving that came about with King Gillette’s invention—about which Charles Roberts has written in another essay on this website—began to break down inhibitions among American men about acknowledging publicly an interest in treatment of the face. Gillette ads trumpeted men who shaved at home as industrious, independent, and, writes Kathy Peiss in her important book Hope in a Jar: The Making of America’s Beauty Culture, “manufacturers of shaving supplies invoked good grooming as an entrée into the new corporate economy, the means by which men created their own references….How could businessmen read character in the faces of unfamiliar job applicants or potential partners? Toilet-goods companies answered, ‘A good face is the best letter of introduction.’”

It was into this post-World War II world of barbershops--and the cultural conviction that clean-shavenness and a close haircut were signs of a “real” man--that I was born. Like so many others, I was fascinated watching my father shave, understanding the act as one that marked you as a “grown-up.” I loved the smell of the lather, knew that carefully using a sharp blade—about which I was duly cautioned—was surely one sign of being a man: the ability to handle dangerous objects. By the time I reached college in 1965, however, men’s hair once again symbolized deeper cultural tensions: “long-hairs” and “hippies” replaced bearded “beatniks,” and many of my friends grew facial hair as another sign of social protest against the clean-shaven, orderly, and to their minds, oppressive corporate culture. I could never practice such bodily protest, largely because my hair grew like a Brillo pad, and my beard, while rough, was too uneven for a beard (and, truth be told, for me the “revolution” would have foundered on a terminally itchy face).

So, I joined in what Charles Roberts aptly decries as “slash and burn” shaving with whatever “latest and greatest” shaving experience was available on the mass market. I knew no better. I thought about shaving—insofar as I thought about it at all--as something akin to having to remove a splinter every morning. It was a dreary, painful, daily inconvenience. Consequently—and how familiar is this story—I spent decades with a rough uncomfortable face, and mornings that moved all too quickly from waking into a regime of efficiency. (Perhaps our old friend Arnold J. Cooley was indeed on to something when he spoke of the origins of the need for the “cosmetic arts” in the expulsion from paradise!) Shaving was, for me, certainly cruel and unusual punishment. As Bill Cosby declared, “Actually, all I wanted was a clean shave, not a self-sacrifice.”

After many years of shaving in the shower with a micro-blade, I became adventurous and bought a very expensive electric razor, and tried to convince myself that this was an improvement. It was not. In retrospect, it was the mark of my truly fallen state. So, without knowing what I was doing, I searched the web and serendipitously, discovered Enchantè. Jean Roberts listened patiently and graciously to my tale of woe and said, gently, “You really need to talk with my husband Charles. He knows quite a lot about shaving.”

Shortly thereafter, Charles Roberts called and we spoke for almost three hours. He described to me his diagnosis of the dreary condition of men’s shaving, and how he had discovered a better way, which he delighted in demonstrating to clients in his shaving clinics in Austin and even through instruction over the telephone. During our conversation, Charles never pushed me to buy products. He immediately turned my attention, however, away from a “great razor,” which I thought, mistakenly, was the key to the whole thing, to a great brush. I recall vividly looking at the price of Simpsons brushes on Enchante's website, and thinking to myself, “this much money just for a shaving brush?” Now, of course, I would not part from my handmade Simpsons “Chubby #3” brush. I could not imagine shaving without it, and I consider the expense a worthy investment in something I will use with pleasure every day for the rest of my life.

Toward the end of that first phone call, I said, “yes, I’d like to try your method of wet shaving, and I’m willing to invest in the necessary products.” So began my ongoing relationship with Enchantè. I have not for a moment regretted this decision nor my monetary investment in wondrous products. And, quite apart from the world of men’s shaving, I have enduring respect for the core convictions by which Jean and Charles Roberts operate Enchantè. I will conclude this essay with some words about the pleasures and logic of shaving the “Roberts method,” and a brief reflection about their way of doing business that is worthy of our deep respect.

Several months after beginning to shave the Roberts method, I was in the steam room at our local YMCA where I swim regularly, and as usual, some friends were shaving with disposable razors and no lather, just the moist heat of the steam room to soften their beards. I recalled shaving like this myself, and shuddered at the barbarity of it all! So—with the understandable if all too predictable fervor of the newly converted--I began a conversation about the wonders of wet shaving. As we spoke about brushes, creams, and a systematic method of shaving, someone said to me in an utterly incredulous tone, “you spend twenty minutes or more shaving, and you spend REAL MONEY to do this? Are you crazy? Here, let me show you how to shave!” And with that, he ran a disposable quickly over his face, and proclaimed himself shaved. Thus endeth our wet shaving discussion in the steam room.

It occurred to me as I thought about the “moral” of this story that there are many, many men who have no desire to think about shaving as anything else than a disposable act with a disposable razor. And their “tone-deafness” to the wonders of wet shaving, if lamentable, is simply a fact. However, if you are reading these essays, chances are you either are already or are thinking seriously about practicing a civilized form of wet shaving. If so, welcome to your new home at Enchantè, for you have come to the right place. You will discover in your discussions with Charles Roberts a marvelous method for wet shaving, magnificent products that make shaving a pleasurable experience for the senses and the skin, and a wider context into which wet shaving is located, the “shave facial.”

I will not go into detail about the actual method of wet shaving. You will discover this in your conversation with Charles Roberts. Let me simply say that beginning in mid-December of 2002, I picked up my Simpsons “Chubby #3,” shave conditioning soap, Trumper’s sandalwood shaving cream, a double edge razor and a Gillette Sensor, a detailed set of instructions from Charles Roberts, and armed with these formidable weapons and a steaming hot basin of water, went to war on my intractable beard. When finished, I used Enchante’s spectacular after shave products: D.R. Harris’s “Pink” after shave—without question one of the cornerstones of western civilization—Trumper’s “skin food,” and Cellmen skin cream. I will never forget that first “rush” of powerful fragrances, the soothing feel of soap, water, cream, the glide of blades across properly prepared skin, and the incredible soothing power of the after shave products. To these estimable goods, I have since added (or sometimes substituted) rose spray (a necessity), a variety of different shave creams, each adding variety to the morning: Trumper coconut, rose, almond, sandalwood, Coates’s wonderful violet, and Truefitt and Hill’s subtle shave cream scent. Happily, there are now two new and incomparable products produced by Charles Roberts himself: sandalwood or lime after shave cream, and a product I will never be without, a neroli shaving balm, for use during and after a shave.

The Roberts method makes use of the power of these fine products. Each step is important, and Charles Roberts will take an initiate through them: from learning how to “load” a brush with just the right balance of water, soap, and cream, so important in putting down a protective barrier across the full shaving terrain, to different shaving “cuts” with the blades, so important in disciplining the beard, to the important post shave treatment. What one will learn, however, is more than just a way to shave, but a rather different way to think about shaving as part of the treatment of one’s face. There are certain ways men can discipline their bodies in socially acceptable ways: faddish diets (not very useful, of course) or more substantively, physical exercise and for some, spiritual bodily disciplines such as yoga or meditation. But, curiously, the classic ambivalence about what it means to be a “real” man creeps in when men think about treatment of their face! I find Charles Roberts’ concept of the “shave facial” intriguing, because it locates the act of shaving within this more expansive concept of treatment of the face. One prepares the face for shaving, one disciplines the beard through shaving, and one soothes the face after shaving, by using quality products in concert with a systematic process, the Roberts method.

You have the opportunity to learn all this for yourself. Take the time. Carve out a few moments of—dare one say it??—some aromatically sensual time in the morning to enjoy the process, enjoy the products, and enjoy how your face will feel the rest of the day. Each shave, of course, is different, each another in the endless quest for the perfect shave! There will be days—at least there are for me—when if I am hurried, or preoccupied, I won’t shave as well. I’ll leave a rough patch or I’ll over cut an area. Of course, you will have questions, and this takes me to the Roberts philosophy of business.

One day, several weeks after I began shaving the Roberts method, I developed a bad rash on one side of my neck. At first, I panicked. “Oh no,” I thought, “I’ve spent all this money, and it is not going to work for me!” I called Charles, he told me I was, in fact, over cutting, and told me what to do about it. Problem solved. I am sure I never would have spent the money on a good brush, or the soaps, creams, and other products if I had not been convinced during our first conversation that Charles and Jean Roberts were among the chosen few business people who cared, really cared, about their clients. Never will you call and feel like they are doing you a favor to listen. Never will you get bad advice about a product! Charles Roberts once said to me that he and Jean believed they had a “sacred trust” with their clients. And I can tell you from personal experience that this is not just empty rhetoric. They mean it, and demonstrate it in every facet of their business, from the excellence of the products they bring into their store, to their conscientiousness with any client who needs their time and expertise, be it about men’s wet shaving, the best soaps for different skin, or aromatic fragrances of all kinds. How could one not enjoy doing business with such folks? They are the best. Find this out for yourself. You won’t regret it.

###

Edward T. Linenthal is a historian and writer. His books include: Sacred Ground: Americans and Their Battlefields; Preserving Memory: the Struggle to Create America’s Holocaust Museum; History Wars: the Enola Gay and Other Battles for the American Past, (co-edited with Tom Engelhardt); and most recently, The Unfinished Bombing: Oklahoma City in American Memory.

Quoted material from: Charles Berg, The Unconscious Significance of Hair (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1951); Arnold J. Cooley, The Toilet and Cosmetic Arts in Ancient and Modern Times (London: Robert Hardwicke, 1886); Wendy Cooper, Hair: Sex, Society, Symbolism (New York: Stein and Day, 1971); Mic Hunter, The American Barbershop: A Closer Look at a Disappearing Place (Mt. Horeb, WI: Face to Face Books, 1996). Hunter’s book is also the source of the Cosby quote. Kathy Peiss, Hope in a Jar: The Making of America’s Beauty Culture (New York: Metropolitan Books, 1998).

Shaving the Roberts Method: An Appreciation by Edward T. Linenthal, May 2003

Shaving the Roberts Method: An Appreciation
by Edward T. Linenthal, May 2003