The Barbershop shave.

Well Gentlemen, I went to my first barbershop haircut and 'shave' in nearly ten years. I live in Japan and when I first came here in 1997 I went to a barbershop not knowing too much Japanese and not expecting a shave along with the haircut but thought it would be great after I found out I would be getting one. Well it turned out to be a blood bath that turned me off both barber shops and barbershop shaves for a long time.

Last Friday I found myself standing in front of both a 'salon' and a 'barbershop,' they were side by side. I later found myself entering the barbershop and sitting down for a haircut. For some odd reason I didn't think I would be getting a face shave as well. But when the barber started up his later machine I thought 'well it can't be as bad as what I got last time'. Why? Because I had already gotten a near BBS shave that morning and it was only 2 PM. Appearantly I did not get as close as I had thought. Especially arround the chin.

After about 30 seconds of hot towel treatment and quite a thin layer of shaveing cream, shavette in hand the barber started with an against the grain pass. When he got to my chin he would not relent until he had gotten it good. It felt and sounded like he had a paint scraper and was trying with all of his might to scrape all of the 'paint' off that old fence board. Holy Cow was that bad! I agree I have a very coarse and tought to cut beard around my chin but I didn't think I would have a chin left after that round. After all was said and done he smeared a sticky layer of something menthol on my chin and cheeks, probably to stay the blood, that I am sure was profuse, and numb my hacked up chin.

After we were done I thanked him and left. On my way home I thought 'well that didn't go as planned...but I got what I paid for.' (the baber only charged 2000 yen, whereas the salon next door was 5000 yen.) I should have left well enough alone. I guess I now have a more recent benchmark of how bad it really can get. Ironically on my way back to my car, I passed another babershop that had advertised 3000 yen for a hair cut and 2300 for a shave. Maybe I'll go there next time and hope that the extra money will provide me with a more experienced barber. At least in regards to the shaving aspect of things. I mean I would be paying 5300 yen not 2000 for a shave and a haircut...:hmmm:

Man, as soon as he started to go ATG, I would've stopped him and gotten out. That's just crazy!

Was it one of the royal franchises? they are shockers when it comes to shaving, my latest experience took 10-15mins of shaving in all directions with the feather and some other weird device, and still left me patchy. I sacrificed skill for cleanliness that day, my previous experience with that franchise was a good BBS shave but they used a towel with cut hairs to dry me off.

I heard that asian beards are much less coarse than westerners. Could it be that the barber was unused to tough stubble and got a bit frustrated?

I had many shaves and haircuts when I was in japan. I believe it was all with replaceable blades (I didn't see a shavette but they had some feathers and several other gadgets) and they went against the grain on the neck first (and I have serious PFB issues). He spend a lot of time on prep and apparently it worked so I've always spend a significant amount of prep time ever since. I guess you just got a terrible barber because I got a super smooth shave with no irritation, no pain, no marks or anything. It was fantastic and if my japanese was better I wouldn't asked him a lot more questions but my japanese is poor and his english was non-existant. I think everybody in the barbershop except children were getting the haicut, shampoo, and shave treatment but this place was a little different. Usually all you see is these expensive salons that charge about 5000 yen for a haircut and want to color, straighten, curl your hair or whatever. Japanese fashion can get pretty strange.