Hair Apparent

In the Middle East, the straight shave is more than skin deep.

Muhammad Ben Sassi squirts alcohol from a plastic bottle onto the straight razor and lights it on fire. He turns it in his hands, watching as the blue flame jumps and dies. Then he unwraps a fresh blade, clicks it into place and sets the razor on the counter. I lean back in the chair, and Ben Sassi squeezes two slugs of shaving cream from a tube onto my cheek. He pours hot water from a Thermos into a cup, dips a shaving brush into the water and swirls the cream into lather over my face. This is my favourite part: For a full minute, he massages the cream into my skin with deft twists of his wrist. When he is done, the cream is as thick and rich as mascarpone.

I am in Tiznit, a walled city just north of the Moroccan Sahara. Foolishly, I brought my own razor, but it’s never left my suitcase. Along with sweeping deserts, thick coffee and calls to prayer, a trip to the barbershop for a straight-razor shave ranks as one of the great pleasures of travelling in the Islamic world.

There are entire streets dedicated to barbershops in medinas throughout the Middle East and North Africa, and this abundance is born of faith. Muslims believe that inner purity is linked with outer cleanliness. The Prophet Muhammad, and the Islamic scholars who followed him, left a long list of guidelines regarding beards, moustaches, fingernails and bathing. The Prophet advised followers to arrive at the mosque bathed and perfumed, and they in turn forbade the plucking of grey hairs, considered “a Muslim’s light” and Allah’s reward for good deeds. Many of these rules have fallen out of fashion – few young men wear beards at all, much less the fist-length ones proscribed in the old texts – but barbershops are still busiest on Thursday nights, when men come for a moustache trim, a haircut or a shave before Friday prayers.

In both the Middle East and the Maghrib, the barbershop is still an institution for male culture and conversation. Young men often come in groups. One of their number enjoys a shave or a haircut while his friends lounge about, smoking cigarettes, drinking tea and commenting on what’s on the salon television – most often Al Jazeera, unless there’s a soccer game. They talk about the rising price of gas, debate the virtues of the Real Madrid and Barcelona soccer clubs, and discuss marriage plans.

A sign outside Ben Sassi’s shop says “Salon la Jeunesse,” but many barbershops throughout the region are identified only by the rack of towels drying outside their doors. The decor inside each hints at national loyalties. Turkish shops have a portrait of Atatürk, the Father of the Nation, while Moroccan and Jordanian barbers hang photos of their respective kings. No Algerian barbershop is without a poster of soccer royal Zinedine Zidane (but never in his French national team jersey). There are incongruous decorations too. My barber in Jerusalem had a postcard from Rome’s Trevi Fountain. In Tangier, I was shaved by a man who displayed three plastic ears of corn on the shelf next to his lotions and creams.

Ben Sassi slides the blade diagonally over my face in long, clean strokes and wipes the stubble-specked cream onto a piece of newsprint. He moves quickly but with a painter’s precision, carving away the stubble in the space below my bottom lip in one or two deft swoops. After he shaves my face once, he spreads shaving cream over it again and begins a second pass. This time, he gently pinches my skin with his other hand, forcing fugitive hairs to stand for the blade. When he is done, he rubs my face hard with his fingertips, looking for any remaining roughness. He shaves clean the hair on the back of my neck and thrusts scissors into my nostrils to snip my nose hairs. He doesn’t bother with my ears, though a barber in Amman once used a lighter to singe away all the tiny hairs. I didn’t know they existed until I smelled them burn.

A barber always has a comment to offer, an opinion to share. The man with the blade knows things. “Children are dangerous.” That is one thing Ben Sassi knows. “They go to school. They get an education. They find work. Then they go away, and you never see them again.” He also knows how to fix a cut, rubbing a crayon of white aluminum oxide over the red spots under my chin. I flinch, and he laughs. The bleeding stops. (I had a barber in Algeria who rubbed a hunk of wet crystal over my cuts for the same purpose. It was magic.)

Ben Sassi fills the palm of his hand with lemon-scented aftershave and splashes it on. I cringe, and he laughs again. He scoops moisturizer from a tub, smears it over my face and slowly rubs it in. Then he pulls the towel out from under my collar and spins my chair to the door. We are finished. My skin is smooth and taut, and I cannot stop touching my face. Ben Sassi shakes my hand, kisses my fresh cheeks, and I emerge cool-faced and clean onto the old Moroccan streets.

 
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