Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, July 13, 1993 TAG: 9309030382
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ALLEN G. BREED ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: PIKEVILLE, KY. LENGTH: Long
\ Marley Newsom reaches into a crooked drawer behind his barber's chair and pulls out a handful of ancient folding blades.
One is labeled ``Two Golden Men,'' another ``Sublime.'' And there's the trusty old ``Red Imp Wedge'' straight razor Newsom used when he began barbering in 1949.
The old blades stay in the drawer these days. And the strop once used to hone them hangs on the swivel chair like a museum relic.
Shaving is what put the ``barb'' in barbering, which comes from the Latin ``barba'' for beard. But changing hairstyles and the availability of cheap, disposable razors have slowly eaten away at the custom of a straight-razor shave while sitting in a barber's chair.
The fear of AIDS is also dulling interest in the straight razor.
The 69-year-old Newsom remembers a time when his downtown Pikeville shop had five chairs filled with customers, and he'd shave one after another. He stopped giving straight-razor shaves five years ago.
Cost, hassle and lack of demand were the main reasons. But Newsom says AIDS also played a part.
``If I do that, I have to wear gloves - rubber gloves,'' he says. ``And I'd have to change the gloves every time. It's cheaper not to shave.''
``If they demand that we shave the back of their necks, we will,'' says Buck Mullins, who has been cutting hair in Ashland for 33 years. ``But otherwise, we're trying to get away from it. It's the scare of it [AIDS].''
There have been no reported cases of someone contracting AIDS by getting nicked with a straight razor. Industry officials have tried to educate barbers about the relatively low risk of razors passing the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) that causes AIDS, but to some that is irrelevant.
``They're using the AIDS thing as a crutch,'' says Ed Jeffers, executive officer of the National Association of Barber Boards in Columbus, Ohio. ``They stopped because they saw the opportunity to eliminate the procedure.''
AIDS and the future of shaving will be a topic of discussion at this September's national barber convention in Las Vegas. But Jeffers says some states have already considered eliminating shaving from barber training.
``We've discussed that with health officials,'' says Jimmy Moore, executive secretary of the Mississippi State Barber Board of Examiners. ``They don't seem to think that's a hazard, but we do. We don't encourage it.''
Douglas Clapper, administrator of the Kentucky Board of Barbering in Louisville, says some bluegrass barbers are already blaming state regulation for not giving shaves.
``I had complaints from doctors saying their barbers wouldn't shave around their ears because the state board told them not to,'' Clapper says.
Jeffers acknowledges that a memo he distributed to state barber boards in 1987 might have fueled the fires.
``Unless the customer requests the use of a razor,'' the memo read, ``it is recommended that the electric ear-outliner or clipper be used on the skin areas - such as around the ears and neck.''
``I thought, `Let's just play it safe,' '' Jeffers says.
But he has since backed off that stance. And when license renewals went out this year in Kentucky, Clapper included a little message about AIDS.
``First, I will emphasize that the risk of AIDS transmission through shaving is very remote,'' he wrote. ``Hepatitis B is a bit more easily transmitted through small amounts of blood, but neither Hepatitis B nor AIDS have been linked to barbering.''
Clapper's group is organizing AIDS seminars for Kentucky's estimated 3,600 licensed barbers. He says he will stress proper sterilization of instruments, rather than eliminating the razor.
Under the same rationale as eliminating razors, Clapper says, ``You're going to have to get rid of clippers, scissors. People get scratched with combs.''
The shaving barber was becoming an endangered species long before AIDS surfaced.
``Number one, it's a job to keep a razor sharp,'' says Jeffers, who has been barbering for 36 years. ``You have to hone, you have to strop it and you have to sterilize it. So [not shaving] saves time and money.''
Today's longer hairstyles don't require the kind of finishing razors afforded. And trimming with modern electric clippers cuts almost as close as shaving.
``Why teach it if we're trying to teach people how to make a living in the outside world?'' asks J. Wayne Daigle, president of the Louisiana State Board of Barber Examiners. ``We've got to be practical, too.''
Roger Hess Jr. is vice president of Hess Hair Milk Laboratories Inc. of Roseville, Minn., one of the nation's top importers of barber blades. He says straight-razor sales have fallen by about 90 percent in the last decade.
Nowadays, Jeffers says he does more shaves at his barber museum in Columbus than he does in his shop.
But some just can't let go.
Clapper still shaves about 15 to 20 older customers each weekend, but he's after a new generation of clients. As a promotion, any student who comes in from Fern Creek High School across the street gets a shave for 10 cents.
``It is tradition,'' Clapper says. ``I think it's a very fine art of putting a finishing touch on a haircut.''
by CNB