Hair

Someone said to me the other day that my grey hair gave me a 'distinguished' look.  I thanked her, of course.  It was very kind of her to offer this spontaneous judgment.  

On the other hand, a good friend who was older than I by a few years (sadly he passed away two years ago), once stood on a bench behind me, and felt free to comment on the bald spot I had been trying to conceal with careful combing.  I did not thank him, and instead met his remark with a look that was a few degrees short of friendly.  He had a full head of wiry, dark hair, very little grey.  

Let's face it.  Men are almost as conscious of their hair, or the lack of it, as women are about theirs, and the state of it.  We've all heard complaints, usually female and catty, about this or that female newscaster or celebrity having a 'bad hair day'. And what about the millions upon millions of dollars spent on visits to hairdressers and beauty salons, not to mention the sale of shampoos, conditioners, body-builders, softeners, coloring agents, and the like.  Hair is big business.

Strangely, I find that though I am losing some from the top, new hair will grow, and quite quickly, in other places.  Take my eyebrows, for instance.  It seems that all of a sudden my eyebrows are undergoing a growth spurt which is quite alarming.  I have not yet come close to an Andy Rooney look in the eyebrow department, but many of the hairs above my eyes are getting longer and thicker.  

Now, eyebrows are something that a man should never trim or pluck, as women so often do.  It is just not the macho thing to do.  Not only that, but cutting the ends off long eyebrows tend to make them spiky and unnatural.  So my advice is: leave them alone.  Let them grow to their heart's content.

Another kind of hair that in men becomes more pronounced with age is that which grows in nostrils and ears.  Those on the outside of the ears may be a solitary few that are easily trimmed away while shaving.  But the ones in the ear cavity are harder to reach, and a guy may have to borrow a woman's cuticle scissors to get at them — a dangerous practice at best.  Much better to get one of those little cylindrical battery-operated ear- and nose-hair trimmers that are so ubiquitous nowadays in drugstores and specialty gift shops.

These small gadgets can do the job easily on nose or ear hair in half the time it would take with the old scissors, and with less chance of damage or pain.  They are well worth the small investment.