The United States has effectively ruined both a pleasure and an occupation. All around the world one of the greatest pleasures is to find out what the custom for shaving is-and they vary. What does not vary is that the barber is a professional, that is his trade, his only trade apart from selling mens grooming products or lottery tickets. To enter his shop, wherever, is to honour him, to acknowledge his (presumed) skills. Things don't always work out as perfectly as one might hope but it will never be less than an experience. My favourite country for being barbered and shaved is Turkey. There, "the full treatment" includes everything from a haircut and shave to a facial, a back massage, a shoulder massage, hot towels, cold towels, ear and nose hair being removed by flame on a ball of cotton soaked in metholated spirits...pauses here and there...and, not infrequently, coffee, snacks a beer etc. In one place, where the family lived above the shop, the wife pressed my jacket and, in the process, repaired a very minor tear in the lining. Of course Baksheesh was expected and I fully expected to pay it. For what I got, t was worth it. The cost? Then about six or seven U.S. Dollars but I paid with a ten and insisted that I needed no change. On leaving I was helped into my coat, my tie was adjusted, the knot made perfect and I was given a brush down find that in the United States.
