I went for a haircut this week. It was at an actual barber, for once – normally I go to one of those £10 all-in walk-up places that blast hyperactive pop remixes while someone with an incredibly severe undercut dances around my hair – but I thought I needed a treat. Here’s what happened: instead of washing my hair with my head tilted backwards, like a normal person, my barber just thrust my head face-first into the sink, so I glubbed on water while he wordlessly crammed my jaw into the ceramic; he did my edging with a straight razor then slapped what I can only assume was actual lemon juice on afterwards, judging by the stinging; then he, without warning, wafted actual fire at the imperceptible hairs on my ears and cheeks. When I paid, I was left with a haircut that looked like Hitler’s if I combed it one way and “Kim Jong-Un after a 48-hour brie bender” if I combed it another. On the whole: I am not going to be leaving a positive Yelp review, no.
All these many tiny traumas paled, of course, to the various stickers, posters and in some instances grooming products that were there to endorse that ubiquitous November ritual, Movember. If you don’t know what Movember is, it’s when the least interesting man in your office grows a moustache and posts daily updates about his moustache and always talks about his moustache and occasionally takes out a tiny comb designed specifically for grooming his moustache and has at it. Here are some things you will hear from a Movember evangelical: “I know, right? A moustache!”; “I can think of no single madder thing than a moustache being on my face”; “Actually it’s for charity mate so you can’t be a dick about it”; “I might keep it after November is over!”.
I hate Movember. Not because of my long-standing allergy to largely organised fun – or fun-for-a-good-cause fun, or just fun in general – but because I, personally, cannot grow a moustache.
When I was 13 I was handed a pamphlet that told me that my balls were about to whoosh out of my body like parachutists out of a plane and that my voice would drop a handful of octaves and that I would start to get hair in “places you never had hair before”. When presented to you on an A4 sheet folded carefully into three by a school secretary, the entire concept of puberty is profoundly terrifying. But I endured and, gradually, a lot of the above happened. My balls are in mostly the right place now. I have a lot of hair going on across great swathes of my body. But I still cannot grow a moustache.
11 months of the year, this is the exact opposite of a problem. I have to trim whatever sprinkling of facial hair I have maybe once a week, which sounds better than the daily shavings of my more hirsute peers. My beard growth is strong under my chin, which gives me a neckbeard if I’m not careful, but other than that my facial hair doesn’t bush up in any concerted way, unmanageable way. My sideburns are gossamer-like, near transparent. There’s always exactly two hairs that grow out of an otherwise isolated patch of my cheek. But it’s fine. I’m fine. I am almost entirely pubic, now. It’s fine.
But when Movember rolls around – with its collection of porno ’taches, John Waters lines, Swansonesque sculptures and one of those ones you can twist at the end with wax – it does sort of bum me out that I can’t join in. And, to be clear, I am not bummed out that I can’t get involved in the moustache-growing side of things. I’m bummed out because I can’t get the free stuff.
For the past three years, Movember bros could claim a free burger from Byron burger just for having a crappy amount of moustache. You can get free hot shaves and free razors. Free hairgels and brown sauce. A little sticker to put on your PlayStation controller so your PlayStation controller has a moustache. The chance to win Champions’ League final tickets. Most of these are my favourite thing in the world. And yet I am locked out from taking part due to a genetic imbalance in my hormones. Does that not sound like bullshit to you? Because that sounds like bullshit to me.
The point is this: if you are growing a moustache for Movember this year – or if you are inexplicably taking part as a “Mo Sista”, which I don’t understand you doing at all, seeing as the Movember website defines your role in this entire hair-growing project as providing a frequent “wink, a nod, a smile or word of encouragement” to any Mo Bro and his moustache, and not much else – then please, I implore you, think of me – with the perfect nude circle of skin around my mouth, with a Gilette Fusion razor gummed up with toothpaste residue because it is so infrequently used, with the complete lack of a free burger or a tiny moustache sticker for my PlayStation – and then check your moustache privilege.
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