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The Straight Edge By Cole Louison In an environment where whispy goatees are all too common a sight, it is assuring to know there are still a few barbers left who know how to shave a customer. Rich Cacciotti is one of these barbers and last Thursday morning found me and my salt and pepper wino beard in his chair inside Mikey David's barber shop on Elmira Road, in Ithaca, across from the Staples plaza. A barber for over fifty years, Cacciotti gets very few requests from customers for shaves these days. Not even one a week, he said. Cacciotti begins by draping a warm towel over his customer's face and letting it sit for 30 seconds or so. He removes the towel and dabs a warm mixture of soap lather onto the face. On top of the lather, he drapes another towel, this one hot, and using the ends of his fingers, rubs the lather into the face of his customer. After a minute or so of conditioning, he removes the second towel and repeats the lathering and rubbing process. It is after the third coat of lather is applied, about five minutes into the procedure, that Cacciotti takes his razor from the top drawer of his mirror. The razor is about as long as a pencil. The handle is slightly longer than the blade, which slides into a circular groove about as wide as a cocktail straw. The blades Cacciotti uses are detachable and he normally uses a new blade every time he gives a shave. Always using his right hand, Cacciotti starts with what he calls a freehand stroke down the right side of the customer's face. Freehand strokes are used for the first time over in a shave and are shorter and slower than the other strokes used in shaving. For a freehand stroke, Cacciotti holds the razor like you might hold a bidder's flag at an auction, with three fingers wrapped around the handle, the index finger more loosely wrapped and the thumb on the back of the razor for leverage. Using the freehand stroke,Cacciotti shaves the right side of the face, nape of the neck and the spot under the nose. Being right handed, Cacciotti uses the butcher stroke to shave the left side of the face. A public relations disaster waiting to happen, the butcher stroke is named so because the barber holds the razor with all four fingers and thumb, like you would a meat cleaver. Cacciotti starts at the left ear and comes down to the chin. When finished, he conditions the face a final time with a non-foaming medicated lather and goes over the face again, looking for places he might have missed, this time using longer, smoother, backhand strokes. A final hot towel is administered to clean off any residue, followed by a cold cloth that Cacciotti puts on your face and then over your ears and eyes. "It cools you off nice," he says. A little talc is patted onto the face just before Cacciotti jacks you upright again in the chair, brushes your hair and sends you on your baby-faced way. Cacciotti went to barber school in Ithaca when he was 20 years old. At school, he learned to shave by practicing on homeless people, "bums." After six months, he worked at a barber shop for a year and a half as an apprentice and then passed a state exam to become a barber. His first job was at the now defunct Willard Strait Barber shop on the Cornell campus. He has worked at Mikey David's with Joe David, the proprietor, since 1963. Has he ever cut anyone? "Oh, hell yeah. I haven't seen a barber who didn't ever cut anybody." Cole Louison plays football and can be found at Semesters and fraternity parties on the weekends. He is French and quite well-off. His father collects classic warplanes and corvettes and his mother will soon inherit a prize-winning thouroughbread. Cole lives on an island in Silver Lake. |
