IT IS time to bring out the razors. The urban lumberjack is packing up his bags and going back to the forest, because a more urbane male is again, on the rise. While a few years ago, men had some fun playing around with wearing flannel and sporting full bushy beards, new trends are telling men to cut a sharper image with more tailored clothing and a more groomed face.
To achieve this new look, Phillips launched some of its new hair-grooming tools in an event at Rustan’s last week, where celebrity hairstylist Lourd Ramos did the hair of a few models with the help of Phillips’ Philips Multigroom 6-in-1 and 9-in-1.
The Multigroom series consists of one electric shaver with changeable heads that can trim hair from head to toe, and even in one’s nose and ears. It has self-sharpening blades with a battery life of up to 70 minutes — if everything goes right, one may never have to step inside a salon or barbershop again.
Mr. Ramos gave BusinessWorld a few tips for styling with facial hair. He listed four face shapes: round, square, heart-shaped, and diamond (a combination of either round or square combined with the heart shape). For men with round faces, Mr. Ramos recommends having a chin-strap beard (that is, one without a mustache) to give the face more definition, while the men with heart-shaped faces will benefit from a nice well-slicked pompadour, but they should ease up on the side-shaving because it will make the face look too sharp. A box beard (a beard with a mustache with the hair closing around the lips) also adds more definition to the heart-shaped face and softens its angles.
Textured and layered hair can be pulled off by diamond-shaped faces, and they will benefit from a fuller beard. Meanwhile, men with a square face (think of a nice jawline) are the only ones that can pull off a goatee, according to Mr. Ramos, as well as benefiting most from several hairstyles, even long, layered cuts. — JLG
