Corporate Representation

This week I'd like to point the spotlight on a public icon who has been promoting the mustache since his arrival back in 1968.  I know what you're thinking, and no, it's not me.  Although I did arrive back in 1968, I didn't start my mustachial exploits until many years later.

No, I'm talking about a commerical icon that you and I have seeing on TV and in grocery stores.  I'm speaking, of course, of Mr. Pringle.  He has been the spokesperson for Proctor & Gamble's saucy and exceedingly regular potato chip-type snack food for the past thirty-one years, and his visage has remained nearly unchanged since its inception.  The most noticeable feature of Mr. Pringle is obviously his great big wavy handlebar mustache.   In the words of the offical Pringles web site,   "The Gay 90's gentleman is used to project a feeling of cheerfulness and nostalgia."  Project he does.  And what characterizes a Gay 90s gentleman more than a handlebar mustache?  Mr. Pringle works every day to help get the handlebar image out there for the whole world to see.  I can tell you as a father that I'd much rather have my child seeing Mr. Pringle a hundred times a day than Joe Camel.  It's  hard on a parent when their daughter starts cultivating a Cookie Duster, but that's what we have therapy for.   God bless you, Mr. Pringle.

A Message of Faith and Fury

I have been inspired by last week's Handlebar Mustache FAQ and have decided to go for it.  I already have the Clubman Mustache Kit, which includes a little comb, a little pair of scissors, and a tube of Mustache Wax.  (By the way, let me put in a plug for Pinaud/Clubman products.   As one healthcare web site puts it, "Pinaud/Clubman personal care products are found in the world's finest country clubs and health clubs."  And that's the thing - this is the stuff that's been on the shelf since the Dawn of Time in the finer bathrooms of America, where the attendant hands you a towel and slaps some Bay Rum (my fave) Aftershave on you before you leave to rejoin your martini.  Cultural holdouts helping you imagine what it was like in more primitive times.  And they smell real good.  Check out your local drugstore, in the cobwebbed shelves next to the shaving powder and styptic pencils.)

Anyway... 

I've decided to go for the handlebar, but the most frustrating thing is that you have to grow your whiskers out.   Way out.  Check out Mr. Pringle - whiskers from under his nose reach out to the tips of the 'stache.  It's a real bear (no pun intended) trying to make hair grow in a direction it has never even contemplated.  I am periodically (some may say obsessively) using my fingers and smoothing out the Duster from center to ends, so that the mustache develops as two separate parts.
To illustrate this configuration, see Paul McCartney  during the Sergeant Pepper's Era (right).  Paul did not keep this mustache for long, but it looks great.  This is the mustache that I visualize when I am training my whiskers.  I am hoping that visualizing will help in the growing process.   In the meantime, I am working on self-control.  The self-control that covers not biting the ends of the
mustache that reach over my lip.  Tough work.  They bug me constantly, and I smooth them aside, visualizing like mad.  What a pain.  I can't wait until I can get the wax out.

So this is the message that I am trying to get across to you - Don't Give Up.  Pick a mental image of the mustache you want to grow.  See it in your mind's eye when you are grooming.  It's kind of like the teaching angle Professor Harold Hill used in The Music Man - imagine yourself doing it, and it happens.  See that 'stache.  See it growing.  Use that power - Mind Over Mustache is not a Myth, it's a Method!   Believe it!  Live it!   

Are you with me?  I said Are You With Me?!   Then get out there and SHOW ME THE MUSTACHE!!

The Afterglow

We arrive at the end of another Cookie Duster.  Come back next week for more important news and views about The Hair O'er the Lip.  Drop me a line with your questions, comments, or 'stache reports - XianRex@mustachesummer.com - and I'll make you a star.

I have to towel off now, and get back to Visualizing the Perfect Mustache, so until next week, Make Mine Mustache!

- Christian

Don't miss out on previous Dusters:

Preseason
June 21
June 28
July 5
July 12
July 19
July 26

Don't miss out on previous Dusters:

Preseason
June 21
June 28
July 5
July 12
July 19
July 26