I have never had such an informative, enjoyable and dare I say smart conversation about facial hair. My usual conversations goes something like this, ” Uhh, you got something in your beard.”… ” Thanks!” Nick Burns co-author of The Bearded Gentlemen: The Style Guide to Shaving is loaded with helpful information to care for and tame that overgrown bush on your face or perhaps just your upper lip. His extensive back round as a journalist, has covered skin care, fashion, and health for leading magazines and newspapers including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, GQ, Details, Elle Accessories, Out, and Zink, and he pens the popular men’s style blog, HommeGrooming.com., makes him over qualified for me to ask him about how to best trim my unruly nose hairs (But I ask anyhow). Nick’s writing is witty and sharp as well as his answers to my questions I brainstormed for him.
Q & A:
Interview by Mike Enders
Accidental Bear: How is it that you and Allan Peterkin came together to produce this much needed book together?
Nick Burns: Allan wrote a book called 1000 Beards: A Cultural History of Facial Hair and I interviewed him for a piece I wrote for the New York Times about the return of the mustache–a bunch of hipsters in Williamsburg started sprouting whiskers above their lips in 2008. We worked together on a few other articles after that and when his publisher asked him to write the follow up to 1000 Beards, he asked me to help out.
A B: I would love to call you King of whiskers. What has been the fire under you that make you want to write about the topic?
Nick: I think “King of Whiskers” is too lofty of a title for little old me. Maybe Prince of Whiskers? Well, when your name contains “Nick” and “Burns”, writing about shaving is kind of like your birthright… sort of like being born into the royal family.
Accidental Bear 