Learning how to shave your face is a bit of a rite of passage for men. I get that. I guess, like women and their legs, it's evidence that some hormonal growing up is being done - which is always reassuring, when in the throws of teen-angst. My brother spent most of his teens looking like a bedraggled sheep lately escaped from the Scottish borders, whose beard had caught on barbed wire leaving a patchy disarray of fur in its wake.

Fair enough. But why is such bum-fluffery still going on well into post-teenhood, young-manhood, and established-adulthood? Hmm?

Kissing you bearded chaps, my face is more often than not left looking like the illegitimate love child of an amorous rose bush and runaway cheese grater. And with mistletoe season nigh, I'm really not in the mood to join Rudolph and his famed shiner at the head of Santa's sleigh.

So what will it take, boys? How's about a man-den of polished barber-shop charm at Hugo Boss' Smirnoff Black Boutique Barbers? Yes, that's right: barbery + martinis. So much more civilized. Shaven, not stirred, naturally.