March 28, 2024
BANGOR DAILY NEWS (BANGOR, MAINE

Eighteen-year-old Sean Foye of South Berwick, a freshman at Husson College, has been sporting the clean, sheen look for as long as he can remember. Hot New Mexico weather led to his mother suggesting that he have his head shaved when he was about 8.

“I’ve been shaving my head every since,” he says.

His mother tended to the stubble during his early clean shaven years, but now Foye either enlists his friends to help in the once-a-week ritual or he shaves it himself.

When Foye moved to Maine several years ago, he tried to let his hair grow out, but fussing with the fast-growing folicular fuzz didn’t fit into Foye’s lifestyle and he says he decided to go back to the razor.

“It’s real easy. I just get up in the morning, take a shower and I’m ready.”

While members of many national sports teams have almost full rosters of bald athletes, only Foye and a fellow teammate on the Husson basketball team have chosen the shaved look. In a recent polling of some Maine schools and hair salons, few purposely bald men or youth could be found. Many blamed Maine’s cold weather for limiting the number of people who would follow this new-found trend, which one barber said probably originated in someplace hot like Southern California.

But Foye says he likes the look and so do his friends. A hat in the winter and sunscreen in the summer gets him through any social occasion, but perhaps, more important that the ease, is the way members of the opposite sex view his bare scalp.

“Girls love it because it is so soft,” he said.

Another student at Husson College, 23-year-old Tiffin Ballou of Passaic, N.J., also has high praises for the un-coiffed look.

In addition to the low-maintenance, the look also cuts down on demand for brush, comb and, yes, shampoo, Ballou says.

Ballou maintains his look by using electric clippers on his scalp every three or four days. He says he began to consider switching to the get-up-and-go-do when he started losing his hair about three years ago.

Although personally pleased with the look, Ballou would not recommend it to everyone, especially those whose craniums might resemble a topography map done in relief.

“I wouldn’t recommend it if you’ve got some weird bumps,” he said.


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