We’re animals. Seriously though, we are. Every single last one of us is a ball of various and miraculous organs all working in concert to give us advantages in the adventure of surviving, thriving, as a creature, a human on Earth.
The integumentary system is the organ system of hair, skin, nails, and exocrine glands; hair itself is a filament of protein that grows from follicles in the dermis. Hair is a uniquely mammalian characteristic of which humans generally produce two kinds, a fine type of hair and a thick terminal kind. Hair grows almost everywhere except the palms, soles of feet, lips and mucous membranes.
However, if you have allergies it might feel like your membranes are furry.
So, is it mustache, moustache or moss stash? Let’s check the etymology. (NO! Not you, bug-people.)
The word “moustache” is French but derived from Italian and ancient Greek “mustax” or “mustak” meaning upper lip or perhaps facial hair. Shaving with stone age razors would have been possible but almost no evidence exists to support their use. Admittedly, in the year 2018 most razors still feel stone age and incapable of cleaning all those nooks and crannies.
This is not an attempt to be facetious. Moustaches are about cultivating personal creativity and expression, they are functionally protective against Wyoming’s weather, moustaches are a product of time management and an empty supply of razors. Moustaches disguise, define, disgust and distinguish. We all either end up with one on our face or very near. It doesn’t matter whether you’re male, female or whatever, you’ll eventually get one, even my family’s matriarchs can attest.
Moustaches are like high-performance vehicles in that they require some specific knowledge and care to maintain and tame. Lubrication in the form of oils, waxes and pomades maximize the performance and the aesthetic beauty while adding to the overall biological health and maintenance of ones mandibular blast shield. Different stylistic considerations such as the handlebar (waxed or un-waxed), the marauder (Avast-ye, matey!), trimmed or caveman-style are all available to the mustachioed and their significant other’s need for oral access. Gross but true, the one you snuggle up to might not like fighting a ticklish mouth covered in organic monofilament.
Have the conversation.
Your upper lip’s not at fault the next time your face-fur crawls in with a spoonful of cereal or hitches a ride on that submarine for a mustache sandwich. You chose this hotrod. In the words of Hunter S. Thompson, “you bought the ticket, take the ride.”
Soap and water or shampoo and conditioner, each body has its own equilibrium as do mustaches so listen to your wooly bugger. Always wash and rinse after eating nuclear spicy anything and eating hot wings in public is personal prerogative. When it feels dry and fried out, juice it with some oil and maybe some wax where directional accents or extra aerodynamics are required in the Wyoming wind.
Twirled, trimmed, wild, pencil-thin, there are as many ways to wear your moustache as there are days in a week or in a year. Who knows?
Earp, Pistol Pete, Roosevelt, Salvador Dali, John Waters, and Einstein bring to mind some of the most memorable furry upper lips associated with our culture. Chaplin used his mustache to attack Hitler and Nazis personally. Who knew a lip warmer could be as effective as the entire U.S. and Allied Forces propaganda machine? This is stiff upper lip resistance. Rebellion.
Heroes, villains, silky smooth and wiry course, men, women, everyone old and young have encountered the collection of whiskers that live upon the upper lip. You find them at the frozen poles and in the equatorial deserts and jungles. They embody function, fashion, celebrate masculinity and femininity, the absurd, stoicism, warmth, wisdom, patience and impulse.
There are as many reasons for a mustache, moustache, moss-stash as there are hairs in one.
We at the UW Branding Iron believe wholeheartedly in the powers of the lip-sash adding to the collective that many of us have been cultivating ours as evidence of their enhancing charm.
Mine goes from function to dysfunction and directly into Sasquatch mode but the grey is starting to show as possible wisdom (or exhaustion) so for now I’ll keep it until the mosquitoes have come and gone. Maybe next Fall I’ll shave the ‘stache again to look young and fit in with an optimistic youthful rebirth, for a week. Then it’s back, the warm anchor under my nose, for another Wyoming winter.
