Unless your name is Billy Ray Cyrus, your choice of hairstyle is a serious, sometimes nerve-wracking responsibility. And like any other modern man beholden to concerns not only of image but also abiding fears, warranted or not, of inevitable pattern baldness, I usually felt more comfortable quickly and cheaply snipping just a little off the top. Always better to have something to work with, I say, without resorting to Propecia or a Giuliani.

But the stylists -- yes, call them stylists -- at L' Atelier de Frederic, the mercifully quiet men's section of the Frederic Fekkai Salon on 5th Avenue, have found a way to alleviate this and most every other hair care concern. Reached by a dedicated, discreet elevator, the salon consists of but four sumptuously leathered barbershop-style chairs in a private nook not unlike most downtown bistros -- white tile walls, black trim, dark wood, stainless steel, and flat screen TVs (careful here; Troy was playing).

There, over the course of two and half hours last week, Dominick Sedita put together the most carefully considered snip and shave this writer has ever encountered. He prescribed a cut based on the interplay of facial features, hair texture, and a cowlick that has lasted further into adulthood than my mother ever predicted. He slavishly applied the finest cleansers, recommending the restoring qualities of the More line for any fellow paranoids. The shave -- a languid step-by-step process first with the grain then against -- was, in its old world decadence and tempo, the grooming equivalent of a chef's tasting menu.

Sedita prides himself on the mixture of the guy-friendly barber style (read: free Scotch) and the full-service nature of modern styling. "It's a symbol of [my customers], not just what they're wearing. I will get a feel for what their job is like, or their personality," he said of the process. "You're not just walking in, sitting in a chair, and saying 'Give me a number three,' before they buzz your head." No need for a buzzer when the man making all the decisions can wield a scissor like a surgeon and make any fears of sub-par hairstyling vanish like so much 5 o'clock shadow. --NICHOLAS MOSQUERA

L' Atelier de Frederic
712 5th Avenue, on the 4th floor of Henri Bendel
212-753-9500

READ MORE:
The Grooming Lounge brings spa service with a sense of humor to Atlanta
With today's razor technology, there's nothing dull about shaving

When it comes to the fragrance industry, the bottle is everything. Currently, two of fashion's biggest powerhouses, Yves Saint Laurent and Chanel, are demonstrating the importance of packaging with their drastically different approaches to limited-edition scents.

For a special series of L'Homme, a floral and spicy cologne, YSL recently commissioned world-renowned architect Jean Nouvel to design the bottle. Nouvel, the first architect to venture into the world of fragrance, says that the bottle represents "masculinity, luxury and preciousness." Its tubular design is enough to give Freud that knowing smile. Indeed, Nouvel says he wanted "a clear-cut shape, so it would easily fit a man's hand while still stimulating many different aspects of his imagination."

While YSL's bottle is eye catching, if not a tad bit impish, Chanel is taking the polar opposite approach for its Les Exclusifs de CHANEL, a small collection of rare scents. Chanel is adding Sycomore, a bold and straightforward woody fragrance, to the 10 other bottles in the collection. The plain design is said to represent the scent's purity and the brand's simple luxury. Jacques Polge, the "Master Perfumer" for the House, describes Sycomore as "something without ambiguity."

Ambiguous or not, both smell handsome to me. --CHLOE KAMARCK

READ MORE:
The darker side of teeth bleaching
Portugal's oldest soap company cleans up

Hudson Morgan's teeth whitening chronicles in the current issue have me on a smile-brightening kick. For the soap-and-water types who consider bleach in the mouth overly toxic, the Rozenberg Dental Day Spa offers an alternative: Dentabrasion. This treatment uses a milder sodium-bicarbonate pressure system to remove stains, plaque, and debris -- along the lines of a carwash for your face-grill. This is a more mellow upkeep procedure that will be no means yield blinding results. But it's fast (20 minutes) and painless too, you can have it done over a lunch break and still have time to eat white food. --TASHA GREEN

$125 at Rozenberg Dental Day Spa,
45 W. 54th St., nr. Fifth Ave., Ste. 1B; 212-265-7724

READ MORE:
Men's Vogue looks at the latest in teeth whitening products
Close shaves no longer require getting a lather