The moustache cup (or mustache cup) is a drinking cup with a semicircular ledge inside. The ledge, called a moustache guard, has a half moon-shaped opening to allow the passage of liquids and serves as a guard to keep moustaches dry. It is generally acknowledged to have been invented in the 1870s by British potter Harvey Adams (1835–?). [1] [2]
Moustaches flourished throughout the Victorian era, and by the early twentieth century, the British Army required soldiers to grow a moustache. [3] [4] [5] [ better source needed ] Often, moustache wax was applied to the moustache to keep it stiff, with every hair in place. When drinking hot liquids, steam from the drink would melt the wax, which would drip into the cup. Sipping hot tea or coffee would also often stain moustaches. [6] [7]
The new invention spread all over the European continent and soon, every famous potter was making the new cups. A multiplicity of moustache cups were made by famous manufactories such as Meissen, Royal Crown Derby, Imari, Royal Bayreuth, Limoges and others. [8] Each potter created his own version of this masculine tableware and the news of that invention soon spread to America. [9] [7]
Although many moustache cups were made in America, the earliest were marked with names which led buyers to believe they were actually manufactured in England. This was due to the popularity of English-made ceramics. Therefore, with the exception of the quadruple silverplate moustache cups made in the U.S., it is nowadays extremely difficult to find an authentic Victorian moustache cup bearing an American pottery mark.
Between 1920 and 1930, moustaches progressively began to go out of fashion; hence, moustache cup production fell. Today, though, these examples of Victorian male elegance are coveted and collected by a growing number of enthusiasts. [1]
Moustache cups are becoming highly collectible as their popularity has increased in recent years due to a resurgence of men's facial hair styles, particularly ones calling for moustache wax. [10] [11]
In James Joyce's novel Ulysses , Leopold Bloom drinks his tea from a moustache cup he received from his daughter Milly for his twenty-seventh birthday. [12]
In the opening scene of the 1931 short comedy film Be Big! , Oliver Hardy, while packing for a trip to Atlantic City, coyly asks his wife if she packed his moustache cup.
In Episode 15 of Season 4 of the television series The Andy Griffith Show , Aunt Bee receives one as a gift from a local farmer, Mr. Frisby.
In Margaret Mitchell’s novel Gone With the Wind , Scarlett O'Hara thinks of the painted China moustache cups she made for the bazaar.
In Thomas Pynchon's 2009 novel Inherent Vice , protagonist Doc Sportello buys Wyatt Earp's personal mustache cup, which he suspects is a fake but later proves to be authentic.
In the Martin Beck novel, The Man Who Went Up in Smoke, by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö, a minor character sporting a full beard and moustasche ruefully comments, "They ought to serve beer in mustache cups."
In the Japanese manga "Cat and Gentleman's Tearoom," the mustachioed protagonist, Sizuka Taki, favors a Moustache cup.
A beard is the hair that grows on the jaw, chin, upper lip, lower lip, cheeks, and neck of humans and some non-human animals. In humans, usually pubescent or adult males are able to start growing beards, on average at the age of 18.
Sideburns, sideboards, or side whiskers are facial hair grown on the sides of the face, extending from the hairline to run parallel to or beyond the ears. The term sideburns is a 19th-century corruption of the original burnsides, named after American Civil War general Ambrose Burnside, a man known for his unusual facial hairstyle that connected thick sideburns by way of a moustache, but left the chin clean-shaven.
A moustache is a growth of facial hair grown above the upper lip and under the nose. Moustaches have been worn in various styles throughout history.
A handlebar moustache is a moustache with particularly lengthy and upwardly curved extremities. These moustache styles are named for their resemblance to the handlebars of a bicycle. It is also known as a spaghetti moustache, because of its stereotypical association with Italian men. The Handlebar Club humorously describes the style as "a hirsute appendage of the upper lip and with graspable extremities".
A mug is a type of cup, a drinking vessel usually intended for hot drinks such as: coffee, hot chocolate, or tea. Mugs usually have handles and hold a larger amount of fluid than other types of cups such as teacups or coffee cups. Typically, a mug holds approximately 240–350 ml of liquid.
A teacup is a cup for drinking tea. It generally has a small handle that may be grasped with the thumb and one or two fingers. It is typically made of a ceramic material and is often part of a set which is composed of a cup and a matching saucer or a trio that includes a small cake or sandwich plate. These may be part of a tea set combined with a teapot, cream jug, covered sugar bowl, and slop bowl. Teacups are often wider and shorter than coffee cups. Cups for morning tea are conventionally larger than cups for afternoon tea.
The walrus moustache is characterized by whiskers that are thick, bushy, and drop over the mouth. The style resembles the whiskers of a walrus, hence the name.
ISO 3103 is a standard published by the International Organization for Standardization, specifying a standardized method for brewing tea, possibly sampled by the standardized methods described in ISO 1839. It was originally laid down in 1980 as BS 6008:1980 by the British Standards Institution, and a revision was published in December, 2019 as ISO/NP 3103. It was produced by ISO Technical Committee 34, Sub-Committee 8 (Tea).
A coffee cup is a cup for serving coffee and coffee-based drinks. There are three major types: conventional cups used with saucers, mugs used without saucers, and disposable cups. Cups and mugs generally have a handle. Disposable paper cups used for take-out sometimes have fold-out handles, but are more often used with an insulating coffee cup sleeve.
The toothbrush moustache is a style of moustache in which the sides are vertical, often approximating the width of the nose and visually resembling the bristles on a toothbrush. First becoming popular in the United States in the late 19th century, it later spread to Germany and elsewhere. Comedians such as Charlie Chaplin and Oliver Hardy popularized it, reaching its heyday during the interwar years. By the end of World War II, the association with Nazi leader Adolf Hitler made it unfashionable, leading to it being colloquially termed the "Hitler moustache".
A fake moustache or false moustache is an item of prosthetic make-up. Fake moustaches are made in a variety of ways, but usually require a form of adhesive to affix the moustache to the wearer's face.
Mustache March is an annual event occurring in the month of March, where members in the United States Air Force grow mustaches to honor Air Force legend Robin Olds. As the name implies, it starts on 1 March and any participant who starts in the month of February is disqualified.
A kulhar or kulhad, matir bhar or simply bhar (ভাঁড়), sometimes called a shikora, is a traditional handleless pottery cup from South Asia that is typically undecorated and unglazed, and is meant to be disposable. Kulhars are almost never reused.
Facial hair in the military has been at various times common, prohibited, or an integral part of the uniform.
A cup is an open-top vessel (container) used to hold liquids for drinking, typically with a flattened hemispherical shape, and often with a capacity of about 100–250 millilitres (3–8 US fl oz). Cups may be made of pottery, glass, metal, wood, stone, polystyrene, plastic, lacquerware, or other materials. Normally, a cup is brought in contact with the mouth for drinking, distinguishing it from other tableware and drinkware forms such as jugs. They also most typically have handles, though a beaker has no handle or stem, and small bowl shapes are very common in Asia.
Robert Høneren Johansson is a Norwegian ski jumper. He is a former ski flying world record holder, having landed a jump of 252 m (827 ft) in Vikersund on 18 March 2017. Johansson has often been nicknamed the "Wing Commander" for his distinctive handlebar moustache.
"Sliding Bobs" is the first episode and season premiere of the sixth season of the animated comedy series Bob's Burgers and the overall 89th episode; it is written by Greg Thompson and directed by Don MacKinnon. It aired on Fox in the United States on September 27, 2015. In the episode, Bob begins to notice that he is losing hair from his moustache, and Linda tells how important his moustache was in their meeting. The kids then tell their own versions of how Bob and Linda would have met, if Bob didn't have a moustache at that time.
Dali's Mustache is an absurdist humorous book by the surrealist artist Salvador Dalí (1904–1989) and his friend, the photographer Philippe Halsman (1906–1979). The first edition was published in October 1954 in New York; slightly modified French editions followed in the 1980s and 1990s.
Since 1976, the New York Yankees of Major League Baseball (MLB) have maintained a strict appearance policy, specifying that players' hair must not touch their collars and that they may have mustaches but no other facial hair. The policy came from then-franchise owner George Steinbrenner, who believed that regulating his players' appearance would instill a sense of discipline. Steinbrenner began noting which players he believed needed haircuts when he took over the Yankees in 1973, but the policy was not codified until three years later. Steinbrenner's policy remains in place after his death, and has led to a number of dramatic appearance changes for players who come to the Yankees from other teams, such as Oscar Gamble, as well as pushback from players who prefer long hair and beards. In 1991, Don Mattingly was taken out of the Yankees' lineup for a day when he refused to cut his hair.