MONTREAL - For most guys, shaving is a tedious but unavoidable morning chore, a quick up-and-down with a disposable razor or an electric shaver.

At Emporium Barbershop on an out-of-the-way corner of Mile Ex, it’s something else altogether. Alex Sirois, the shop’s owner, is one of a new school of barbers reviving one of the oldest of men’s grooming rituals: the single-razor shave.

In less than a year in business, he has already built a loyal following of customers who have given up shaving at home in favour of the close, smooth shave from Sirois’s straight razor.

For men who came of age in an era of disposable cartridge razors, a single razor shave is both epiphany and history lesson.

“It’s the closest shave you can ever get,” Sirois says as he waits for a midday customer to turn up at Emporium, a plywood-panelled shop decorated in a style he calls “grandfather’s living room.” Scissors and razors are set out on a vintage Arborite cart. There’s a bottle of Jameson whiskey and a stack of lowball glasses by the sink.

“Guys need to take care of their skin, just like women do. Many of them think they have sensitive skin, but really it’s because nobody ever taught them how to shave. Or they are using a multiple-blade cartridge that’s dull or clogged with dirt.”

Straight-razor shaving had become something of a lost art after Frenchman Marcel Bich’s completely disposable razor, the Bic shaver, hit the market in the 1970s and became an instant worldwide hit.

The art of shaving, which dates back to the ancient Egyptians who used essential oils, creams and pumice stones to shave their faces and heads, had fallen out of favour. An open blade to the neck was the stuff of gangster movies. As an older generation of Montreal barbers retired or went out of business, there were fewer veterans to pass on the old techniques. Sharpening strops and honing stones used to sharpen blades were relegated to antique shop displays. Nobody remembered what a hot lather machine was. There was not even a barbering school left in Montreal.

But just as the last of the candy-stripe signs disappear, a new generation is poised to take over. In cities across North America and Europe, the barbershop is making a comeback. Around Montreal, more than a dozen new men-only shops have opened in the last year or two, some swanky, some spa-like, some retro.

“Guys want a place of their own. They don’t want to wait anymore in a salon filled with women getting their highlights done,” Sirois said. “They want a barber who knows how to trim a moustache and line up a beard. Somebody who knows what he’s doing with a straight razor.”

Some say the comeback of the straight razor can be traced straight to the scene in the latest James Bond movie, Skyfall, in which Daniel Craig stands at a mirror, his face slathered in foam, shaving with a straight razor. Within weeks, demand for the old-school shaving tool also known as a “cutthroat blade” was going through the roof on online shaving sites and in specialty shops.

Zayid Al-Baghdadi just wanted to write about his hobby when he launched his website esqboutique.com a few years ago. Tired of irritating his face while shaving, he had begun looking on online shaving forums for alternatives to his disposable razor.