On a man’s face, it’s called “five o’clock shadow”.
It’s that rough dark stubble of facial hair that may appear on his face in late afternoon, signaling the need for another shave.
On some sports flooring, it’s an ongoing problem that even a razor can’t fix!In the sports flooring industry, we adopted the “five o’clock shadow” expression to describe the ugly unsanitary consequence of flooring that has a surface that contains textured grooves, more commonly referring to this texture as linear embossing.
Although attractive at first, as time goes on your efforts to keep the flooring clean will be challenged by dirt being trapped in the grooves.
The result, even for diligent cleaning crews, is that the resemblance to a “five o’clock shadow” will eventually appear.
As bad as its dingy unkempt appearance is to the eye, what is even worse is the buildup of unhealthy germs.