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To beard or not to beard

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Goodness Gracious Meme

17:25 / 21.04.04

what is wrong with you people?

BEARDS=WRONG.

Never seen a man with a beard who didn't look 20x better with the scrofulous growth removed. Yuckyuckyuck

A straw poll of my male-attracted female friends reveals an overwhelming 'urghghghg no'.

two words for the misguided ladies on this thread:

BEARD RASH.

not big, not clever.

Goodness Gracious Meme

17:27 / 21.04.04

on the connotations tip:

trolls, dwarves, hobbitsses.

21:52 / 21.04.04

The connotations are all bad.

Beatniks,

???

Fuck you, daddio!

(kept neatly trimmed - a bit like Riker from ST:TNG),

Oh man, those are just the worse kind of beards..

Beards should be WILD and FRIGHTENING!

Look at this man, beard-growers, he is your idol;

Come to think of it you never see anyone with shoulder length eyebrows either. Anyone know why that is?

Evolution: all the prmitive men with shoulder-length eyebrows couldn't see anything, so they'd run around crashing into stuff and never get to mate with anybody and die of hunger.

22:33 / 21.04.04

None of the men in my family can grow a proper full beard. Which is sometimes a shame, because I’d rather like the option of occasionally taking a stroll down Abbey Road; but mostly it’s okay because it means I only need to shave once a week for neatness and once a month to avoid terminally scruffy unpleasantness. I’m about due a good shave any day now, in fact.

But. I knew a girl once with glorious, thick dark hair, who scorned all useless modern rubbish like waxing strips and suchlike. Kissing her, and feeling the slight prickle of her girl-mustache was almost the most exciting thing possible. I love a girl with a mustache.

22:34 / 21.04.04

I've had a beard for more than ten years now. I think that after the first five or six, I started getting used to people casually telling me how disgusting facial hair is. Its a good and easy way to become part of a persecuted minority, if you are into that kind of thing. Personally, I just like hair and loathe shaving.

22:54 / 21.04.04

Kissing her, and feeling the slight prickle of her girl-mustache was almost the most exciting thing possible. I love a girl with a mustache.

if that was almost the most... then would kissing a big hairy man be the most?

23:09 / 21.04.04

Oh yeah, drag me back on-topic, why don’t you? I’m not too keen on a hairy fella, to be honest. My skin’s too sensitive to deal with a man-beard. Maybe if I scraped my face with a razor every day it’d soon toughen up, but I don’t want a leathery, beard-proof face. No, I say almost the most exciting because there was some even more exciting stuff after that. Obviously.

23:27 / 21.04.04

Keep it secret. Keep it safe.

11:40 / 22.04.04

Stoatie, it seems I misremembered the detail about Demosthenes. He shaved half of his head rather than his beard. I would also advise anyone I may have told that Cicero's preparation for big speeches involved a full back, sack and crack wax to check their texts themselves. Plutarch doesn't seem to mention it.

Matthew Fluxington

11:42 / 22.04.04

I LIKE YOUR LITTLE BEARD

12:30 / 22.04.04

Well, as we all know, whatever the gayers are wearing now will filter through to the hetero 'mainstream' over the next few years - and it's all about hairy, beary goodness.

I tell you, Bengali, this time next year, you'll be sporting a full scarlet-streaked 'Blessed'...

12:39 / 22.04.04

I really should grow a beard, I've tried a few times and it just gets to a point where I think this looks terrible and have to get rid of it, I thought stubble looked good on me until I saw a photo of me all stubbled up...

I did see a great beard on a woman on the train the other month, wispy white number it was - looked really cool...

12:46 / 22.04.04

I am not too fond of real beards, probably due to these reasons:

1. Having to kiss my father on the cheek (or actually, beard, not cheek) as a young child.
2. Inability to grow one myself.
3. Beard hairs that somehow fall out during intimate acts, and then you're suddenly covered in someone else's beard hair.
4. The Twits. So much bad stuff might get caught up in those beards.
5. "Beard" meaning "untrue" in certain dialects.
6. It being more difficult to tell people apart with beards. On that Beard Championship website, I swear that half of them are actually the same person, disguised by beards.

Fake beards, now they're cool. I seem to remember there was a thread about fake moustaches, but there's so much more you can do with a fake beard. Shave off your beards and wear fake ones!

23:36 / 22.04.04

3. Beard hairs that somehow fall out during intimate acts, and then you're suddenly covered in someone else's beard hair.

Which is nowhere near as bad as picking pubic hair out of your mouth after going down.

Unwanted pubic floss.

10:43 / 23.04.04

Most men I know only grow beards because they're lazy bastards.

Most (hetero) girls I know don't like snogging beard, and the ensuing rash.

Only Benjamin Sisko wanabees, and curazy middle-managers think goatees are acceptable.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

12:00 / 23.04.04

Squirmelia 2. Inability to grow one myself.

Get thee some male hormones young woman! Also increased your chances of male pattern baldness and some forms of stomach cancer IIRC.

Regrettable Juvenilia

12:18 / 23.04.04

I generally agree with the 'laces and the bengali about beards: I have come to the conclusion that it takes a special kind of man to be able to wear the beard without looking like a muppet. Maybe one in fifty can carry it off (I'm certainly not one of them). Nevertheless the virus is spreading: beards have been the province of a certain kind of Warren Ellis loving, trenchcoat-wearing tosspot - usually a nasty little goatee which goes well with the Hellblazer t-shirt - but now they have also been adopted by foolish would-be hipster boys (blame Will Oldham and/or James Murphy). The madness needs to stop.

13:35 / 23.04.04

> 2. Inability to grow one myself.

I would very much doubt that male hormones would let me grow a beard as spectacular as those beards in the world championships. I'm going to stick to fake ones, possibly made out of ringpulls from empty Diet Coke cans.

beelzebub jones

14:48 / 23.04.04

there's always the soul patch, that little triangle piece just under the the bottom lip. i think the french call it a mouche, you know fly, cuz it kind of looks like that. i like to call it "what barbie's missing"

i think that people under thirty look great with a beard and no stache, after thirty, that look just draws attention to your smile lines and really really makes you look like a freelance pharmacist.

if you cut your own hair (which is a bad idea, people usually ask people that cut their own hair, "do you cut your own hair?") then trim your own beard, that being said, your barber would be best suited for shaping your beard once it's grown in and having someone at your throat with a six inch straight razor can spice up an otherwise dull day.

one important thing, and this you can do yourself is to not let your mustache grow down on your lip. it looks bad and remnants of your meals tend to accumulate there. then you will probably develope the bad habit of running your tongue under the overgrowth, because it feels cool and your last meal may have been delicious, but doing that can take away any bit of attractiveness the beard might give you. the bottom line is if you can grow a beard you should. it's much more do-able than deciding you want to grow a unibrow, third eye or a dimple in your chin.

14:58 / 23.04.04

goaty beards are for cunts and cunts only, there's really no two ways about it.

other beards, weeell, if you must, but generally just make you look scruffy innit? fraely, to take an example you all love, is a kind of demi-beard gentleman, but does much better with the ladies when he's looking a bit smooth.

does a good beard keep you warm in winter? i used to know a man who was smooth in summer and shaggy in winter. now he's serving life for a double murder. 'stroo. draw yr own conclusions.

18:45 / 23.04.04

Yeah, a beard in the winter is a bit warmer. I start growing a beard the day after Halloween, and typically shave it off around my birthday at the end of March, or a little earlier if the winter really sucked and I want to pretend it's spring NOW goddammit.

21:21 / 23.04.04

I beard and I beard well. But then I pay attention to tonsure. It is an undeniable joy to be able to rise, bleary and weary, on a Winter's morning and not to have to shave before catching the bus. Mephistophelean, with minimal effort. You get shagged more if you're bearded.

23:32 / 22.12.04

Reviving this thread, because I have (over the course of the last two weeks) allowed my well-trimmed goatee to flower into full beardy goodness. This is partly the influence of the delectable Babydaddy (seeing Scissor Sisters in Edinburgh at Hogmanay, and contemplating beard/hat combo for the event) and partly a cyclical once-per-decade thing (the last time being 1992/3 - in my graduation photo, I look like a garden gnome).

It took careful planning and preparation to get goatee and rest-of-face beard to the same length. I went through the usual phase of looking like a scruffy bastard, but this was minimised by my cropping my goatee, daily, to no.2 until everywhere else caught up - then allowing it all to grow at the same rate. It's now a luxuriant no.3 - fluffy enough to stroke (meaningfully in patient consultations; soothingly in after-work scenarios) but short enough not to curl (beyond a certain length, I go all Mr Tumnus). Trimming the underside to a straight jawline prompts even Xoc to admit a grudging liking: he reckons it looks "Trojan".

I think I'll keep it, for a little while anyway. It makes me look older, sure, but part of the beauty of beards is that they can eventually be shaved off, making one look surprisingly young, Dr Who style. And it saves a good five minutes in the morning.

I've been told I look "extra-Scottish", possibly because my beard shines teasingly ginger in full sunlight. I quite like that.

02:13 / 23.12.04

no. no beards. unless you have a moustache, in which case you must either 1) grow a beard to contain the aesthetic damage or 2) shave.

the order of preference goes:

1) clean-shaven
2) bearded
3) no face, just a big gaping hole
4) face w/moustache

02:17 / 23.12.04

I'm cool with the short-trimmed mustache-goatee combo (connected at the sides of course). Full-bearded is fine as a look, and I'm happy to have a conversation with a bearded man, but full-bearded is not okay on anyone I'm dating and spending a lot of close face time with/kissing.

We are talking about facial hair, right?

02:21 / 23.12.04

... I'm happy to have a conversation with a bearded man

That's big of you, Baldie-Coupon.

03:15 / 23.12.04

Beards are the way of the future, and are extra nice in the winter.

08:16 / 23.12.04

In September my cousin tried a goatee for the very first time,
Now he's got a beard, it's June,
Ti-imes ...

(With apologies to Xoc for stealing this line off him from another thread, but changing the relevant bits.)

08:24 / 23.12.04

G-Ganesh... are... are you... Father Christmas?

*sobs*

Brigade du jour

08:29 / 23.12.04

Aww dizfactor, I don't think you're quite being fair here. Some men have very thin lips and need to grow a moustache because, frankly, they look better with it. All of a miraculous sudden, they look like they have a mouth! I'm thinking of, for example, Tom Selleck, Kevin Kline and John Cleese.

I shave about once a week at most because my beard grows very slowly. I did have a Brent around the cakehole, but with shoulder length hair, which of course makes it perfectly acceptable. If you're a scruffy bastard like me.

Facial hair is, IMHO, a signifier of scruffiness generally. To grow it in small manageable parts, I think, defeats the object. A tidy beard is an evil beard.

Of course, I always shave if I think I might be kissing someone in the near future, because most people of a female persuasion seem averse to scraping their chins til they bleed. I suppose I can understand that!

08:31 / 23.12.04

G-Ganesh... are... are you... Father Christmas?

No, but I am David Blunkett. Are you my little lad?

09:06 / 23.12.04

eeuuurgghhhh. Ganesh, that is so creepy.

09:17 / 23.12.04

A li-i-ittle bit of your blood, lad, that's all I need...

10:43 / 23.12.04

Father Christmas, I knew you were really my daddy all along.

10:58 / 23.12.04

But what a laugh it would've been if Daddy had only seen...

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