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To beard or not to beard

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Regrettable Juvenilia

11:54 / 23.12.04

Ah, that little lad. The little one. He did it all for that little lad.

Beards are still mostly wrong.

11:59 / 23.12.04

My beard is 98% correct.

12:02 / 23.12.04

Expand your word power: pogonotrophy, the act of growing your beard. Lit. beard-feeding.

12:25 / 23.12.04

It would be so nice not to have to worry about shaving, but, as I've said elsewhere, my rather youthful face doesn't look too good smothered by a layer of bristly man-stubble.

I suppose I'm fairly anti beards. Most blokes I've ever met only grow their facial hair out of laziness and most of them don't look any better for it.
Granted, cultivated and nutured beards (not necessarily the same thing as neat and tidy, you understand) can look good on the right person.
However, it should be noted that I harbour a powerful hatred for goatees and moustaches. It is a rare, rare breed that can wear either safely.

Ganesh, I ask you, why, man, why?

(As an aside, apparently Pappuce is deep into beard territory. If it suits him, perhaps I'll give it a try.)

20:34 / 23.12.04

My girlfriend gives me the kicked-puppy look every time I threaten to shave the goatee, so it persists for the time being. Besides, my jawline has largely disappeared into my neck due to a (hopefully) temporary increase in weight, and the goatee helps emphasize the difference between face and neck.

21:00 / 23.12.04

Ganesh, I ask you, why, man, why?

Bobossboy, I ask you, why not, man, why not?

But hey ho. My reasons for growing a beard:

- I find hairy, beardy men attractive

- I think I look better with a beard

- I enjoy the sensuality of having my beard stroked

- my face (particularly my upper lip) feels naked without it

- I hate the scrapy pointlessness of shaving

- it saves time in the morning

That's why.

03:06 / 24.12.04

I have used beard for almost 15 years... I'va had to shave it several times, but I prefer to have it on.
No mustache.
The itch goes away after a week or two
Since I am a teacher, it is useful to make me look older and wiser... (intelectual image...) Without beard I look younger than what I am...
My wife doesn't like the beard... and hates the mustache
Beard does protect in winter, but when I have long hair and beard, little kids confuse me with Santa (really)
Beard has changed with age... do not think it'll stay as it is now.

03:36 / 24.12.04

How 'bout a picture? How can we know whether a facial hair is right for you unless you post a pic of your mug? Or at least your face.
I wear a goatee because without it I look like such a 'nice guy,' like a wimpy, wishy washy, mambsy-pambsy, never gets mad or has a strong opinion codependent. With a goatee I get more respect. Fortunately though, most men aren't afflicted with such an innocent and meek-looking face, so the respect issue may not factor in, or may even work the opposite way for you, depending on your countenance.

09:11 / 24.12.04

I enjoy the sensuality of having my beard stroked

This is an upside of beardedness I had not expected. For me, the sensual stroking is mostly onanistic, but (and this is perhaps something for Sav's high resolution sensitivity thread) a beard offers a hugely enhanced appreciation of the tactile geography of the face. Certain areas appreciate stroking along the nap of the beard - from sideburn down along the line of the jaw in particular. The neckline of the beard enjoys a caress from edges to centre - the hand sock-puppet style. But most of all, the hairs just under the corners of the mouth - the first hairs to qualify as beard rather than moustache - reward a gentle tug with a flood of warm and soothing sensation.

Beards: cheaper and acupuncture, more amusing than xanax.

09:48 / 24.12.04

I've said it before in this thread but no matter, it's still worth saying again. Beards are wonderful. Beardy men are so much nicer to kiss.

*Sighs.*

This thread is veritable pornography for beard lovers.

10:33 / 24.12.04

I grew a beard recently for a lady-friend, who likes them. It took me a month. I'm not crazy about it, especially just after bathing when there's like, fucking water dibbling out of it, which is, of course, the most dangerous time to not like a beard. I keep telling myself, "Give it another week, give it another week." I do like that it has four colors: brown, red, blond and silver.

I think you have to be really careful about beard-trimming. You can end up with one of those horrible sharp-edged, 1981-looking things things, you know what I mean? Like someone who ought to be wearing a baggy linen shirt with gigantic button-flaps over the breast pockets. Good beards are wonders of gradualism.

13:21 / 24.12.04

And on a purely asthetic level; a beard's success will really always depend on your facial hair line. For example my upper lip hair when grown adds to a kind of morose shaping/elongation of an already hang dog expression that I wear permanently apart from when smiling. They can on many people add something positive for example hide that non existant chin/ sculpt a satisfactory one.
I also have curiously long staying negative connotations about beards resulting from my childhood reading of the Twits.

Regrettable Juvenilia

13:46 / 24.12.04

Thinking about it, perhaps my feeling about beards is that there are many good beards, but the bad beards are so bad that they make it hard to forget that it's just a case of a few bad apples spoiling for everybody. For example, men who have gone bald on top and are trying to utilise a beard to look like Toby Ziegler: STOP THAT.

Cheap. Easy. Cruel.

13:47 / 24.12.04

I have had a beard or some sort of facial hair since I was 14 years old. It all started with the long sideburns. I did the 1 inch wide jawline thing for several years very successfully. The trick is to keep it trimmed neatly. It was uncommon for me to go a week without someone new complementing me on my beard and how well kept it was and how it complemented my face.

Back when I cut off my (shoulder length) topknot and opted for something a bit more professional, I shaved the beard and opted instead for muttonchops. Mine aren't the big bushy variety, instead they are trimmed once a week with a No. 2 guard. They are very crisply defined and come to a sharp point that is aimed at the corners of my mouth.

I also sport a goatee/mustache combo to keep the 'chops from overpowering the rest of my face. I have rather full lips, so I find that trimming my mustache back about an eighth of an inch from my upper lip helps to emphasize my mouth. I am currently in the process of growing my goatee out long so I can braid it into two viking-like protuberances.

I condition my beard daily in the shower to keep it soft and strokable. I have had no complaints about beard-rash unless I haven't conditioned. One unexpected pleasure has been the ability to tug on my goatee when deep in thought. It is just the most wonderful feeling.

So, yes, by all means, beard.

14:11 / 24.12.04

Flyboy I think you are right: a good beard is a thing of joy, but a bad beard is truly awful and can put you off all beards.
The main thing that prevents me from growing a beard is that half beard, half stubble netherworld. The growth is not luxurious enough to be a beard proper, yet the long stubble looks really bad and is itchy. Everytime I start to grow a beard I hit this point and get irritated and shave it off.
I have always fancied disappearing into the wilds for a week or two and coming back bearded.

Cheap. Easy. Cruel.

14:16 / 24.12.04

Where does the itching happen Phyrephox? I find that my neck is the bit I really cannot handle when growing out. My face doesn't usually itch. I have never allowed anything below the edge of my jawline to grow out because of that.

14:23 / 24.12.04

It's the neck line really, I've been told to condition and so on, but it never seems to work. I have asked for beard trimmers for christmas (for my sideburns) so I might try keeping it beard-free while cultivating the upper beard.

Cheap. Easy. Cruel.

14:26 / 24.12.04

Conditioning my neck has never worked for me either. I have found that there are a precious few people who find a red, scratched-up neck attractive, so I just shave it.

16:30 / 24.12.04

Mmmm, Toby Ziegler...

Flyboy, you would look crap with a beard so it's just as well you are pogonophobic. You are a little shaggamuffin just the way you are, clean shaven and clean living.

I have had beards off and on throughout my long and variably hirsute life. They can look scruffy and the Leo Tolstoy look does nothing for me. But a beard that looks cared for is a definite turn on. And, my head hair being 95% grey now, I quite like the 50% greyness of the beard and the moustaches.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

20:19 / 24.12.04

I recently tried beardiness. It was good: it saved time and effort, it kept my chin warm, it detracted attention from the rest of my face...

Then I woke up really early one morning (about four-thirty), and with nothing else to do for recreation shaved the fucker off. I felt much better. I looked in the mirror. I was still the same ugly fuck as before, except I looked much younger, and, and this is the important bit, no longer had a beard.

That was wicked.

22:30 / 24.12.04

Oh, pish-posh, Stoatie, you're a very handsome man.

10:15 / 25.12.04

Stoaty has hit upon of the primal joys of growing a beard- shaving the damned thing off. You like stroking the beard while engrossed in thought? The sudden change in sensation of your freshly-shorn chin will overwhelm. Feeling a little down? Shave it off and look years younger. Rake in the compliments! Looking to make a change in your appearance but your boss'll fire you if you come to work with purple hair? Blow their minds buy showing up Monday morning clean-shaven! Chances are they've forgotten you even have a chin!

Then grow it back.

Or not.

Brigade du jour

14:56 / 25.12.04

Amen to that.

And Stoatie? You're not ugly. I keep telling you - you look like that Brad Pitt fella.

15:49 / 25.12.04

I've two words to sum this up, probably because I've been drinking :

Beardy. Wierdy.

18:33 / 25.12.04

Helpful and original.

Less of your bare-faced cheek, young man. Go drink some water, and tell your parents you love them. Or something.

Regrettable Juvenilia

18:54 / 25.12.04

But the Finnchild likes things that are wierdy, remember, 'Nesh? Wierdy and subversive and magicka-ka-ka-kal. It must be a compliment.

20:00 / 25.12.04

I was being childish, just ignore me. Christmas drinking and all that.

20:05 / 25.12.04

It's cool, Vakhu. You can stroke it if you like.

The beard, that is.

14:56 / 27.09.05

I thought I'd revive this thread as with the evenings drawing in and the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness upon us I have once more been considering the beard.
While shaving I tried out a neatly trimmed beard, then a goatee, but realised my beard has a kind of piebald brown and ginger thing going on, which kind of put me off, leading to me shaving it off again.
Tell me Barbelith, should I allow this to put me off the growing of a beard, or should I embrace the beard & its patchy ginger glory?

Regrettable Juvenilia

14:59 / 27.09.05

You must resist. Hold fast.

15:50 / 27.09.05

Ignore Babyface Shaftoe – he is full of oestrogen and envy. Free the beard, Phox. Now you’ve overcome that schoolboy error of trying to make it look *neat*, you should be revelling in your patchy two-tone face fleece.

16:09 / 27.09.05

Having met you, le Phox, it's my considered opinion that you could rock a beard quite well.

18:11 / 27.09.05

Go full, Mr Phox. Full and wide. Let your beard li-i-i-ive!

22:12 / 27.09.05

wrong. you are all wrong.

But there is hope: if you are a good beard grower, then not only can you have the (dubious, prickly and altoegther too hairy) pleasure of a beard, but you also have the best, most attractive, look at my luxiuriant one-day stubble that makes the ladeeez swoon. That is the best option all round. And only available to men who would otherwise have a good beard.

And why would you want to cover up your face? I have no understand of this, although I am often tried by bi-monthly beard growing (no, not on me), which I am told is "God's way of testing my love". I fail. Often.

22:13 / 27.09.05

The beard does not "cover up" a face. The beard anchors a face.

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