My girlfriend really likes men with facial hair. Lucky, then, that I grow a beard easily; give me a month and I’ll give you ZZ Top. Unfortunately, my whiskers are stiff and wiry, which makes kissing painfully prickly for her. This is true even when my beard gets fairly long; it’s not just the unshaven shadow that’s sandpaper. Her preference for my appearance, then, takes a back seat to her preference for enjoyable smoochage.
So: What can be done? Short of using tweezers and an emery board in a laborious effort to round off every one of the little bastards, how do I make my facial hair less pointy?
Is it just the ends that are stabby, or is the hair itself coarse and rough? I don’t have firsthand experience with this but one thing that might help is using the same kind of conditioner or other softening treatments that people use on their head hair.
I had an awesome mental image of your beard going around stabbing people without your consent (kinda like that episode of the simpsons with Snake’s hair).
Vote #2 for conditioner. Even if the tips are as pointy as a point in Pointland, if the whole hair is conditioned – i.e., floppier – it won’t have the oomph to poke so much.
Not having a beard myself, I’ve tested this theory on , er, other short hairs so this is an informed testimonial.
It’s not coarse, but it’s definitely thick, which makes the whiskers rigid, ergo stabby.
I’ll look into conditioner, so thanks for the comments. Is there any reason a top-of-head type product wouldn’t be appropriate for mustache-and-beard hair?
None I can think of, except maybe if the stuff has a strong smell you might not like it directly under your nose.
As a fellow stab-face, I find that regular head-conditioner works just fine (although you have to leave it in for awhile to achieve maximum destabbyfication).
Girly Not All That Bright uses this coconut-scented stuff on her head which I find gives me a delightful islandy scent during the morning 
Umm, what’s the difference between coarse and thick?
Coarse beard = each individual whisker is thick
Thick beard = lots of whiskers per surface area
Or so I take it, anyway.