Done. Quit shaving my pits a couple of years ago and only shave my legs once a week, sometimes once every two weeks. It’s extremely liberating to disregard societal convention that created physical discomfort, unnecessary expense, and time-wasting effort in my life.
It depends on the person, too. When I go without shaving for three days, I look about the same as some men do at the end of one day. So that’s what I do: I shave on Saturday night or Sunday for Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, then Tuesday night or Wednesday morning for Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, and who cares if I look a little scruffy on Saturday?
Just to re-emphasize, my OP distinguishes between being unshaven and keeping a beard. If you have a full beard, that’s a different issue. I’m talking about men who don’t keep a beard but who also shave on a less-than-daily basis.
Yes, thank you for representing for us guys who don’t really need to shave that much.
Until I was in my 30s or so, shaving more than every other day would have been superfluous. I have rosacea and sensitive skin–yet I also can’t grow a good beard–so I shave every 5-7 days or so, depending on the timing. I’m pleased with the look of my day 2-3 stubble, but by day 6 or 7 it starts to look like crap. I will sometimes shave down the mustache part a bit with a beard trimmer.
OTOH, I manscape about every quarter and actually shave my upper legs. I don’t like the pube-like hair that grows on my thighs, and I don’t like my scraggly chest hair. So I pretty much shave my whole body except my shins.
Sometimes I wish Slug Signorino did illustrations for SDMB posts.
heh MY fur can be shaven clean thursday and id have a full beard by Monday and I shave twice a month or when it starts itching …
I’ve definitely noticed this and fully participate myself now.
I shave only two or three times a week now, not to be fashionable, but I don’t like shaving, and no one seems to care anymore.
When I started working 30+ years ago you would definitely look like a homeless bum, or someone on a bender.
I like it, although my workplace is business casual, apart from casual Fridays: no shorts though.
With the exception of a three-month period in late 1992 when I let my beard grow as an experiment, I have always been beardless*. I find that I only need to shave once a day.
(If I were to let my beard grow now, it would come in white or grey, which would utterly ruin any chances of a date.)
*I find the term ‘cleanshaven’ really revealing of a mindset that considers beards to be ‘dirty’.
PM me, I’ll send you some pix. 
I enjoy the discipline of shaving regularly so I do it on Monday and Thursday. I can’t believe there is still a fashion world and that men’s suits are as stupid looking as they have ever been (excepting the early 1970s) and that women other than strippers wear heels. I do like to wear a clean shirt, though.
Agree completely with the OP’s observation about trends. The carefully maintained 1 week of stubble is the hot male look these days. At least for younger folks.
As to my habits …
Back when my beard was blond I shaved as little as possible, fashion or not. It grew fast but was light colored. 2x/week was fine except for when I was in the military. That was every day, period, amen.
Now that I’m old enough that it’s stone gray I shave every day. IMO nothing says “doddering old loser” like even 2 days of gray stubble on non-young skin. A full week of gray stubble positively shrieks “homeless wino.”
Once I retire I’ll probably grow out a neat beard and keep that trimmed. Unless keeping it neat is harder than staying clean shaven. Which I suspect it would be.
What’s the line though?
I am almost never clean-shaven, but I shave my neck every few days and I shorten my beard using clippers with the smallest guard about once a week. Before I do it, my beard is maybe 1/2" long. Afterward, it looks like I’ve got 3-4 days worth of growth. Am I unshaven, or bearded? I certainly match the “unshaven” look.
I’ve grown a real beard a few times. I always end up cutting it off after a month or two because it’s uncomfortably scratchy and my skin breaks out. I love the current style because it’s so easy.
I’ve pretty much always shaved daily. In this thread that I started a while back, there was some good history about how in the first half of the 20th century, American men became more clean-shaven (Taft was the last president with a beard, and in 1944 Tom Dewey was the last major-party presidential candidate to have a mustache).
I was born in the late 50’s, and I recall my parents being very critical of men with any facial hair. Every fast food place I worked at in the 1970’s banned it, and required men to shave daily.
I remember a ca. 1970 commercial where a mildly hip 20ish man is extolling the virtues of an electric razor to his parents. When he mentions that it trims well, the father interrupts him to say, “That’s another thing, you’re the ONLY member of our family ever to have a mustache!”. And the mother corrects him: “Your Aunt Edith had a little one”.
Yup, I see this at my workplace. However I’m slovenly and I contribute to it.
Luckily I work on a computer and never meet clients face to face so nobody cares.
I think there was a very clear line. You were either clean shaven or not. If you were, you shaved daily. If not, you still shaved the parts of your face that weren’t part of your beard or moustache.
The fact that we can even contemplate a fuzzy line means there has been a fundamental shift.
When I entered my professional career, in 1981, I attended a pre-production meeting. I worked in manufacturing and pre-production meetings are common where the specifics of a customer’s contract are discussed with the quality personnel of both concerns just to make sure that everyone was on the same page. Anyway, as I recall that meeting, there were about 10-12 participants, production managers, quality & engineering, sales & procurement, all who had shaved that morning (myself included).
Fast forward to 2014, at one of my final pre-production meetings of my professional career. things had changed in 33 years; there were only 9 participants in the meeting and I made a note that only 3 of them had no facial hair (other than eyebrows, that is), and those three did not shave that morning. Yep, by 2014, 33% of these meetings were female (compared to 0% in 1981), and the male participants all had some form of intentional facial hair.
So, yes, times do change.
I was in college in the late 70s. The Disco era. (Sorry kids, it wasn’t my choosing).
Anyhow I grew a mustache one summer. After it was solid enough to look legit, not like a cheesy work in progress, I happened to meet up with an older uncle I only saw every couple years. He’d served in WWII and was a crusty old dude approaching retirement after years in the trades. Been rode hard most of his life.
He looked me up and down and said “I’ll be damned if I know why a man would cultivate on his face what grows naturally on his ass.” And walked away. :eek: Other than that he was a nice guy.
I have been unshaven basically since I grew facial hair. Even when I shaved every day. Light skin and dark hair; yeah its impossible to look “clean shaved”. I have had people actually act surprised when I told them that I had infact shaved that day. I tan easily and although in theory this should help hide the permastubble, in reality, I get a combo tanline/beardline.
Its enough to make me wish I had been born swarth (ier). Or a blonde. Or hell even a woman. 
I’ve worked decades in corporate offices. In the 90’s there had been a few times where I would forget to shave for 1 day and would actually get complaints to my boss about ‘poor appearance’. Now, I only shave 2 or 3 times per week and most other office males are a continuous spectrum from clean shaven to week-long-bender.
I have to shave daily because I can’t tolerate the feeling of any length beard on my face. What other people do with their body hair… not my problem.