I’m 24 and I still can’t grow a real beard. I shave every other day if that. My mustache comes in the most but the rest of it is patchy. It grows all the way down my neck and such but it’s just patchy.
Why?
My brother is 33 and could grow pretty much whatever he wanted when he was my age. As far as genetics goes, he takes after our dad and I take more after my mom’s side of the family, but there are a lot of beards on my mom’s side though.
The longest I went without shaving was 10 days last winter and boy did I look like a homeless person. Patches of long hair here and there and just plain ratty.
Yet with all this I have really hairy legs, especially hairy ankles, a hairy chest/belly, hair on my shoulders, knuckles, and on my arms as well.
But why can’t I grow a beard?
When is a guy typically mature enough to grow a full beard?
Not that I want one but it’d be nice if I forget to shave for a few days that it’d come in like normal and not patchy. I would like some side-burns though.
Beats me, I was able to grow bushy woodsman beards by 19. My only advice is to take care of your face and let it go. Can’t rush nature; in the meantime see if you can just get a goatee going. That way everyone thinks you’re discerning rather than a babyface.
Sometimes I like the baby-face look. My best friend who is 26 ad grow any beard he wants was not carded as he walked into a casino with me. The guard stopped me and said “wait a minute, show me your ID, you look like you’re 16”. This was right after I shaved.
Made me feel good that people see me as a kid still.
I’m 26 and I cannot grow a real beard. It grows mostly on my neck and is sparse at that, so I can grow enough facial hair to look gross and unkempt, but not enough for a “real” mustache or beard, I don’t know if it will ever change. I “won” a mustache contest at work to see who could go the longest without shaving, I lasted almost a month. But even at the end, I didn’t really have a mustache, just a bunch of course but sparse hairs on my face.
I don’t think it’s that abnormal, I have a babyface overall and people rarely believe my age, I could be a high schooler. It will be nice when I’m in my 30s and 40s.
My husband never could grow a beard until the day he died. His beard was never thick really but it’s just the luck of the draw. On the flip side, he had thick, thick hair into his 40s and very little gray. So I’m sure he was happy with no beard and lots of hair with color
My sister and I have same “genetics” but she’s almost all gray, while I’m only slightly gray and I’m two years older.
I’m 58 and the best I can do is a goatee. Not much on the sides of my face. I’m part Indian (feather, not dot), and I always figured that had something to do with it. Not much body hair either. Smooth chested, etc.
At 24, you probably have all you’re going to get.
I had a full (but not too long) beard for about 9 months when I was 26. It was the only time in my life I was carded regularly. I was uncanny. I used to go to bars with college looking friends at 19 and not get carded. But in my beard months at 26 I got carded at nice restaurants I had routinely eaten and drunk at for years. One time I was eating with my 60 year old aunt early evening on a weekday and the waitress carded me.
So having a beard isn’t all that great for looking older. I can only surmise that servers see facial hair as a potential trick to look older and get extra cautious.
Seems likely. I’m 46, and the best I can do without looking ridiculous is sideburns. The rest of my beard comes in splotchy (probably in part due to having bad acne as a teenager), and doesn’t connect up with the mustache. That, and the beard comes in red (I’m blonde), though the mustache comes in very pale blonde. I’ve given up on the idea of growing a beard.
It seems to me that there has been some change in my ability to grow a mustache and a beard over time. In my twenties I tried a couple of times to see what it would look like if I went without shaving for a couple of weeks. It only looked like the three-day beard look for many men. Now though I can go three or four days without shaving and it looks to me like two weeks without shaving might be something closer to a real beard and mustache. Since I have never tried to grow it since my twenties though, I can’t be sure.
Age 50 here, no beard. Male patterned baldness (MPB) too!
Don’t know if it is confirmation bias, but most bald men (with MPB) I have seen typically have heavy beards with lots and lots of body hair. But I don’t fit that profile.
No hair on shoulders and back, and little chest hair.
I have been told that MPB is part of the X-chromosome. Again, not in my experience.
Mom’s father, and her sisters boys (two) have (had) a full head of hair.
On the other hand, Dad and all his brothers have (had) MPB. And all of their sons (four) do too.
Apparently the MPB gene attaches itself to the Y-chromosome in my family.
I think you will find there is no ‘normal’. I grew a full mountain man/old testament prophet/Robbie-Coltrane-as-Hagrid beard when when I was 19, and still have a beard now at 30. The downside is I’m both thinning and going grey, goddammit. I’ve shaved exactly once since I was 19, when I was 20 or 21. I hated the look and grew it back, admittedly not so long and shaggy.
Just keep trying every month or two to grow it out, see what it looks like. You may find that it will fill in as you get older.
It’s totally random. I’m in my early forties, I have a thick head of hair and I’m not very hairy elsewhere. I can grow a massive thick goatee/mustache if I want, but from there to my sideburns is a wasteland.
For the longest time I could grow a beard but not a mustache. The hair on my upper lip was sparse and absurdly a much lighter colour than the rest as to be barely darker than my skin.
There were a number of religious sects in the area where I grew up who, when they grew beards, shaved their mustaches (on the grounds that a great many 20th century dictators had prominent mustaches, or something like that) and, when I hadn’t shaved for a while, people assumed I was one of them.
Oh well. If this is what I’m gonna get than whatever. I still get zits a couple times a month.
I kinda like the fact that clean shaven someone actually said I had a babyface. I drank my fill in the past but no drugs or smoking so I still look young. My roommate said I look like a little boy. Hopefully at my 10 year high school reunion (only 3.5 years away, eek), I show up with a youthful glow and most everyone else is grizzled.
On a better note when our dad died he had not a hair on his head, not even a horseshoe, nor eyebrows and was going bald towards the end of high school. Like I said my brother takes after him and at 33 has to shave his head constantly because he is BALD. Both our grandpa’s had all their hair so do both of my mom’s brothers. All of our many many great-uncles are bald.
My brother always, always gives me shit saying I’m gonna go bald. At this rate it doesn’t appear that I am though. That’s what my mom and grandma say.
I can give up having a decent beard as long as I keep my hair and youthful appearance.
Some people have the opposite problem. My partner has very thick black hair, and in spite of using a newly-honed straight razor, has “five o’clock shadow” immediately after shaving. If he’s going to anyplace “dressy” in the evening, he has to shave twice.
But my ex was, like you, unable to grow a full beard at 40. Good thing, it would have made him look like Jesus. He did have a mustache though, which was good enough for me.