It all started because in about 2001 (I think) Mrs P and I went on a camping holiday to a remote location for about ten days and I didn’t shave. She decided she liked the look, so I just stopped shaving.
Over the last few years my beard had grown increasingly grey. Also, beards are now hip, and I have a generally contrary nature. I think these factors started me down the road of questioning whether I mightn’t shave it off.
Then for our fancy dress office Xmas party the rest of my team wanted to go as the Addams Family and the obvious (only) role I could take was as Uncle Fester. I don’t have much hair on my head - which works - but Uncle Fester most assuredly does not have a beard. So this provided the impetus to shave.
I have discovered whole new moles that I never knew I had which have been growing slowly under my beard. I’ve forgotten how to shave properly; I keep shaving then noticing later in the day that I missed patches. I keep touching my face and getting a shock when I find skin instead of hair. I threw away my old razor handles ages ago because you couldn’t get replacement blades for them anyway. I threw away my electric shaver because it had died quietly from neglect in a drawer in the bathroom. I’m getting by on disposables at the moment.
For the last few years I’ve been keeping my beard very short, so shaving has changed how I look distinctly but not massively. When I look in the mirror now I see Marlon Brando as he was in Apocalypse Now. Well, except that I’m not as overweight, plus I’m decidedly not good looking; but I now have the bald head and smooth face and heavy brows thing happening. So far a couple of friends and colleagues have failed to recognise me, and a lot more have started talking to me with a strange puzzled look on their face till eventually the penny drops and they figure out why I seem the same but different.
Mrs P says I look younger and that she’d like me to keep shaving, at least for now. So we’ll see how long I last…
Consider a double edge safety razor. A slim Gillette razor and and Astra or Blue 7’o block blades work well. You can get both on Ebay cheap enough. A badger hair brush with a good shaving soap can improve your shave too, comfort/closeness-wise. Works well for the head as well.
The Jason Statham/Bruce Willis look can work rather well in a suit.
When I shaved my beard off in 1991, it was about 20 years old. I shaved it off on my first day of a Hawaiian vacation, so I’d have time to regrow it if I wasn’t happy with my new look. I left the mustache, so when I got back, people thought I’d just grown a mustache.
I lose about 10 years and look completely different when I shave my beard off; I’ve been told that I could commit crimes and shave and people wouldn’t be able to pick me out of a lineup.
Huh. I haven’t shaved my upper lip since… 1985? Chin since maybe 85-88.
It’s all gone gray, along with my eyebrows, well ahead of my hair. I’ve had a few strands since maybe the mid-90s, and still have only faint temple flashes and a few more strands. It’s also been well past my collar to around my shoulder blades for all that time.
As one of my favorite buttons reads, “I looked this way before it was stylish.”
So…you had a neckbeard to go with what was on your face?
I grow a beard and then shave it off a couple times a year. Keeping the beard itself trimmed and shaving the areas around it i.e. neck, upper cheeks, etc. is way more of a pain than just lathering up and shaving my face along with my head every morning.
Someone who actually gets it! I’ve had so many people look at me like I’m insane when I’ve said that I shave every day because I’m fundamentally lazy. But in reality, shaving’s something I can almost literally do in my sleep, and all I have to do is worry about 2 sideburns. Everything else just comes off. Easy peasy.
Having a beard means that you still have to shave the non-bearded areas, as well as trim the dumb thing and shape it periodically. Much more trouble overall.
Seconded, except that you can get better quality (and assured quality) from places like classicshaving.com - anything from a $10 basic handle to the exotic Euro “futura” stuff.
I’ve used a brush and DE for decades, although these days I tend to “shave” most days with a Wahl trimmer and leave it at that.
The only time I shaved since Ford was still in office was for the Battle of Kittanning Anniversary. According to the Old Wench I looked like some strange offspring of Uncle Fester and Charlie Brown. She laughed much, all the neighborhood kids were scared to death of me, and the one neighbor called the police because someone (me) was breaking into our house.
Mr. May has had a beard since our oldest was six months old, so 16 years, now. Even though the kids have seen photos of him bare-faced, I don’t think they’d be able to recognize him. Shoot, I don’t know if I’d be able to recognize him! I want him to shave, but he doesn’t want to. It’s his face; he’ll do it when he’s ready.
My children had never seen me without a beard. I thought they would react more strongly than they did. I showed off my new face to them, they looked up about long enough to say “Huh” indifferently, and that was it.
No, I just found that I could get away with not shaving my neck every day and because it was pretty non-crucial I would just use disposables.
I shaved recently after 5 years, only to find I had somehow managed to de-age. I don’t mean I look younger than with the beard, but younger than I did 5 years ago without a beard. It also made me very self-conscious about my face looking very fat, even though I weigh 30 lbs less than I did back then. I looked scary. I don’t think I will ever go clean shaven again. It’s crazy how much different I look even with stubble or a beard trimmed on the closest setting. My wife was crying saying I would scare our daughter.
