I did a face plant in a bicycle wreck back in my college days and let my beard grow out since I couldn’t properly shave around the numerous sutures. I’ve had a full beard since then.
Oh, another note about beards: no matter how careful you are, they make eating cotton candy a sticky mess.
Still worth it, though.
And then there’s THIS!
Growing mine out for Movember/Decembeard , and the itchiness fades after a week or three, IME.
The wife swore she couldn’t stand me with facial hair but did a turnabout after everything grew in, now she likes my “bad boy” look as she calls it. Now if only I could convince her I need a motorcycle to look really badass…
I haven’t shaved my upper lip in 41 years. The chin-fur has come and gone over the years. I’ve run a full beard several times but have been rocking a van dyke since I started shaving my head back in 2001. I generally keep it fairly close-cropped, running an electric trimmer over it (#4 setting) every week.
I didn’t like it at first. But then it grew on me.
Thanks folks. I’ll be here all evening. Be sure to tip your server.
That’s what I use. Same thing happened to me last time I dyed. I looked like Bluto. Fortunately, the truism that the difference between a bad haircut and a good one is two weeks also applies to bad dye jobs; the gray has grown in, and lightened it back to something that looks like it belongs on a human face.
But if you emit some water from your mouth, like if you’re taking a pill or laughing, the beard catches it so your shirt doesn’t get wet.
I have only shaved my moustache once in my life. It still took me well into my 20’s to get a decent growth. Prior to this month, I have never gone longer than a week without shaving the rest of my face. One week of growth was always enough to show that I just didn’t have the chops for a beard (see what I did there?). Two weeks ago I had some surgery which necessitated a week off work and another week working from home. I didn’t shave during the entire 2 weeks and it is beginning to look like, at age 51, I just might be able to fill in enough to make it worthwhile - although it is as much grey as dark. Anyway, the wife thought I should let it go a bit longer and see what happens. A grand experiment, it is!
My facial hair grows pretty slowly so it’s been ages since I was tempted since it means a long time looking like a hobo with mange.
On winter, years ago, I spent the winter working a job where no one cared so I went without shaving. My hair is charitably “dirty blonde” but my beard looked reddish. Last time I went two weeks without shaving, I noticed that my proto-beard was about 50% silver. I feel like I’m wearing someone else’s face in comparison to my head-hair color.
I always hated shaving and, frankly, even using balms I got horrible shaver burn. So I ended up letting it grow until it got itchy and then using an electric trimmer to get it down to stubble. Rinse/repeat.
Then about three years ago, just as it was time to trim, I damaged my shoulder so I couldn’t actually shave and was on pretty strong painkillers. The drugs made me not feel the itching and I cam out the other side with a beard. So I kept it.
It has been about four years now. I’ve met only one woman who has told me that I should shave it off, many others have basically ordered me to never shave again. So I guess I’m a bearded guy forever now. I don’t put anything in it beyond washing it when I wash my hair. I tidy it up when I cut my hair (I clip my hair pretty short every couple of weeks or so) and that’s about it.
I’m toying with growing it out a bit for winter though. Just for the hell of it.
Grew my first beard in my mid-20’s. It was blaze orange (my hair is mostly brown). Had to wait until my early 30’s to grow a more reasonable beard, have had one since. Always was a cacophony of colors, very much lighter than the hair on top of my head. Now it’s almost pure white, although up top I only have a bit of silver in the temples.
Only time I’ve shaved it in the last 20 years was when I had to (such as for the Armored gig), and I’ve always hated not having it. Has become a part of who I am and how I see myself.
A friend of mine with Irish, Swedish and Native American ancestry said he tried to grow a mustache once. It grew in red, white and black and he said it looked like he got slapped across the face with a calico cat.
I’ve tried growing a beard, and I can’t pull it off. There’s a patch between my chin and neck, almost directly under(?) behind(?) my chin, where hair steadfastly refuses to grow. I wear a goatee, since the empty patch isn’t as obvious as it would be with a full-on beard.
I hate shaving! I have had a full beard for most of my adult life. It comes in full & fast.
I quit shaving the day I graduated from High school. After five years, I got tired of my beard & hair being long. The beard was belly button long and the hair was below my belt. The final straw was the time I was working on a semi’s drive shaft & my hair got caught up in the wheels on the creeper I was rolling under the truck on. I had to get off of the creeper & crawl out pulling the creeper with the ensnared wheels behind me. I cut the offending hair off at the wheels. I then removed the wheels to pull out the hair that was jamming them.
I went to a barber at lunch time. The barber was middle aged, had a flat top, and sported an anchor on his arm. I told him to make me look like a USMC recruit. He grinned real big, slammed me into his chair, snapped a bib on me, and actually sang the Marine Corpse hymn while he did the deed. I felt easily five pounds lighter. He refused any payment, as he had not had so much fun in years! He told me I could have free haircuts as long as I wanted the buzz job. I kept the beard off for six months.
These days, I get a trim job when I get a haircut. About three times a year, I go to a barber & get a buzz job, with a short beard & no mustache. I look like a Mennonite Marine. In this way my hair & beard switch between long & unruly to very short & neat. Some folks say the short hair is more intimidating then the long hair. I do not know, nor care, about that, I like the next to zero maintenance. A little trim every month or so works out just right.
So just to be clear, I hate shaving, & I have only shaved for about eight months out of the last 40 years. That was about five months too long.
Oh, and my lovely bride likes the beard. So I win all around on this one.
Before someone jumps in about “beards growing after death” and other zombie comment ----- welcome!
I still keep a full face of hair as this picture from this week shows.
but then again my full face has only seen daylight a couple times since Nixon was president. The last time was early in this century and I ended up in handcuffs on my living-room sofa until the police were certain I wasn’t a person breaking in as the neighbor had reported. But I can go from bare skin to what you see here in about 3 months; mine grows fast and looks fairly good after the first week.
Now – length. Back in the carefree days of my youth I could run a full ZZ-Top beard with no issue and did; tucking it behind my belt-buckle on the bike. But these days say another two to four inches and I start to max out. Its just gotten too brittle with age to go well down into my chest. I’m OK with it though - at my age Santa is more a target look than insane hermit.