I am a guy who usually never, ever has stubble. I can grow a beard in about a week or so, but I never/rarely do this. Usually my wife thinks a day or more of growth is scruffy.
I am leaving for a backpacking trip in a week, and have decided O’naturale is the way to go for a 2 week backpacking trip. So I have been growing my beard for the last 3 days, right now I look unkept in my opinion, sort of like George Michael. But by Wednesday I’ll look more like Grizzly Adams, which for backcountry backpacking is fine with me.
But I do understand that to some women, George Michael equals good and anything more is caveman.
I don’t like facial hair on men (or women for that matter!). But as stubble is a fashion that isn’t going away, I’ll allow that some celebrities don’t look too hideous with it As with anything, it all depends on the attractiveness of the face and firmness of the features underneath. Hot young chisled celebrity - yeah, OK. Regular guy with jowly, pouchy chin, or God forbid receding chin with stubble - unshaven bum! As for the feel of stubble, I dated a blond man with ‘clear’ stubble so sharp and wiry, it was ridiculous. Dated another dark haired Italian, and his face stubble was as soft as angora. Don’t know why.
I dunno. How do you feel about women wearing makeup, or hair that’s carefully styled to look “tousled”?
Some guys can pull off stubble and some can’t. Some aren’t trying to “pull of” anything, but just can’t or don’t shave as often as they need to to be clean shaven. I’ve got one dear friend who shaves, with a blade, and literally an hour later has face scraping stubble. Poor dear…whenever he hugs me, I have to dodge and weave so his face doesn’t touch me, and when I misjudge, I end up with hives from the irritation, even of just a quick normal social hug. I can’t imagine what making out with him would do!
I don’t think that’s a good indicator that women like it. I prefer my face to be clean shaven but I’m too lazy and have sensitive enough skin where shaving every day hurts. Since I’m pretty hairy, that means if I wait three days to shave, I have stubble for about 2 1/2 of those days. Since I’m also often told when I have stubble I look like a terrorist, I’m guessing most women think I’m more attractive clean shaven than with stubble.
Genuine stubble, as in “I was too busy fighting that fire that was trying to come over the mountain and burn down your town to shave for the last week” stubble is hot. (We had a nasty wildfire come way too close a couple of years ago. Yowza, some of those guys…mmmm.)
Hollywood carefully-maintained stubble annoys me. Either shave, or grow a beard. Please. This excludes those who have skin problems and such. But I do not think deliberate stubble is sexy at all.
Years ago, I saw this guy in a big meeting thing (several thousand people). He was attractive, but what I found completely fascinating was his scar. The left side of his face was burned in a way that didn’t pull at the muscles but which managed to enhance its planes; the right side was normal. I would have loved to draw him, if I’d been able to draw any decently.
Stubble can be good in that same way, like any other kind of beard it can enhance the planes on a face. Now, do I want to kiss a guy with stubble? Sorry, but kids say it better: “daddy, SCRATCHY!”
Very, very hot. It doesn’t look good if the guy’s overall appearance is neat and tidy, but if he has a casual, messy-haired, t-shirted, I-don’t-care-how-I-look thing going…yum.
Does anyone else find the attractiveness of stubble directly related to the clarity of the skin on the man’s face? I remember conducting an attractivness study with some students many years ago and young women by far looked for men with clear complexions, with and without stubble. So stubble on a man who has a clear complexion, good skin, no acne etc…was more attractive than a man with stubble who had acne or lesions from adolescent acne [i.e. craters]. Does this make sense to anyone else?
Also, my face looks dirty for the first few days I grow a beard, otherwise my complexion is clear. If I can get over the first few days I think it looks actually quite good.
I wonder if he isn’t shaving both ways? A surprising number of guys don’t realize that facial hair grows in a lot of different directions and if you just shave with top to bottom strokes, you miss a lot and don’t get a very close shave. Just a guess.
And so as I’m actually contributing to the thread, I’m a guy and I go from clean shaven to what looks like two week old beard in a day or two. It doesn’t grow that fast, but it looks like it does. I can’t ever get that awesome firefighter/Strider stubble look that immediately reveals me as the hero that I am.
Either shave it or grow a beard. I like decently kept facial hair, but really not the stuff that looks like, “I’m so hot I don’t have to make an effort. Hey, baby.” I’m also not crazy about that uncut, uncombed hair thing. Looks messy.
I saw one of these Discovery channel shows that basically said women close to or on their period are more prone to like the scruffy look. Where as women who are NOT close to or on their periods like the smoothe look.
Which is just frick’n great for me because now not only do I have to have the balls to ask Betty Fine if she like to go out for dinner and drinks this weekend; I also have to have the balls to ask her if she might be on her period as well.
For a lot of people on the SDMB, pimples and ingrown hairs will add to your attractiveness, as long as you’re willing to sit still while they attack your problems with tweezers.
*Can *you wax male facial hair? Even my husband’s beard, which is not particularly coarse, has hairs that are much thicker in diameter than my (or his own) leg or underarm hairs. Seems like ripping out tree trunks, as opposed to saplings. Ouch!
That’s kind of it for everything isn’t it - stubble is just one part of the package. If the package is increased in hotness by stubble, stubble is a good thing. If the package in increased in clueless hygiene issues, its definitely not. For most people on most occasions, its just going to look inappropriately scruffy - some guys will become hotter, some will look more disgusting.
