new thread
Hey guys.
I hope you are all well and shiny.
I am just gonna post about my beard. Since I am quite young (21) I am probably in the last stage of my beards "development", which is great. However, I am experiencing a small issue with the fact that my beard seems to be rising progressivly higher and higher up my cheecks. My thought is that when I get those little whispy bits around the top of my beard, should I shave the whisp off, or should I shave up to the whisp and leave it? What I am basically asking is: will my beard halt naturally or do I have to "arrange" it.
Bizarre I know : P
Take care.
Neil
Hi Neilm,
That does sound bizarre and not having a full beard it's difficult to comment. However I get that sometimes with the top of my goatee hairs.
We have some great beard farmers here and I'm sure they will chime in and give the best advice or you could try the beard board as I believe there is such a forum.
Cheers,
John.B
Hi Neil,
This is not really a bizarre question at all. I, and I think many guys, shave the cheek area to define the ultimate line of the beard on the face and upper coverage extent. I shave in a defined line that to me looks neater and more...something, maybe like I care about the beard's appearance?
Your beard will halt naturally before it gets to your eyes, but who can say the extent of the height up the cheeks it might reach. For my part though, I shave that area for what I think is a better appearance. I also shave the neck up to where it turns and begins to become the lower jaw. A lot of neck hair below the Adam's apple is irritating to me, and were I to leave it would create too hirsute a persona for my liking.
Of course there are beard purists who let everything grow in, but I am not one of them who adheres to this mantra. If you have a very long beard, no one including you sees the neck, but I have customarily been keeping a less than 1/2 inch beard, so well-defined lines help the looks of my facial hair.
A picture that I am enclosing may help to descibe what I am talking of.
Thanks, Matt B. (The Magnanimous Beard Underlord)
Hi Matt,
You got a great beard growing there and great to see more people on the board with them.
Here's a random question for you. You certainly must have a great camera in your car or have you got one of these new all singing and dancing Sat nav things that now have webcams fitted to them?
Well you've seen the update, how about an update pic without the aeros as that would be great to see!
Cheers,
John.B
Hi John,
Thanks for those gracious words.
Random question answered: No, no satellite navigation system at all. I have an old ramshackle Ford that didn't come with that option. But I do have a nifty camera phone that's fun to play with while driving. I'm surprised I haven't had a wreck doing it.
I am assuming from context that "aeros" means sunglasses. I am not familiar with that British word, but I am going with that interpretation. As for going without "aeros," that is somewhat almost out of the question with me being both an "International Man of Mystery" and a vampire. But for you, on the next "update," I will include a shot sans "aeros" though all that sun-fired daylight will be terribly harsh and nearly unbearable, like facing a fire-mouthed dragon, horrible and bright. I am really hoping that "aeros" means sunglasses as I have based this whole little paragraph on that premise. ;-)
Cheers as well, Matt B.
I gave up the man of mystery many years ago just so that I could horrify the world!
Yupp aeros is a make of sunglasses and just a word to fox you and yupp you got it right. I didn't realise it was always so bright sunlight in GA and having been there myself a few times! Oh go on the community have seen my ugly mug here and non have suffered from retina burn yet so go on lets see the enface without the sides!
Cheers,
John.B
Hi Neil,
I agree with what Matt said, and it's confirmed by what happens in our household. My husband has a full beard that grows almost up to his eyes and way down his neck. He feels he has to shave both areas. He says if he did not shave above his cheeks, that he would look like a raccoon. So Neil, no, your beard will not necessarily stop where you want it to. It could go up almost to your eyes!
I, on the other hand, have a full beard that stops just about where I want it to stop both top and bottom. I haven't shaved around the edges of my beard since I grew it out in 1977 because it shapes itself. Two years ago I quit trimming my beard and let it grow out. It now has strands about a foot long with a strand here and there reaching fifteen inches. As Matt says, hair on the neck becomes irrelevant then, but hair below the eyes could still matter.
This may be of interest: I read an article a few years ago that said only one man in sixteen with a beard does not feel he has to nevertheless break out the razor because he gets growth where he doesn't want it. So I suppose I am in the lucky minority who can just grow out a beard and throw the razor away. If you end up shaving around yours, you will actually be in the majority.
That article went on and said that people who thought men growing beards were "lazy because they didn't want to shave" were mistaken, because most men still have shaving to do and the careful shaving around their beard plus the trimming most men do to their beard actually take more time than just shaving it all off.
Bill
My beard has a few "ragged extra whiskers" that stray rather high. My longish sideburns would be ill-defined if I didn't shave them. When I've grown a full beard in the past, it didn't look too bad to me, although a few people remarked that "a full beard is fine, but why the fuzz up there?".
I don't think it's too unusual to have a rather high beard, as others have pointed out. I think most guys will prefer to trim them, unless they want to be called "monkey man", which seems like the comment you are most likely to get.
Consider it a blessing if you like a good, well-defined boundary to your beard. Mine is a bit raggedy both on the top and bottom. I've always wondered how much of that is due to acne scarring.
Well, it won't continue until it covers your whole face except your eyes, LOL!
OTOH, I shave above and below my beard (but not every day, just occasionally) otherwise it would taper off gradually, and my neck would be hairy! Whether you do this is up to you.
I also trim the length of my beard and the length of my moustache, sometimes with a beard trimmer and sometimes with scissors, as the mood takes me. It stays softer if you use scissors, but you can't get it as short or as even.
Beards aren't maintenance free. They can be, but I'm not going for that look. Especially with having both long hair and a beard, I'd like it to look like I pay attention to my appearance, plus I don't really want a very long beard, although very long hair is another matter.
When I was your age I didn't have to do much to maintain my beard, though, as it didn't grow very fast, which IMHO is normal.