Why are many men growing beards again ?

lemmyreader@lemmy.ml to Asklemmy@lemmy.ml – 154 points –

Yesterday I passed a barbershop and saw ads on their wall outside of men with beards and short hair. It is a revival or saving electricity ?

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I'm a unix-guru.

If I were to shave I'd get a -5 penalty on my bash magic.

If I skip showers for a month I can interface directly with any device in /dev

Samson was actually a sys admin whose servers had incredible uptime until his beard was shaved.

GROSS! And can you fix my nvidia drivers???

What do you mean men are growing beards "again"? I haven't noticed any trend between clean shaven / bearded. Some do, some don't.

Yeah, beards have been common since at least the ‘hipster/lumbersexual’ memes which were about 2008 or so. There’s not been any particular drop off since then. It’s just accepted that some people prefer or look better with a beard.

Yeah, I haven't been clean shaven since I could first pull off a beard. Last time I saw my naked face was 15 years ago.

That said, I have started to put more effort into my beard to try to keep up with trends. Growing it out, oiling it, shaping the edges. It's fun, but I still find myself trimming it down after too long just to make it easier to manage.

What oil are you using? Hands down the best stuff I have ever tried is from a small New Zealand brand called Lambert's Luscious Beard Oils. I started getting compliments at work after switching to that stuff.

I'm at least six years in on my current beard. Many others before that.

Why do people on the internet think you don't have to shave if you have a beard? You're just shaving less area.

Exactly. When I was clean shaven, it was easy, I could just hold the shaver against the contours of my face.

Now, with a large beard, I only need to shave every one or two weeks, but it takes much longer to do so and is much trickier. I've got to sculpt and shape a mound of hair manually. And every day I still brush and oil it.

Clean or short shaven was actually less effort.

Ha, NSFW example but my God when people call the tight trimmed triangle a "natural bush" on women I laugh. It's more work to maintain than just about any other alternative.

I don't shave and I have a beard - once in a blue moon for a special occasion, I might trim it.

Exactly, it's actually MORE work to shave with a beard because instead of just completely removing all of the hair and you have to shape it and make sure it's symmetrical.

A short trimmed beard you have to do the neck and maybe cheekbones, it's a lot of upkeep.

I think lots of guys had that type of beard pre-covid, then let it grow out. Once it's long enough you don't have to do the neck because it's hidden by the rest of your beard.

And some guys never have to do cheeks because it grows in good.

Like how 20 years ago it was cool for teenagers and 20 somethings to have goatees. It took me a while to realize most were doing it because they couldn't grow a full beard.

There's a lot of variation in facial hair, including where it grows and how thick.

Very variable, depending on style and your personal growth pattern. I have a small patch on each cheek that has to be cleaned off, but otherwise it doesn't require shaving. With a big beard you have to care for it like normal hair, though, with haircuts and products.

Buuut I do have the shave my whole head. Oh well.

I haven't shaved since 2014.

I've (recently) stopped shaving entirely, but I use my trimmers to to a quick hackjob on the area I used to manually shave. so my facial hair care routine is about 5 minutes every 2 weeks or so, plus maybe 5 minutes a month to buzz my head. can't believe I used to spend that much time every couple of days to look like shit. now I still look like shit but have a few more minutes

its the other way around for those people: they have a beard because they stopped shaving, not because they wanted a nice looking beard.

tbh there is a part of me that resents this "ew you grow facial hair and don't shave around the edges to create sharp lines" view though. Its like women feeling they have to shave their legs or pits, it's BS and people shouldn't be judged for literally just how their body naturally is. Its not like there's a legitimate sanitary reason for shaving legs or necks.

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Alas, I cannot grow hair on the top of my head, so I must grow it on the bottom.

This is my reason too.

IIRC, it’s the same testosterone-y hormone that determines how good you are at growing a beard that also determines how aggressively you go bald. So there’s lots of folks in this boat with us

It's more so how sensitive your cells/receptors are to these hormones (testosterone/DHT), assuming you have healthy levels. There's people on anabolic steroids that still can't grow a dense beard. It's just genetics.

Also, I have a big ass forehead and no chin. Gotta aim for that balancing point.

Alas, I have just enough native blood to not be able to grow a beard, and not enough to not go bald. Worst of both worlds haha

Brother beards have been in for like 10 years.

fidel-freethrow

More like 70 years.

I mean, they were never out in Afghanistan. I think we have to confine discussion to the West here, where I assume OP lives.

You could go back to the 19th century in America, but beards were definitely out from the 1920s to 60s. IIRC it was chemical warfare that killed the beard, because they don't fit under a gas mask, and dudes all want to look like a tough guy. After that, the counterculture brought them back for people involved. I'm less clear on post-Cold-War trends.

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  • I’m lazy
  • I can
  • makes me look my age
  • razor burn sucks
  • 3’o clock shadow sucks
  • who cares?

Shaving takes less time than keeping it tidy, at least for me.

Beards are where the Communism is stored. As the ruling class become richer and more obscene, class consciousness grows amongst the working class. Hence, beards.

I’ve got mine almost completely colonized with psychedelic mycelium!

I'm a fucking wizard - the beard is mandatory.

Do the other wizards just give you the staff, or do you have to go on a quest or something?

Becoming a wizard isn't so trivial as just being declared one - many wizards apprenticed themselves to gain knowledge and improve their chances but that elevation is a personal journey.

You will know you're a wizard when you can look at fellows in your skill and know that none of them would challenge your adoption of the title. I wish you the best of luck. It's a title within reach of everyone in their lifetime.

The staff and robes are optional but who would turn down a badass purple robe.

It's really the stick I'm interested in. So you can just go get your own staff? Nobody awards you the staff, or stops you from getting a staff?

Nah, you can just make yourself a staff - there aren't any restrictions, registries or waiting periods.

Nah, you can just make yourself a staff

Exactly. The moguls try to control how I use it in the organization

Shaving sucks.

The real question is why shaving should be normalized, expected, or encouraged in modern society.

Yeah, normalize either being okay. Just like long or short hair. Diversity is the spice of life.

Ye, I just shave mine when it starts irritating my neck 🤷‍♂️

Long story short: WW2

The military required men to be clean shaven, which was partly tactical (proper gas mask seals), partly to whitewash the service (e.g., black men can have severe skin reactions to shaving every day), and had other benefits to unit cohesion and general order (routine personal fitness and hygiene).

Well, that stuck, and an entire (massive) generation of men and their male children were taught that to be good they simply had to be clean shaven. Those two generations make up the vast majority of business and political power in the US, so the idea of “success” and “power” was idolized by a clean shaven male. This was further accentuated by the counter culture reaction of this cohort’s kids in the 60s and 70s, where longer and unkempt “bad” hair was cast against this “good” clean shaven look.

Fast forward to today, those traditions and appearances have been baked into most of modern life. As the boomer population starts to fade away, so will the tyranny of the razor.

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The biggest problem with growing a beard is that it only looks good after a certain amount of time. When people grow beards it's usually when they are on vacation because it is nice not having to shave and you dont have to look professional with a crazy half grown beard.

A couple of years ago the word took an extended vacation and a lot of people took the opportunity to grow a beard.

Eh, idk. Depends on the person. I've been going for a "scruff" look for a few years now. I trim close-ish 1-2 times/week, just before it starts to get itchy from hairs getting long enough. I always have at least 1-2mm facial hair.

If I go clean-shaven, I have baby face and I look 10 years younger. Not a good look. A bit of scruff makes me look closer to my age, but I don't like the look of a full beard on me since I can't grow a decent mustache. It looks like I'm trying too hard.

Beards are great. Shaving was the greatest crime of Romans.

Right up there with Carthage

??? Carthaginian men did not had that custom, most wore beards.

I think they mean the destruction of Carthage 😉

Yeah that too, if the Carthage was not destroyed it would serve as counterbalance to Romans at least for a time, and the vile shaving custom would not spread as much.

I think they meant the destruction of Carthage something I am still sore about

Yeah that too, if the Carthage was not destroyed it would serve as counterbalance to Romans at least for a time, and the vile shaving custom would not spread as much.

There is a time while growing a beard that it looks like shit.

Most of the people shave it off to not go through it.

But the pandemic meant people could go for weeks without seeing an other human. Which is the perfect time to grow a beard and get over the awkward phase without getting laughed at too much.

I grew out my hair instead, looked like shit but now I know.

Can confirm, grew beard during lockdown, never went back!

Same. Still haven't learned how to style it but it's still better than the face I had before

Started growing mine during no-shave November 2019, and then we shut down for COVID. It was perfect timing.

Could be recency bias, could be that fashion is a cycle that repeats and old fashions are rediscovered. Could be laziness because at some point it becomes easier to trim a beard once every month than shave everyday.

Some people's skin also can't handle daily trauma from razors.

It also looks more interesting than a vanilla clean shave, imo. People might be looking to stand out for that reason.

I look better with a beard, it’s not that deep

Same. I shaved mine a while back and my best friend was blunt - "You look better with the beard".

Righto. Beard it is.

Same here. I used to shave my head and face but recently I went through a period of over-work and didn't have time to shave. Everyone told me I looked better with hair and beard, including the wife. So hair and beard it is then

Some people’s skin also can’t handle daily trauma from razors.

Pili multigemini...

I might have fucked up the order, but it means "multiple twin hairs". Like, where just one hair should grow out of your skin, you have multiples.

If you let it just grow, you're fine. But if you shave it's very easy for it to be ingrown because the "hole" the hairs come thru was only meant for one hair.

When I was in the military and had to shave every day it was horrible. I don't know if shaving makes more grow, but I'd have stubble thicker than mechanical pencil lead, and when I'd pluck it I'd find out it was 3-5 hairs attached to the same "root". One of those becoming ingrown is a huge hassle.

With a beard, it'll just shed normally or come out when I comb it. The problem is when you shave and the hair bunch has to keep pushing thru the skin over and over.

I grew one during lockdown, decided I liked it and kept it. I suspect I am not an anomaly in this.

I started shaving as a hobby during lockdown. Now I help run a shaving Lemmy.

I'm glad shaving hobbyists exist, y'all were a great help when I wanted to replace my Ross clearance safety razor, but I still don't understand it as a hobby, lol.

Full beards are great. I can go a week without any maintenance and still look presentable. Any other style of facial hair is just too much effort.

It’s a lot less presentable than you think. Reality is people aren’t going to saying anything because they don’t want to be rude.

It's completely presentable and you thinking it's not is your own opinion. Beards will always be a thing. They grow on our faces and we don't have control other than shaving. Idk about you but I am a man. My facial hair is coarse and I have sensitive skin. If I were to shave everyday like society wants me to I'd have razor burn and rashes all over my face. What's more acceptable some facial hair? Or open wounds on my face?

Also beards went away for several reasons, Off the top of my head I can think of 2.

  1. WWII and gas masks. Facial hair was causing gas masks to have gaps and not work properly, which is when the military enacted their facial hair rules.

  2. JFK vs Nixon debates were aired on TV nationally. When this happened people liked the way JFK looked clean shaven because at the time even a 5 o'clock shadow would make you look "dirty". So the ceos and corporations adopted that and made it a work place standard.

Beards are acceptable, beards are natural, and i find it's really only those who are jealous they can't grown one that have issues.

That is the wildest take I've ever heard. Full beards can be presentable, professional and clean. A beard goes with a suit like peanut butter goes with jelly.

I always figured rona caused a big enough surge in beards owing to WFH allowing folks to get past the scruff hump that beards could be back on the table again.

First there was WWII, when all men had to be skinheads. Those men continued shaving, and this became a culture handed down to their boys. Now, we’re rebelling against the elders who fucked up everything, so we grow beards to show that we’re different to them.

Source. A lumberjack appered in front of me in a dream I had in 2009.

For me, it's sheer laziness. Can't be arsed to shave more than once every 6 to 10 months.

Do always find it funny when folks react strongly when I do shave. It's hair growth, not a personality.

My step dad is 50 and never amounted to anything in his life so his big thing that he has is his beard. He takes pictures and grooms it and its so so so stupid and it bothers me so much because he's overweight and has done absolutely nothing worthwhile with his whole life but here is like oh yeah my beard is looking so great noone can grow the kind of beard I can. Like alright Dennis how about you go back and finish grade ten and get a real job other than selling pills.

If I may quote Nick Offerman...

I grow a beard because I am neither a child nor a woman.

In my case, it’s because I prefer it. Razors are expensive, and who has time to shave anyway? I’ve had a beard off and on since college in the 80s, when it made me look about five years older. Now it makes me look about 10 years younger. I’ll take it. :)

Razors are expensive,

They don't have to be! Dual edge safety razor blades are like $10 for 100. You could splurge ($50 for a nice one, or hundreds for a really nice, probably unnecessarily expensive one) on a nice handle that will last you the rest of your life, or get just about as good a shave with one that costs $10. Heck, if you're lucky you could find some old, nice one at a garage sale that's already been around 70 years, and will easily still be working fine when you're dead. Unfortunately, like just about everything else old and good, they've become a bit trendy, so it might be hard to find deals like you used to be able to.

Granted. I have both a safety razor and a mug & brush. It just doesn't shave close enough. And I still just prefer a beard.

That's fair. You can get a closer shave with more passes, but that's hard on your skin as well. I can't stand having too much stubble. It gets to a point where it itches like crazy. I pushed through the itchy phase once, and having a beard was alright, but I got some pretty crazy acne underneath it.

I feel you. I’m extremely lucky to never have an itchy phase while it’s growing and rarely have acne. Chalk it up to Neanderthal genetics, I guess. :)

I’m seeing a lot of those creepy mustaches lately.

Dawg like a year ago I came back into the office for the first time since Covid and all the 20 year olds had somewhere between pedo stashes and handlebars. Zoomers crack me up they’re great

I think zoomers are young enough not to have the generational memory of how creepy mustaches are, so suddenly they're cool again. I'm afraid it'll last until the zoomers are old enough to be the creepy ones.

It's kind of like when Justin Bieber was rocking the pedo stash and nobody said anything.

Anybody over the age of 25 was like dude that's a pedo stash, you shouldn't wear that unless you're a pedo.

The girls seem to like it, so I can't complain. But you defo gotta take care of it, bc it looks creepy real quick

It's partly because of Top Gun and some other recent pop culture occurrence I can't recall off the top of my head. But yeah, I know several people at work who recently started doing it as well, and one of them mentioned that as their inspiration. I'm guessing a few started bc of that and more followed suit, because why not or something.

No one here did it because of Top Gun lol.. I think it just came hand in hand with the mullet being back in fashion

You'd be surprised. Just Google it, there are tons of pop magazines and websites that discuss it and how it was trending on TikTok for awhile after the movie came out. And just to add, most fads begin with celebrities/influencers starting them across the various age demographics.

Fashions change. We were about due for a swing back to beardy, I reckon.

Personally, I'm bald, and I grow a really good one that, like, holds a shape. It just makes sense.

Personally I've always found most men look more attractive with beards (I'm a straight dude) so I grew one as soon as I could.

After having it for a while I decided to shave as I hadn't seen my actual face in a few years. After I shaved I realized that I have very chubby cheeks that make me look like a literal child.

I'll never clean shave again

Have you seen how much a razor costs nowadays?

This is the real reason. And I also just prefer to sleep an extra ten minutes every day.

This is the reason I stopped shaving. Cost. I have an electric shaver, but I can't be bothered with a half-ass shave. Also, shaving too often gives me razor bumps.

And, without a beard, I probably look like I should be in high school.

I use a safety razor (~$25) and a pack of 100 is around $5, definitely much better than the Gillette line, and honestly I like it more than even the cheaper "good" razors like Dollar Shave or Harry's.

This is the way! The razorblades last for about 4 uses (7 if stretched) so a pack easily lasts a year, and I haven't cut myself with one yet (in contrast to those pesky plastic razors which can't keep sharpness throughout a single session).

Never gonna give my safety razor up, one would have to wrestle it out if my cold, dead hands!

Cartridges are expensive. We've been trained by Gillette to think cartridges are the only way, but there are much cheaper options.

One of these and a blade sampler pack will get you started (for anyone interested).

Can't speak for anyone else, or if there are any trends, but personally it's because I, at the age of 41, finally have reliable facial hair growth. All men in my family are like this. It's a welcome trade-off for the fact that no men in my family ever develops a bald spot.

As everyone's arguing about what the trend actually is, I went looking for hard numbers. Here's some data spanning the Victorian to the late Cold War, from a paper by Dwight E. Robinson, but the link to it itself appears to be broken now.

Unfortunately, more recent information is googlebombed with people's lightly supported fluff pieces, so a cursory look didn't turn anything like this up for the 80's, 90's, 00's, and 10's.

Thanks, and go go gadget valid link! https://pdodds.w3.uvm.edu/files/papers/others/1976/robinson1976a.pdf

Dope!

Now that I think about it, you can just extrapolate that curve forwards and it matches anecdotal data about the 80's and 90's, reaching a similar smooth face extreme around 1990 to peak beard in the 1890. By that logic, it's a 2-century cycle, and we'll be back to all beards late this century.

I get awful razor burn and I hate shaving. Grow beard, trim the mo' every now and then, go see my barber for a tidy up when it starts getting too wild. So much easier

I don't grow it really, it grows on me. Sometimes I style it, sometimes I shave it off.

Sadly it won't ever look like a proper full beard because it grows very sparsely on the chins sicko-wistful

As an example of how this trend is being noticed is that Jehovah's Witnesses relaxed the rules around facial hair for men in the United States at the beginning of this year.

There's a strong correlation between haircuts and facial hair, and economic uncertainty.

I couldnt find a good source for this, can you share it?

I feel like beards are a reaction to the clean-cut look of the 1980s and 90s. The mainstream aesthetic was clean-cut brutalism, from architecture to facial hair. People in media lived in almost empty spaces made of concrete and hard lines. Even the grunge/plaid look of the 90s featured beardless dudes with a hint of stubble.

In the 2000s, there was a reaction against that. People looked for alternatives. Hipsters grew beards and mustaches. Instead of IKEA catalogs, movie characters lived in cottage-core wizard hangouts or busy apocalyptic shelters. This will continue for a while.

In the next decade or two we're going to see a reaction against that. Politics are going to get funky and I think that'll help get us back to clean-cut and brutal. But here's hoping for a hirsute solar-punk future. Given a choice, I'd take a 1990s-style perfect shave in a solar-punk future, but that's just me.

Fashion is always cyclical. There are loads of guys with beards today, but so many look awful, unkempt, and untidy. Kids today will grow up seeing those awful beards and decide it isn't for them after a couple attempts. A good beard takes just as much effort to maintain as a clean shaven face, which the next generation is going to experience.

Same reason I wear a brown onion on my belt

I can't stop it! It's out of control. As if my facial hair has a mind of it's own.

I hate shaving and I think it's a waste of time. I think facial hair can also act to make your appearance more visually interesting if you prefer to keep your hair cut really short like I do.

I've had a beard for 10+ years now. I was going thru a really rough period and didn't do much hygiene. Once I got out of that rut, I kinda liked it. My spouse, who initially said they didn't like beards, complained when I shaved it.

I've always wanted one. I have a baby face and it makes me look older and people take me more seriously.

I'm slightly less fugly with it, I hope.

But I grew up admiring beards. So I finally decided to grow one over COVID only to find out I got screwed genetically in that area too.

I have a closely cropped beard. I grew it in the pandemic just to see if I could. It didn't look too bad and my wife didn't object so I kept it. Beats shaving every day.

Beards are so itchy and annoying I’d rather just shave.

I really fucking hate wasting my time shaving and gave up on it during the pandemic, then people told me I looked better with it.

Because I can and it looks dope when I put in the time and trim it right.

The mid 2010s trend plus COVID putting everyone into goblin mode.

In the US they were definitely out of fashion in the '80s and '90s. They were fashion statement that said "I'm a gross hippie" or worse, a BeeGee.

I was a teen at the time and the consensus among teen girls was that a beard was the ultimate dealbreaker of a physical attribute. Makes sense, really, because most guys our age couldn't grow a nice one if they wanted to. (And also - hippies are gross). I always respectfully disagreed, and would point to our classmate, Murad. He had pretty well grown facial hair by junior year and he looked fiiiinne.

The exception that proved the rule? Luckily (for Murad) my classmates generally agreed, but refused to back down from their opinion in general.

That attitude persisted, with the occasional appearance of a goatee or soul patch in the late '90s, both of which proved to be a gateway drug that led to the appearance of proper beards. I think a lot of guys would have liked to have beards, but realized that they were driving away potential partners. But they were pretty normal by 2010.

I'll drop this line from wikipedia, which should illustrate just how boringly mainstream beards have become in the US.

Since 2015 a growing number of male political figures have worn beards in office, including Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, and Senators Ted Cruz and Tom Cotton.

Damn hippies.

My wife and I both grew up in the eighties/nineties and this was exactly her attitude for years. It was only when I went ahead and grew one anyway - despite her reservations - and she decided she actually likes the way I look with it and now won't let me shave it off!

I grew a beard after I got food poisoning and the flu back-to-back. I couldn't be arsed to shave.

I did try shaving years later but I hated nicking my chin with a razor and doing it every day was a pain.

I've had facial hair in one form or another since I was 13, now 45 and have a shorter ZZ-Top kind of beard. Wife refuses to let me shave it off.

When I was still in the closet, I grew and maintained a big beard as part of my attempts at performative masculinity.

Not saying that this is what's happening with most men who're growing 'em out, but sometimes I see a bloke with a well maintained set of facial hair looking absolutely miserable and my egg radar starts shrieking.

oh hey its me

Though over the winter it was decidedly not well maintained, longest its ever been, etc. I kind of get weirdly less dysphoric about just letting things go vs. actively cultivating something I don't necessarily want or like.

I mean, beards are in fashion for several years now, aren't they?

I personally started growing a beard, because my skin is easily irritated and I don't like walking arround looking like a pizza. Luckily I also think I look better with a short, well kept full beard. Beards either take time or look like shit though in my experience.

I'm growing it to see how long it gets until it gets too annoying. Every day I want to shave it off or at least cut it fairly short.

The question is: why are you shaving? Why are you so afraid of looking like yourself?

When you have a beard, people respect you. They listen when you talk and hold doors open for you. I have a hard time trusting a man with a clean shaved face, because our interaction is starting off with a lie. I feel the same way about makeup and fake eyebrows and plastic surgery.

As a clean shaved man who doesn't shave because he can't grow any sort of facial hair I feel personally attacked.

I actually dig the Native American, Mongolian, Japanese style. Like a few dark hairs, but mostly smooth. Sometimes it’s just like the mustache tips that get dark. Let it grow.

How far does this go? Are haircuts lies? What about clothing?

I'm a big believer that we should embrace our natural features, but nobody is trying to mislead you into believing they don't grow facial hair.

Yeah and those who cake on makeup aren’t trying to mislead me into thinking they’re pretty either. It does also apply to some clothes. Not regular haircuts but certainly hair dying, straightening, and curling. I would apply it to nail extensions and high heels as well. I think it’s pretty fair to put daily full facial shaving into that same category. It’s all clown shoes to me.

So many men think they look sexy with a beard.
Reality: You look like a serial killer from the backwoods.
Trim and wash it properly or shave it off.
Facial hair is such a turn off.

I'm not growing it for you. I'm growing it because I like it for me. If you don't like it, that's your loss.

This is not a fictional world.

Many men do look sexier with a beard. For some men it helps with obscuring a recessed chin and giving a ‘stronger’ shape.

My personal preference is when men have bit of scruff imo. Like a week of growth with a full mustache. Obviously people like you dislike beards but everyone has their opinions.

Many men do look sexier with a beard. For some men it helps with obscuring a recessed chin and giving a ‘stronger’ shape.

My personal preference is when men have bit of scruff imo. Like a week of growth with a full mustache. Obviously people like you dislike beards but everyone has their opinions.

For every you, there's a woman who feels compelled to pet me because of my beard. I'll take that trade-off.

Pet you? or your beard? Just to clarify.

Especially when most dudes growing beards look like they have public hair growing out of their face. They look ridiculous.

I think they’ve given up on trying to get laid.

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