Is it just me, or our beards more popular now than ever?

Who thinks the trend in not shaving (notice I did not say beards, since so much of what passes for a beard these days is not) is related to the price of cartridges, and the crappy shaves so many men get from them, and from electrics?

I also see lots of guys here at work who shave every 3rd- 4th day, just beacause they hate shaving, mostly due to the above reasons.

I started the beard trend today. Yup, back in 2012 I grew a beard when beards were not popular. Slowly they started gaining ground because of my awesome beard.

You're welcome.

Beards are definitely popular now but I don't wear one anymore. My work is done.

I see more facial hair but most I find hard to take serious wearing their little sisters pants.

Yep, facial hair is 'in' as they say. Facial hair is a period thing and it comes and goes in style over decades although I have no idea why that is. And it is not razor availability or invention either; during early America, clean shaven was the rule (ever see a 'founding father' with facial hair?). But through the middle 1800's, beards were extremely common. Clean shaven has ruled most of the 1900's although during and after the '60's it was sort of a rebellious thing to not shave (as opposed to growing a beard- a beard is a lot of work, not shaving is no work at all). Facial hair came back into style sometime around 2000 and as others have mentioned, in the last few years "scritch" or 3 days of stubble is quite popular.

I do know shaving every single day is an American invention tracable back to WW I when gas masks were in use, coupled with the ready availability and extremely inexpensive double edged razor and blades.

I have had a full beard since the early 1980's and they were quite uncommon back then. I shave every single day, about 1/2 of my face, and trim the beard to no more than about 3/8" long. It is a LOT of work to maintain a full beard this way and would be much easier and faster to just shave, or do the electric 'buzz cutter' thing and leave the scritch behind.

Brian

Christoph said:

Well, I don't too much business in this particular category as I have never had a beard and probably won't have one for a long time, though it is something I have secretly wanted to do.

Anyway, I think beards are more popular than ever. THere are a lot of beards seen on TV, in commercials, shows, music videos, etc. One look I see a lot of is short hair (on head) with a beard.

SO my question is: are beards actually seeing a wave of increased popularity, or is this just my imagination?

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nevernamed said:

I think its happening. But not good beards. Big douchey ridiculous ones lol

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^ This is pure poetry and I totally agree.

This thread is tempting me to try my hand and growing a beard. But ever since finding this board, I've learned to enjoy shaving, so I'm a bit torn...

I prefer to think that manliness is coming back in style.

Yes, the no shaving thing is popular, as is the vandyke, and various other close beard variations. But I have seen a rise in this whole bigger beard thing: scraggly, sometimes deliberately unkempt, long, and then often with very short hair or really short on the sides. You see things that look like the military "high and tight" but with a big long beard.

Where does this come from? Who knows? Duck Dynasty has certainly helped it out. But so has a general boredom with the status quo.

I noticed the same phenomena here in France, particularly among the young males. IMHO this is related to the current trend of hipster culture, unfortunately with all due respect most of them are skinny dudes who lack of manliness.

I would say that since the worlds largest and most popular wet shaving forum decided to include a sub forum for facial hair due to requests recently, it's safe to say its become more popular

Or they just want to know who we are so they can ban all of us.

Deltaboy said:

I am seeing way more facial hair from HS boys on up to the 50 year old crowd. And it is folks who did not have one before.

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Attended our HS homecoming Friday night and Yep we are having more forms of facial hair than we did even 5 years ago. We had a little over 2,000 in attendance on the Home side.

Popularity of beards is on the rise due to popular culture reinforcing it:


I'm looking forward to growing my winter beard again.

My wife, however, is NOT looking forward to it....

It is the one area on your head that doesn't go bald

Yes...that too...

This thread tempted me to try. I'm about a week in. My face itches so bad. I don't know if I can make it any longer.

I'm in college right now and beards are absolutely everywhere. Some of them are quite magnificent, most would be better off getting set on fire "accidentally".

Personally I haven't had facial hair since I got out of high school. Used to grow a goatee on my chin, but my first year of college I had a math professor with the same raggedy looking goatee and I decided "You know what maybe let's not."

Eeyore said:

Look at men's fashion brochures .. beards all over.

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+1

Lomoru said:

I'm in college right now and beards are absolutely everywhere. Some of them are quite magnificent, most would be better off getting set on fire "accidentally".

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Bingo!

if you can grow a beard like this, go for it:



But... if you grow a beard like this, then shave it off.