Show us your beard!

[Rusty Shackleford]

Wow, Rusty! Nice variation of styles for the beard! I like the rolled up one the best, but all of the styles in the pictures look good!

I honestly like the rolled up beard the best, but having a long beard is just too freaking cool so I'm not yet ready to give it up.  As long as I can roll it up to mimic the look that works best then I'll probably continue with this best-of-both-worlds thing.

I biggest thing I've learned is that you must push the boundaries because it allows you to see what boundaries are real and what boundaries are just figments of your imagination.  A few weeks ago I posted on the beardboard.net about this nearly 19 year adventure in facial hair and how I had done so many mistakes and done most for such a long time.  It is only by pushing the limits that I've learned what really works.

The main thing I learned is that I've found a beard is aesthetically the best when it is long enough to bulk-up the face but yet not so long it starts to hang.  When it starts getting some bulk the beard is masking as much of the skin as possible and even allows you to sculpt the very shape of your head.  I place beards longer than that optimun the category of awesomeness: objects to be judged more as an accomplishment and sheer impressiveness than asthetics.  Beards shorter than this optimal just seem to take on more a lot of the bad characteristics of a beard without any of the benefits. 

Of course that's a big generalization and your mileage may vary, but I do strongly believe that a guy will never maximize the value of their beard to themselves unless they push well-beyond their preconceived limits and honestly give it a shot.  Far too often guys settle with mediocrity because they're pressured into limiting themselves and end up convincing themselves to agreement.

Like I said I've done it all: high necklines, trimming too short, low cheeks, etc but I never really figured out or even noticed these mistakes until pushing things.  I always thought I did not have a neck suitable for a beard because my face wasn't round enough, and thought my head was "unbeardable".  I'd get inspired to grow a beard and would be dissatified.  I'd try to correct it by raising the neckline, found it would make things worse, lowered the neckline, found it made things worse too, and after going back and forth a few times I'd end up shaving back to a goatee. 

While my skull isn't the optimal shape for a beard, this time around I already had a mega-long goatee so pushing the beard limits wasn't much of a stretch.  So I did.  I let it grow longer than of the others I had, I kept the neckline low, and I actually got it right.  I discovered that with a "bulkier" beard I was actually able to reshaped my face to the rounder shape more suitable for a beard.  I keep the bottom around 3" long and the sideburns tight and it just works.

I also learned that I was brushing and training the hairs wrong (i.e. straight down) when instead I needed to brush them down and towards the mouth.

It's crazy.  I first grew facial hair in 1995 but it wasn't until around 2007 that I finally started figuring things out.  I look back at older pictures and now realize that the suckiness of my beard was mainly due to my ignorance on what I was doing instead of mediocre genetics.

[Blitzed]

More than forty years ago I grew a beard, or started to. Considering that, then, I had deep brown hair I thought facial fur would follow suit; It didn't. At just about the bottom of my earlobe I noticed that my deep mahogany was turning a colour I cannot define. Then. As things drooped I found that that it wasn't so much one colour but the distasteful blending of several colours that resembled   nothing so much as a poorly spotted pinto or an African Spotted Dog. Here and there I was auburn, red, brown, gray, white, a strange mushroom colour that I've not seen since. At first friends and family kidded me about all this-to be expected-but....as the diversion of colours snuck in they stopped kidding and asked if, perhaps, I should see my physician. Their theory being that,  clearly, this profusion indicated something deeper, perhaps glandular but not right. Six months later I was clean shaven to the relief of many who asked what the doctor had given me to "clear up the problem". My answer, " A Razor", didn't satisfy them for whatever reason. Indeed decades later when I showed up with MS some referred back to my spotted beard as clear indication that something wrong was coming.....

[imaginary]

More than forty years ago I grew a beard, or started to. Considering that, then, I had deep brown hair I thought facial fur would follow suit; It didn't. At just about the bottom of my earlobe I noticed that my deep mahogany was turning a colour I cannot define. Then. As things drooped I found that that it wasn't so much one colour but the distasteful blending of several colours that resembled   nothing so much as a poorly spotted pinto or an African Spotted Dog. Here and there I was auburn, red, brown, gray, white, a strange mushroom colour that I've not seen since. At first friends and family kidded me about all this-to be expected-but....as the diversion of colours snuck in they stopped kidding and asked if, perhaps, I should see my physician. Their theory being that,  clearly, this profusion indicated something deeper, perhaps glandular but not right. Six months later I was clean shaven to the relief of many who asked what the doctor had given me to "clear up the problem". My answer, " A Razor", didn't satisfy them for whatever reason. Indeed decades later when I showed up with MS some referred back to my spotted beard as clear indication that something wrong was coming.....

I don't think society teaches us much on certain things, such as facial hair. It is not uncommon for someone to have a different color beard than their head. It is also not uncommon to have other colors in their beard than their head.

[imaginary]

[Mr Jules]

Imaginary, The beard is coming on a treat. Like that black and white photo.

[djones]

I went overboard on no shave November and cut nor trimmed anything from October to new years including my hair.felt like I lost five pounds when I shaved and my son took several hours to recognize me lol

[mahaw90]

I'm growing a beard again!

[Razor X]

No, you grew a beard again.  Looks great!

[Mr Jules]

BBCMark, that's a magnificent beard. Considering going to the barber's to have it shaped.

[Goatee]

Mr Jules. You have the goatee i am aiming for. Thing is, wife and daughter say no!

[Mr Jules]

Mr Jules. You have the goatee i am aiming for. Thing is, wife and daughter say no!

Koolpc,

So have you been discussing a goatee with your family ? They might change their minds, when they see the look and feel of it !

[Sir Harry]

Wow, Mark....Awesome beard!

[Goatee]

Mr Jules. You have the goatee i am aiming for. Thing is, wife and daughter say no!

Koolpc,

So have you been discussing a goatee with your family ? They might change their minds, when they see the look and feel of it !

I already have a Goatee. I just want it bigger! lol

[Sir Harry]

Koolpc, show us the goatee! (if you can)

[baldbearded]

Perfect goatee... Next... the dome!