Check out this great essay on beards written by a new friend of the site:

When Men Were Men

It’s well worth reading!

I frequently hear from new beard growers who are intimidated about letting their new beards grow much beyond the stubble stage.  Fear not.  Carry on.  Let it grow.  Too often, they express fear that a beard growing longer than stubble will be too long!  These fears are unfounded. With a new beard, your self-perception is altered.  The thought of going beyond stubble may terrify you, with visions of presenting a monster beard.  A monster beard — or simply one that you feel is too big or too long — requires going far beyond stubble.  Ease up.  Don’t worry.  Don’t stop growing.

If you’re growing a new beard, don’t stop before you’re done.  Don’t stunt your new beard.  Let it grow beyond the stubble without fear.  Let it grow out, fill in, and blossom.  Give it a fair chance.

A beard beyond stubble length is more of a real beard.  If the stubble beard is what you really want, then keep it at that length.  But if you’re growing a new beard, don’t be afraid to go beyond stubble.  Otherwise, you deprive yourself and others of seeing your fully-grown beard in all its glory.

So how long should you let your new beard grow?  You don’t have to let it grow to the size of Rich’s beard pictured above.  But you should get closer to his length than clinging to the stubble range.  See how you like the way your beard shapes up after passing the stubble stage.   You may be pleasantly surprised.  Rich’s beard, above, clearly demonstrates that a fully-grown beard can appear neat and well-groomed.

Keep growing!

Thinking about growing a beard?  Here is the first thing that you should know about making that decision: forget about whether beards are in fashion or not.  Grow a beard because you want to grow a beard, not to follow a trend.  If beards seem to be “in fashion”, that’s great.  The more popular beards are, the better.  Nevertheless, whether they are popular or not, grow your beard because it is what you want to do.  That decision should never be dictated by the whims of fashion.

Click on photo for full image.

A friendly gentleman with an amazing beard used to run the Hess gas station in front of Manassas Mall in Virginia.  He kept the massive full beard pretty much all of the time, but occasionally would shave it off and commence re-growing it again right away.  One time when he was in the early stages of growing the beard again, I looked at his beard in awe and thought to myself that the beard growth was so dense and abundant, that it appeared to gush out from his face.  He was a beard gusher — an extraordinary sight, indeed!

I would guess that he has long-since retired by now.  I haven’t been to Virginia in many years.  Still, I’ll never forget the sight of that powerful beard.  Beards like his are rarely seen.  This makes an excellent case for documentary beard photography.  Great beards should be photographed!

Billy Mays photo by beards.org is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. Based on a work at www.flickr.com.

Billy Mays unexpectedly passed from this life on June 28, 2009.  Billy was a famous pitch man on television, enthusiastically selling a variety of products.  Through his work on television and personal appearances, Billy Mays became a celebrity.  Just as famous as Billy himself was his dark full beard.  Billy demonstrated to the world that a full-bearded man could appear in advertising and achieve great success.  For that, I say, “Thank you, Billy.”

After a much-too-long hiatus, the beards.org documentary beard photography project resumed activity yesterday with another original beard photo shoot.  Dale, with his amazing beard growth, kindly agreed to the beard photo shoot.  Here are some preview shots from March 20th, 2009.

Beard Revue turned one year old, a month ago.  In celebration, the site is selling a cool beard poster.  Be sure to check it out!

Belated happy anniversary to Beard Revue!

Stand up and cheer for a Happy New Beard Year 2009!  Best wishes to all.

When beards go wrong, one of the most common causes is poor shaping.  The most common example is defining the neck line too high.   What’s the problem with a bad neck line definition?  There are many.  Depending on the severity of the error, it may make to the beard look just a bit odd or it may make it look like a disaster.  In a way, the point of growing a beard is to cover the chin with hair.   So why carve out the underside of the chin and jaw, leaving them bare?  Why?  Perhaps not surprisingly, new beard growers have seen someone else do it and mistakenly conclude that must be the way it’s supposed to be done and emulate the misplaced neck line.

A properly shaped beard with a good neck line can usually hide or disguise a double chin.  A poorly-defined neck line, up too high, often does just the opposite: It can accentuate the double chin, often substantially, to the detriment of the beard grower’s appearance.

Defining the neck line too high can give the beard a comical look.  And if the error is sufficiently severe, the beard may almost give the owner the look of a permanent clown face.  Who wants that?  Not even a professional clown.

So please, take care to give your beard the proper shape.  You will be glad you did.  And if you know someone in need of help, send them here: Designing a neck line for your full beard.

Now what about defining that cheek line?  There are pitfalls to be avoided there as well.  That will be the subject of an upcoming post.