Facial hair!
Opinions???????

I think most men with a moustache think they look like Magnum PI, but they usually just end up looking like a paedophile.

Goatees suit different people differently… I had one for ages and it just made me look older.
Then I forgot what I looked like without it… so when I got rid of it took me ages to get used to my face again!

A soul patch (hair under the bottom lip) makes most most wearers look like pretentious wankers.
I had one of those for a long time, just because I hate shaving there. But I AM a pretentious wanker so it wasn't out of place.

A full beard is a tricky beast. You have to be able to grow it thick enough to make it work. I've tried a full one just to see how it looks… I looked like Van Gough. This is a bad thing- interesting painter though he was, he looked like a crazed loon, as did I.
Besides, they itch, they're hot, they're like wire on your face, they collect food and liquids like milk play havoc with them.

Chin strap beards are the work of statan.

Neck beards are evil of the purist kind.

ozoneocean
Chin strap beards are the work of statan.

That would be Statan the evil, er…statistician? O.0

I concur with most of your findings there, although context can play a big part in the overall effect. If you're an eighteen year old retro trendsetter for example, a Magnum P.I. stache could be stylishly ironic.

Likewise the under the bottom lip thing, which I think I've heard described as an ‘imperial’. Under normal circumstances it is indeed a work of extreme pretention, but if the lip that sports it is attatched to a saxophone and is blowing angular bebop improvisations, it would almost seem more pretentious not to wear one. Same goes for goatees, although the jazz goatee is often more eccentric in it's habits.

You forgot about the best of them all, the Five-o-clock shadow. These are always badass. Always.

Also, neck-beards aren't really evil they're just horrible looking. Every time I see one, I think there's a guy who doesn't even care about his physical appearance and probably never gets the interest of females. Not so much there goes the Antichrist.

Ironscarf
That would be Statan the evil, er…statistician? O.0

Yes.
He's one bad mofo.

therealtj
You forgot about the best of them all, the Five-o-clock shadow. These are always badass. Always.

Not always.
The exception is anyone with blonde, red, or white hair. Just looks grubby or grizzled. Or both.

You forgot about the best of them all, the Five-o-clock shadow. These are always badass. Always.

Not always.
The exception is anyone with blonde, red, or white hair. Just looks grubby or grizzled. Or both.

Yeah, especially white. Bad ass only if you think The Grinch is mod

I always have a beard or stubble. I absolutely hate being clean shaven.

The one think I will never wear is a moustache on its own, it looks awful on me. Actually I always have to have something on my chin, although when I was younger and thinner I could pull off the wolverine look. Not anymore, too fat.

I used to have a full beard (until Allan Moore came to me in a dream and told me I wasn't worthy of one) and it looked pretty good. Now I'm growing my sideburns out, though not to Wolverine proportioins.

from a female perspective i can tell you facial hair can be a tricky thing on a guy. i hate soul patches, cuase like you said, they're ussually pretty pretencious. im not a big fan of full beards or mustaches. i like side burns, specially with long hair. i adore chops. the chin strap ussually makes ya look gay, specially if yer fat for some reason.

I've grown a full beard with some mixed response, most people seem to think I look OK with it if it's cold out but not so much in warmer weather. Lately I've been going around with a waxed handlebar mustache which gets me some strange looks but sometimes the odd compliment.
Generally I like having facial hair except when I'm eating– to me there's few things more disgusting than a guy with facial hair that gets food caught in it and I'm alway checking to see if I got something stuck in my beard or 'stache.

Genejoke
I always have a beard or stubble. I absolutely hate being clean shaven.

My sentiments exactly. I keep a ‘Riker’.

I'm rockin the Gordon Freeman look




oh yeah… rofl

I keep insisting that my dad grow a goatee or something. I reckon he'd suit one.

My uncle rocked a ‘tashe from when he was in his teen years to when I was in mine. It’s still weird looking at him in more recent photographs and when he visits.


In retrospect, I can only think of two men in my family circle in Scotland that DIDN'T have facial hair or one type or another during my childhood. Even my dad has a constant 5 o' clock shadow. So I see it more as a symbol of life experience rather than butch I'mma rip your face offness. And because of seeing all of these people with them made me kinda wish I could grow one, too… Hell. Even my sister got one at 13. We called it Beardo the Wierdo and it occasionally comes back if she doesn't leave the house for a while.

Compared to her, I've got a whispy, sparse multishaded mess that I've had since I was her age now. It's still more than her boyfriend can grow though. Lol.

Good thing about my facial hair: it only takes about two weeks after completely shaving it off for it to grow right back.

Bad thing about my facial hair: for some reason, it doesn't grow very well near the cheeks, so I'll never be able to grow something like a ZZ Top beard or something on that nature.

However, without any facial hair at all, I look way younger than I really am, and that is not a good thing on those rare occasions when I go to a bar.

I've not had trouble getting served in bars since the age of 15 thanks to facial hair.

When I was a kid, I didn't like it when my dad gave me kisses because his beard itched. :P

Beards can look cool, but they look better if they are trimmed nicely and not unkempt. I remember that I used to think facial hair was all ugly and I only found clean shaven guys attractive, but somewhere in my mid-20's my perspective changed. Now clean-shaven guys (at least around my age) look weird to me. (I haven't been kissed by any bearded men since my childhood, but maybe my views on that have changed too.)

Oh, and they also make a man look older, for better or worse.

I must agree with the chinstrap and neckbeard statements. Those are bizarre inventions that exist for people to look bizarre.

elektro
However, without any facial hair at all, I look way younger than I really am, and that is not a good thing on those rare occasions when I go to a bar.

Grow it back. You look very cool with a beard.

Genejoke
I've not had trouble getting served in bars since the age of 15 thanks to facial hair.

JEBUS! Intimidating.
I think they'd be afraid NOT to serve you.

This inspired me to do a quick collection of some facial hair styles of mine from over the years…



…a tale of many beards.
The porno-stache is the obvious winner.

Genejoke

I've not had trouble getting served in bars since the age of 15 thanks to facial hair.

That's a great shaped head! Have you considered a little waxed number? Nothing to extravagant…

You made him look Prussian!
All he needs now is a pickelhaube helmet and a monocle.

You guys and your crazy experimentation with facial hair. But sometimes, don't you long for more? A time when growing out ridiculous yet somehow intriguing beards could be seen as sign of creativity, power, wealth, or prestige?

If so, you must be one of those types that feels they were born several generations too late. Unfortunately the 19th century has come and gone, and attempting to bring beards from that era into present-day society would only be pertinent to entering contests or having the desire to be a subject of mockery. It's just too bad.

blindsk
time when growing out ridiculous yet somehow intriguing beards could be seen as sign of creativity, power, wealth, or prestige?

Hmm, well in the west, the only time that happened in “recent” history was a period from about the 1850s to 1900, then it went away again. So it was only about 50 years or so that big crazy beards were ever fashionable on a wide scale, contrary to popular belief. Maybe even less than that! O_o

The fashion for big beards actually came from the British occupation of India, as well as contact from some of the exotic Russian territories in the east. But mainly India, with all those massively bearded Sikhs.


Before that, in the West, through most of history men were either always clean shaven or had a fancy little goatee. The further you went into Eastern Europe and into Russia the more beardy you got. But it died out eventually there too, in the cities at least, (till the resurgence in the 1800s), being seen as seen as backwards and uncouth.

Before the 1800s the last time beards were fashionable in the west was after the fall of the Roman Empire, with all those Saxon tribes, Vikings and what have you. But when Christianity took over the beards dies again.
Beards were very rare in Rome and its territories. In ancient Greece they had been very fashionable for a long time, but by the time Alexander the Great was about it seems they were no longer the in thing.
Even the Egyptians limited themselves to silly strapped up little things on the ends of their chins- if that!


…So the beard has had a pretty rough time of it really. It seems that through most of “recorded” history men haven't liked having them very much. In the West anyway.

ozoneocean
Grow it back. You look very cool with a beard.

I'm actually currently growing it back right now. Usually, the only time I shave it is for job interviews.

Genejoke

I've not had trouble getting served in bars since the age of 15 thanks to facial hair.

I've always wondered what my artist for Cubicle looked like, and now I know. You'd make quite an intimidating Glen.

You guys forget the facial hair boom in popularity during the 70s.

But yeah. 100 years ago was the best time for facial hair. Who cares if the water wasn't drinkable and people were dying of toe infections and choking to death on stiff collars. They had awesome face fuzz! Lol.

Amazing how Anglocentric your history of facial hair was Oz when it was the French who were the style leaders. ;)

The mustasche was always the sign of the “elite” going back into the Middle Ages, clean shaven was for Republicans and beards were for working men. Mustaches, and beards go in an out throughout European history. Republican Romans didn't wear facial hair but Imperial and provincial Romans cultivated them for that hard-ass barbarian look. Greeks loved unruly facial hair because of how sexy Spartans looked with it, but if you wanted to be “civilized” you kept if well groomed. Fashion.

Facial hair vanished in the late 17th Century because it didn't go very well with powdered hair and once Louis XIV got rid of his everybody else did too. Then came the “Golden Age” of facial hair the 19th Century which grew out of everyone copying Frenchmen. Facial styles were named for arms of the French Army. The American cavalrymen cultivated the French Imperial guard cavalry with mustache ala Dragoon and earrings. An “Imperial” was named as it was Emperor Napoleon III's style and everyone followed Paris' lead.

Facial hair vanished in the early 20th century for one main primary reason: it was unsanitary in the trenches. Wrist watches, trench coats, short hair and no facial hair all came from the trenches. That style continued into the mid decade until you had American musicians and then Beatniks bring back the intelligensia facial hair of the 19th Century. Pretentious.

And it's only a porno stache to people who can't grow one. :p Those of us who have had them for the past 20+ years it's a mustache ala' Dragoon. Pointed ends is ala Hussard, very thick and bushy is ala' Grenadier.

And as a good fair haired friend of mine once observed: a blonde with facial hair looks nothing so much like he's blurry or out of focus.

And I still can't see how Joshua Chamberlain ever ate soup or drank coffee…

Faliat
You guys forget the facial hair boom in popularity during the 70s.

That was an 1800's revival.
Very short loved.

Bravo, even in France, facial hair was limited, mostly kept in the goatee style even there. They were noted for it.
Really, by FAR the largest effect on fashion in the 1800's was what was brought back from the exploitation of the east. Compare beard styles in Europe with what had always been in India and it's pretty obvious.

Look at paintings and sculpture from all throughout European history… I HAD forgotten about the beards in Renaissance Italy though! I admit that!
But art before and after that period featured men with either limited goatees or clean shaven…

I do NOT see where you get Greeks with lots of unruly facial hair…? In most of the imagery they have they seem quite proud of how well groomed and well looked after their long, combed and immaculately oiled beards were

Bravo
And it's only a porno stache to people who can't grow one. :p Those of us who have had them for the past 20+ years it's a mustache ala' Dragoon. Pointed ends is ala Hussard, very thick and bushy is ala' Grenadier.

No, I had a pointed, curled thing once. It was stupid.
The “porno-stache” is so called because of the particular clipped and modified shape. With the line on either side etc- looking weird…


As for blonde beards etc- The rule with facial hair isn't colour, it's contrast! the more a beard differs from your skin tone, the better!
This is why a very tanned man with brown beard and hair a similar tone to his skin will just look grotty and unkempt. But if his beard is darker or lighter than his skin, it'll look cool.
THAT is a good general rule for facial hair.
-lighter skin with a light beard is bad, but if the beard is darker in tone it's good.
-Red face with a red beard isn't good, and so on.
-Most people with dark brown skin are lucky in that their hair tends to be either black or grey/white, so it will usually always differ from skin tone enough to look good.

Ironscarf

Genejoke

I've not had trouble getting served in bars since the age of 15 thanks to facial hair.

That's a great shaped head! Have you considered a little waxed number? Nothing to extravagant…

That's brilliant!

ozoneocean
Hmm, well in the west, the only time that happened in “recent” history was a period from about the 1850s to 1900, then it went away again. So it was only about 50 years or so that big crazy beards were ever fashionable on a wide scale, contrary to popular belief. Maybe even less than that! O_o

History and I never had a good…well…history. :( I'm happy my guess at least included that time frame! ;)

By the way, ozone, I honestly don't think the top three in your collage of yourself don't look too bad!

Despite not knowing the history of the beard, this subject holds great interest to me.

I just know that when you're my size ( approx 5'11" and 200 pounds ), it absolutely has to be a full beard. No other facial hair will work as an acceptable substitute, unless you have a desire to look like a fat comic book nerd or creepy preacher.

Braided beard are a testament to awesomeness!

ozoneocean
I think most men with a moustache think they look like Magnum PI, but they usually just end up looking like a paedophile.

Well said, sir. Well said, rofl.!

I wish I could grow a full goatee but alas I only have a soul patch.

Weird because my dad has a bear the size of Kansas.

Beard the size of Kansas, make that.

I Am The 1337 Master
Weird because my dad has a bear the size of Kansas.

1337 master's dad is gay?

Or maybe I'm wrong and he really doesn't like his mum.

Maybe you do have a pet bear, I dunno. Not sure which one's more likely. Lol.