The beard of regret. · 2:34am Mar 3rd, 2022
This is a post about beards. Specifically, my beard. There's pretty much nothing else, so I encourage you to skip this post if you couldn't care less about beards.
Not many of you probably know this, but I like beards. I enjoy having a beard, and I admire well-kept beards on other people. I think beards are nifty, but I've always kept mine fairly short, mostly for the sake of work. So, naturally, I took advantage of the recent lockdown and work-from-home rules to grow out my beard to lengths I had never achieved before!
For two years I never cut, never shaved, never trimmed. I just let things grow wild and natural, because why not? After all, nobody is going to see me, except for Mrs. McGee (who had reservations about the project, but let me do my thing without protest).
I bought beard oils and beard balm, a special comb, a special brush, and beard shampoo and conditioner. I watched beard channels on Youtube to learn about beard maintenance. I didn't exactly become an expert, but I definitely became a well-informed, if somewhat hairy, layperson.
I managed a considerable length, and I learned many interesting things. For one, I have a LOT more grey in my beard than I realized! For another, small children like my great-nieces and nephews are either fascinated or terrified by the beard, quite often simultaneously. Also, a toddler has enough grip strength to suspend themselves off the floor using nothing but a handful of your beard hair, and that this is also quite painful.
Then return-to-work happened. And I decided that, no. I am not cutting my beard for work. I like my beard! I can braid it! I can hide pencils in it! It's awesome, and luxurious, and really cool, and I can pretend to be Santa Claus next December!
And, for several weeks, I was able to get by. I was "the guy with the beard" at work. I liked it. I enjoyed the occasional comment—even the snarky ones, because I simply assumed they were jealous of my beard.
But then, there came a problem. My job changed, and I was now required to be face-to-face with people on a daily basis. And face-to-face meant wearing a mask. And wearing a mask meant I spent a LOT of time eating my own beard.
I came to a hard and painful decision: the beard would have to go. Not all of it, of course. A shorter beard would be fine! But the bulk of it? I just couldn't deal with it and a mask at the same time.
So, I trimmed the beard. Well over 12 inches, gone, leaving barely half an inch behind. My face felt naked. But at least my mask fit without getting hair in my mouth.
And then, a few days later, Minneapolis lifted the mask mandate, and I no longer have to wear a mask. The beard-cutting was unneeded.
Rather than curse the unfairness of life or my own lack of foresight, I instead doubled down with a new determination to, once again, grow out my beard. Will it ever again reach its former glory? Only time will tell.
And that's the story of my beard. I'm not sure why I wrote this, and I'm less sure why you read it. But I'm glad you did.
~Hoopy
(ps., writing is happening on a pony-related short story, but I am so rusty!)
Damn. Sounds like that was quite a beard. You and my brother would get along well. Hope it grows back to its former glory!
What does the lady think of the new look?
Lmao
Wow, twelve inches? :O I am impressed. I removed a whole inch today just to free up a bit of face since it's getting warmer.
I also appreciate a well-kept beard, which mine definitely is not. I basically only have it because it hides some of the ugh that is my face. XD And I vary its length with the seasons.
Beard bro /)
I settle for my full circle. every time I try to grow it proper I get driven crazy by it.
As a fellow human with a large beard (I'm halfway to full dwarf braids) all I can say is ...
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Though with mask times, I did have to trim very carefully so I wasn't eating beard hair all day.
Clearly, an en-beardening update is required for your avatar.
That sucks about the beard, but at least now you know you’ll want that beard the rest of your life.
I haven’t cut my hair since the pandemic started. And now I look fabulous.
5641121
I got dizzy watching that.
Sadly, i can never have a beard…. Only chin fuzz.
An epic saga for the ages indeed! Here's to even greater beard lengths in future.
You ask me, a beard like that should have counted as a mask.
Also, it turns out we're neighbors. Who knew?
Pfft even a rusty story from you is worth the effort.
damn, over 12 inches... ive been growing my beard for 6 years and it just seems afraid to venture more than 3 inches from my face. it gets that far then turns around.
The bit about the toddlers is adorable and hilarious.
You'll make a fine Santa one day.
Long time beard wearer here. When the mask mandate hit, I decided to make the most of it and trim both my beard and hair down to 3/8ths. In the end, the whole "Not going to a barber" thing worked so well, I now trim down to 1/8th so I don't have to do it so often. And while I too live within a horse shoe throw from Minneapolis (specifically Bloomington), I've actually doubled down on the whole mask thing. Turns out wearing a mask helps with my laundry list of both indoor and outdoor allergies. I can actually be outdoors (and some of the mustier indoor areas) without breaking out into sneezing fits all the ****ing time. (I grew up on a farm. My childhood was hell.
) Also, I've started wearing a CPAP machine at night, and I can get a better seal with shorter facial hair.
...all that said, I miss my mustache.
Worship the beard!
Anyway, I'm glad you're doing fine.
I can't stand the feeling of a beard. I'm nearly 34 and, to this day, I always start my morning by shaving.
Pouring one out for the loss of an epic beard. RIP.
I feel your beard pain. Way back in the 90s, I got tired of shaving every morning, so I grew a beard for the vast majority of my life I’ve had one. Had to shave to wicked muttonchops for a play once and discovered that I also had way more grey in my beard than I’d thought (and that was like ten years ago, lol), and I also re-discovered a scar on my chin I’d quite forgotten I had.
Also, my beardless chin was really cold.
Luckily, after the play I was able to grow it back in short order, and my chin hasn’t been cold since then.
I’ve tried long, had a goatee that was decent-length once, but I just don’t like the intermediate stage and feel the need to trim it back to a more manageable length.
Beards are cool
I've never been able to put up with a beard. I grow a few inches, then my face itches, then I cut it off. I guess I'm just too far removed from my ancestral barbarians
Tragic Irony, No Beard!
beard-care tips as a fellow beard, but also as someone who has been making soap and doing research on everything related for... quite a while.
Buy some jojoba oil and castor oil, mix the two together in equal amounts for beard oil. Most "beard oils" will contain those two oils and others, the problem is the other oils are nowhere near as good as those two. I call this oil combination "conditioning oil" - mostly because it is exceptionally healthy for both skin and hair.
Use naturally made soap to wash beard (and hair!) with, and while still in the shower, rinse with vinegar, then rinse out the vinegar. Vinegar is an exceptional hair conditioner because of the way hair fibers work. Then finally comb in the jojoba oil and castor oil mix after the shower.
Part of my soap research was finding out how quickly oils go bad (or rancid). Olive oil, grape seed oil, safflower oil, and pretty much every other low-saturation fat oil out there goes bad really quickly. Oil manufactures add citric acid to mask when they actually go bad, so you can't smell or taste it. Unless you live right next to an oil manufacturing facility, chances are the oils are already partially rancid sitting on the store shelf. For this reason I recommend sticking to highly saturated oils like palm oil, coconut oil, lard, and tallow for cooking with, because they have a much much longer shelf-life.
Jojoba oil and castor oil are quite special however. Jojoba oil is technically a waxy substance that most closely resembles the oil your body already makes. Castor oil is pretty much the only source for ricinoleic acid that does a lot for skin and hair. Because jojoba oil is a waxy substance, it does not mix with the castor oil, so just shake it before use. Castor oil is (IMO) too thick to use by its self in hair, so I just mix the two in equal amounts. As near as I can tell, only jojoba and castor oil have a really long shelf life that are not high-saturation fatty acid oils.
I hope this helps
"Minneapolis lifts it's mask mandate" keep forgetting that you live in Minnesota... And that I live in the same state
Yeah, knows how it feel, and reminds me that I should shave
Is anyone home
It's been a year... Come back please?..
ahh a fellow beard aficionado
I leave you with this
Obey the beard
5644285
a good quality face cleaner and beard oil will remove the itching
A blog about beards, but not about stories. Or seemingly, about not being online "in the future". 2023 is almost out, and last online time was 2022. At the day of this blog...