It is known that male ponies can, in fact, grow beards. Starswirl the bearded is a fine example of this trait.

What concerns me though is how these ponies manage to shave. Not just in the practical sense that, if you're not a unicorn, it's hard to even control a shaver; but the in fact that they have more hair on their facial area than just their beards. How are ponies supposed to shave without shearing off their coats as well?

It looks entirely possible from looking at Mr Cake but it makes no sense when looking at the shaving tools that we use. Could there be ponies trotting around with a completely hairless faces? Or have ponies just come up with some revolutionary shaving system that targets only specific types of hairs?

This doesn't really have anything to do with a story I'm writing but it would be nice to know for future reference.

966308 Magic I ain't gotta explain manure.

966308
Magic. Just plain magic. I hate to say it, but I can't think of anything else viable other than magic. High-tech hair detection scanners might work, but that would be hard to explain.

966308
Called scissors my fine chap

966313 For the unicorns sure. But I doubt earth ponies or pegasi really have much ability to do that

966308
The simplest answer is that, like people, some ponies have 'facial hair' and some don't, with a lot of middle ground between the extremes. Assume that it's just a part of the coat that grows longer (but not faster, as it likely wouldn't) and the whole thing can be easily explained away with an occassional trip to the barber shop or having a family member cut it for you (with some wiggle room for unicorns). Basically, it'd just be part of everyone's standard hygene routine.

From there: Scissors.

966339 What he said.

966321 This.

966339 And this.

966339 Thanks! I was about to resort to 'beard grooming sessions with unicorns' because of the majority vote of 'it's all magic'. This makes much more sense and seems far more plausible

A beard trimmer.. They work wonders at keeping things nice and short. Would work to keep the whiskers flush with the fur on their faces.

966370
You're welcome.

On thinking about it for another few minutes, if you use this, add a spring into the scissors so that they can be used purely (with finesse) by a closing force (read: mouth) and don't need to be manually opened. I think they're technically shears at that point.

Barber shops?

I would assume ponies would go in for a shave and a haircut. Maybe the beards dont grow as fasts as humans would, so they wouldnt need to shave every day. But really I'd think that if they needed to shave and they were earth pony or pegasus that they could just go to the barber shop and let them do it.

Just one more of dozens of questions they don't address in the show. The writers, producers and Hasbro could learn from us, ya know?

I have the perfect headcanon for this!

Ponies dont naturally grow beards or mustaches. They are grown artificially with magic. Like Twi can do to Spike. In times past, growing a beard was a display of a unicorn's magical prowess, hence Starswirl. But in the modern day, it is merely a novelty of personal taste that any skilled unicorn barber would be happy to provide you with.

966572
But why would they have beards in the first place? If they never had beards and thus would need magic to get them, why would it occur to them to get a beard?

My head-canon is that all ponies naturally have no beards, but after seeings several diamond dog alphas with beards, some unicorns developed a spell to grow facial hair. The spell rocketed barbering as one of the most unicorn-dominated careers in Equestria...

Oh look, 966572 Great minds think alike, eh?

The majority of pony hair (coats) are probably like eyebrows, not really growing longer than one standard height. One would think that there are unicorn barbers trained for shaving off unwanted (or trimming wanted) extra facial hair. We see that pony facial hair is similar to human (growing stubble, mustaches, beards, etc.) but since there is a difference between their coat and facial hair (as we've seen, different colors and probably textures) there is probably big enough of a difference for a barber to detect.

966308
Nobody's linked this yet? Fine.

966601 Perhaps it was an experiment in days of old that resulted in growing long hair on some arbitrary part of the body. And over time someone figured, I want a mane on my face! Hey, trends have been started in weirder ways. Look at tattoos, I'll just stab myself repeatedly with an inky needle so I can have a picture on my skin.

Not to mention, some animals have facial hair-esque stuff. Goats have beards. lol. And actually, if you think about it, the orginal medievel representation of a unicorn always had a little goat beard.

966610 They sure do!

It's a cartoon. Don' worry 'bout it.

966308
Keep in mind, not all hair in the world is like the hair on the human head.
Your cat doesn't become a rolling ball of fur if you don't trim it. One doesn't find hugely shaggy horses unless they're bred that way.

Likewise, look at say, your eyebrows, as another person mentioned. It doesn't need to be cut.

Most of the hair in the animal kingdom just sort of stops growing at a certain point. Human head hair is a pretty weird and exotic thing.

Most of the ponies we see with beards probably just let it grow, and what we see is the full growth of what they get. And the ponies without beards probably never get them.