Remember, remember the Month of Movember!
October 31, 2010 8:03 PM   Subscribe

 
Movember? Never. I celebrate Novembeard.
posted by The White Hat at 8:09 PM on October 31, 2010 [8 favorites]


I stand firm in my appreciation of anything which increases the amount of male facial hair on the planet.
posted by hippybear at 8:11 PM on October 31, 2010 [6 favorites]


Sorry, I didn't mean that to be sexist. Women, you can grow your facial hair, too. But it's the guys that I watch.
posted by hippybear at 8:12 PM on October 31, 2010 [10 favorites]


I am personally giving one hundred dollars of Mr. Padraigin's money to ball-health if he grows a fabulous face of hair for the month. Also, I myself will not be shaving, because it be cold here where we live now.
posted by padraigin at 8:15 PM on October 31, 2010 [1 favorite]


OOh merch!
posted by Sukiari at 8:17 PM on October 31, 2010


So some guys shave still?
posted by unSane at 8:21 PM on October 31, 2010 [9 favorites]


I'm personally too busy mourning the end of Stachetober.
posted by rosken at 8:21 PM on October 31, 2010 [3 favorites]


If you can convince my chain of command to approve a shaving chit for the month of November I'm all for it.
posted by QuarterlyProphet at 8:23 PM on October 31, 2010 [1 favorite]


Yes, I've already received an email from every single guy in my department.

Do I sponsor the first one, or my favourite one, or do I wait for the most impressive mo?
posted by pompomtom at 8:28 PM on October 31, 2010


Man I gots like my entire life to grow a beard, I'll wait til I'm 38 like all the other fags.
posted by The Whelk at 8:28 PM on October 31, 2010 [6 favorites]


My annual cold months beard appeared a little early this year. I usually don't let it grow out until this time of year but I had a few extra busy weeks in September and kept forgetting to shave.
posted by octothorpe at 8:30 PM on October 31, 2010


if you aren't over, i don't know, 50, your moustache looks terrible.
posted by rainperimeter at 8:33 PM on October 31, 2010 [10 favorites]


So if we're talking about sexuality and facial hair and sexiness and types, let me just say that TLA has released a very bad movie, cause that's what's TLA does, about hirsute gay men and their loves and losses called Bearcity, which is bad, and NEXT magazine puts them on the front cover..and this is what NEXT thinks a "bear" is, and my prediction just comes true that the term is meaningless now. Some context.
posted by The Whelk at 8:40 PM on October 31, 2010 [1 favorite]




if you aren't over, i don't know, 50, your moustache looks terrible.

My BFF is judging your uncalled for ageism.
posted by Mizu at 8:44 PM on October 31, 2010


Also I know someone who is growing out his mustache this month for charity, all the mustache fetishes who would give him money for growing it are instructed to donate it to his given charity. They get his luscious lip cover and some children in need get clean water. WIN WIN.
posted by The Whelk at 8:44 PM on October 31, 2010


Dear Bears,

Please don't shave anymore.

Lurv,

Cat Pie Hurts
posted by Cat Pie Hurts at 8:46 PM on October 31, 2010 [2 favorites]


Well, they do appear to be covered in honey...
posted by Forktine at 8:47 PM on October 31, 2010


I'm kinda old now, and I've noticed lately that these hipster kids all seem to be wearing ironic mustaches. (The boys, mostly.) I am here to say IT MUST STOP.
posted by scratch at 8:49 PM on October 31, 2010 [1 favorite]


I'm kinda old now, and I've noticed lately that these hipster kids all seem to be wearing ironic mustaches. (The boys, mostly.) I am here to say IT MUST STOP.


Whatever It Takes
posted by The Whelk at 8:53 PM on October 31, 2010 [2 favorites]


The Whelk: funny... I'm working on a quality FPP about bears and bear history and culture. We'll see where that leads. but yeah, I agree with you -- if those are bears.... ugh.
posted by hippybear at 8:54 PM on October 31, 2010


Those of us with non-ironic moustaches resent your mockery, but welcome your enthusiasm.

JOIN US

Anything that further distinguishes the sexes makes us sexier.
posted by Capt. Renault at 8:55 PM on October 31, 2010 [1 favorite]


if those are bears.... ugh.

I've decided the term means nothing. If it did, it's dead now. If You could say 20 years ago that, and being conservative and realizing it's a stupid made up word fraught with a lot of indenity shit and stupid shit and decades of pissing me off, that a bear was "A gentleman of husky, broad build with a natural hirsuteness and facial hair, often a bit older" , then how can you call the stars of a movie called Bearcity that unless you conceed the word is now pontypool snowclone gah gah.

My current theory that the mainstreaming and dilution of the term has to do with the first generation of Out gay men who didn't get all Killed In Their 30s and now have to deal with Metabolisms remains.
posted by The Whelk at 8:59 PM on October 31, 2010


In favour of or against moustaches?
Point. Counterpoint.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 9:00 PM on October 31, 2010 [6 favorites]


November? WAY too early for a hockey beard.
posted by maudlin at 9:02 PM on October 31, 2010 [2 favorites]


Or, from Twitter "Bear now meand someone who hasn't shaved or gone to the gym for a whole week."
posted by The Whelk at 9:02 PM on October 31, 2010


My current theory that the mainstreaming and dilution of the term has to do with the first generation of Out gay men who didn't get all Killed In Their 30s and now have to deal with Metabolisms remains.

Well, I will only feed this derail a tiny bit more... A lot of the mainstreaming of the term has to do with the success of the "movement" and the rise of bear runs across the country happening exactly when internet commerce was starting to take off. Once the movement became a marketing niche, it became too widely-known too quickly and it turned into an industry.

For the record, however... Bear City is a movie about a guy who isn't a bear coming to terms with his interest IN bears. So it's not surprising that two of the guys are kind of not bears -- they're the main character and his best friend.

(Why do I know so much about this movie? Jeez.)

Now back to your regularly scheduled mustache discussion.
posted by hippybear at 9:05 PM on October 31, 2010 [1 favorite]


But, on beards.

I am thinking of shaving mine, cause the Blond Experiment is ending and the only reason it worked was cause my beard is pretty red and my mustache is pretty pure blond. I found out I'm actually really fair colored, I just don't get out and I dye my hair black cause that's what Elvis and Daddy did. I'm always kind of shocked how drastically I can change how people see me just by cutting or growing some bit of Face Topiary. I can make my face look longer or rounder, younger or older, I can cut my hair short and keep a beard and thus never get carded as an undergrad, or grow it long and be clean shaven and mistaken for 19. It's the closest duded having to makeup without actually applying makeup and it's amazing how just, say, leaving the sideburns can make me appear to be a totally different person then cutting them off. I've got friends who grow them big and others who laser it off below the chin so they don't look old or weird. A lot of culture crap wrapped up in how you treat a bunch of coarse chin explosions.
posted by The Whelk at 9:07 PM on October 31, 2010 [2 favorites]


My beard sits an inch and a half too low on my face. It grows thickest just beneath my jawline, down to just below my adam's apple.

Yes... I am a "neck-beard" in the literal. When I tried to grow hipster-approved face pubes, or even when I forgot to shave for a few days, someone would invariably point out my most excellent "throatee."

In lieu of the ultimate Ahab beard or thick, rich Burnsides, I have a carefully cultivated Van Dyke, tho the 'stache and the chin-whiskers can't or won't meet up properly upon my cheeks, so it's more of a bipartite Van Dyke. I rock long, downward curved mustache ends, with long whiskers rather than a beard-carved-into-fake-long-whiskers, so the "Fuck you, I ride a Harley pieced together from stolen parts or maybe run a saloon" aesthetic is firmly in place.
posted by Slap*Happy at 9:11 PM on October 31, 2010 [2 favorites]


Mizu, that pic is only solidifying my opinion, sorry.
posted by rainperimeter at 9:12 PM on October 31, 2010


I too had a neckish beard, until I went to an actual barber and learned out ...razors and hair and all that crap.

Hell I even got ColdChef shaved, and he lived!

I alternate between trips to the barber and using hair scissors to keep the face pubes tidy and respectable. One day I will go mad and take it all off and then enjoy a week of my friends and family not noticing me in crowds.
posted by The Whelk at 9:14 PM on October 31, 2010


Slap*Happy: that's exactly how I make up for my own lack of quality coverage on the sides of my mouth -- long moustache. As I've gotten older, it's filled in a bit, but I still have the long moustache, because it's how I've seen myself in the mirror for 20 years now. Long moustache, full beard... I used to grow the whole lip hair long and part it with a comb and wax it, but that was when I was a pretentious youth living in Billy The Kid country.

The Whelk: my moustache was VERY blonde for a long time. I used to use red henna to darken it. That rocked.
posted by hippybear at 9:15 PM on October 31, 2010


Do they get darker? Mine is seriously yellow. Like should I enjoy it's yellow blondishness now and not wait til I'm older to have one? I seriously do not know these things.
posted by The Whelk at 9:17 PM on October 31, 2010


SOMETHING THAT HAS COME UP WITH ME THAT NO ONE IS DISCUSSING RE: THE USEFULNESS OF FACIAL HAIR.

Your bed-mate can complain it's scratching/stabbing them in the back of neck when you're in bed and being Loved.
posted by The Whelk at 9:20 PM on October 31, 2010


Well, my whole face is kind of calico... brown, red, blonde, black, mixed in places, in patches in others. My hair is normally medium brown, so I expect that my darkening moustache is related to the base genetic hair color I carry.

Of course, now I'm going grey, so all bets are off. Just For Men takes 10 years off my appearance just by doing my beard. It's amazing. The tricky bit is not getting the parts which have been lighter colored my entire life -- that would be a shock.
posted by hippybear at 9:22 PM on October 31, 2010


And by "takes 10 years off my appearance", I mean, it moves me from looking like a young-faced 50 year old into looking more like my 40-ish self.

By the time I'm 50, I will be content with my grey. But 42? That's a tad young to look like a Centrum commercial candidate, IMO.
posted by hippybear at 9:23 PM on October 31, 2010


Everyone ends up painting their face, one way or another.
posted by The Whelk at 9:23 PM on October 31, 2010 [1 favorite]


this is from a previous comment about rude customers when you're waiting tables, but it has to do with facial hair....


one of my favorite rude customers ever: i worked at Polvo's in s. Austin in '98 and '99. i was hired cuz they wanted someone who spoke english fluently to wait tables. i don't know what the neighborhood is like now, but at the time there was a solid mix of english and spanish only speakers. anyways. one day this latino dude orders Ceviche, ceviche always came with saltine crackers. we were out of saltines that day. i didn't realize this. i go in the back, find this out, and go back to tell the guy that, sorry, i can give you chips with your ceviche. and he stands up, looks me dead in the eyes and says, "ceviche without crackers is like a man without a moustache", and walked out. i have never had a moustache.
posted by rainperimeter at 9:23 PM on October 31, 2010 [15 favorites]


to be fair I know someone who had a gray beard at 23.

He had it mostly lasered off. Which I thought was very presumptive.
posted by The Whelk at 9:24 PM on October 31, 2010 [1 favorite]


if you aren't over, i don't know, 50, your moustache looks terrible.

What absurd calumnies. R.A.F.-style handlebar mustaches are super hot on young guys. I saw a 20-something guy on the subway recently with an amazing specimen and I immediately wanted to have sexytimes with him. So there.
posted by en forme de poire at 9:31 PM on October 31, 2010 [1 favorite]


I, as my posting history shows, am a Rhode Islander. We have FOTB Italian barbers. The one I go to on special occasions has a straight razor that cost more than my first car, and unlike my quad-blade, moisturizer-stripped disposable at home, that shit hurts. First they boil your face, and then they go after my top level of skin cells with a precision that most microtome manufacturers can only hope to one day possess. Oh, and they thread off my unibrow while they're at it (but they leave the eyebrows untouched, except for a bit of mustache wax that leaves me looking like Woodsy the Owl. Bushy eyebrows are a status symbol. I don't know enough Italian to understand why. Maybe they really like Lynch's Mentats?)

So, I'm scalded and scraped a beet red from hairline to collar, and once the hair cream washes out, my hair looks like Dr. Stephen Brule's. But for a day or two, I look like a zillion bucks for twenty-five cash, no tip, what do we look like, beggars?

For a month or two of looking like a hundred grand, I go to the place that has women manning the chairs and six flat-screen HDTVs showing sports highlights - beauticians actually make fantastic barbers, and pull down more in tips from grateful clientele who wouldn't know a creme from a pomade than renting a salon chair would ever give them.
posted by Slap*Happy at 9:32 PM on October 31, 2010 [2 favorites]


Woaahhh, Whelk, those are some insanely twinky nonbears there. And even if one is supposed to be a twink that realizes he likes bearish dudes, the one guy that's I guess supposed to be the bear is still quite smooth.

I dunno it's weird. I work with a guy that's 5'2" and skinny as hell, but also has a pretty hirsute chest (like poking above his collar). And typically has some pretty serious sideburns happening. He weighs like 90 pounds and so can not be a bear, but - well I have no idea.

I grew a beard in college, my freshman year. I'm not really down with it. Shaving every 3 days works well for me, though.
posted by kavasa at 9:33 PM on October 31, 2010


forme de poire - photographic examples? I mean I don't even know what you mean by RAF handlebar. Was it somehow used to help pilot spitfires?
posted by kavasa at 9:36 PM on October 31, 2010


Beards banned — why do hirsuteless haterz throughout history envy our freedoms?
posted by cenoxo at 9:37 PM on October 31, 2010


So no shaving until you write 50,000 words?

That's a deadline I could get behind.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 9:40 PM on October 31, 2010


I'm more of a Methtember man, myself.
posted by Corduroy at 9:44 PM on October 31, 2010 [2 favorites]


I, as my posting history shows, am a Rhode Islander. We have FOTB Italian barbers. The one I go to on special occasions has a straight razor that cost more than my first car, and unlike my quad-blade, moisturizer-stripped disposable at home, that shit hurts. First they boil your face, and then they go after my top level of skin cells with a precision that most microtome manufacturers can only hope to one day possess. Oh, and they thread off my unibrow while they're at it (but they leave the eyebrows untouched, except for a bit of mustache wax that leaves me looking like Woodsy the Owl. Bushy eyebrows are a status symbol. I don't know enough Italian to understand why. Maybe they really like Lynch's Mentats?)

Oh lets butchy up our beauty rituals. I got to a clutch of Muslim ex-soviet dudes who manhandle my hair down to a point and then apply the soft (and scented) lather, and the blade, and the little, dentist-like movements, and then some rose syrup for your time and looking like a million bucks. It's one of the few times a dude can get a purely sensual aesthetic endeavor without the stigma of paying a bundle for looking like a huge fag (society's view, not mine). Men! your safety razors have lied to you! For forth into barbery! Enjoy the careful attention and scented liquids! It may be the last refuse you scoundrels have!
posted by The Whelk at 9:45 PM on October 31, 2010 [2 favorites]


Heh, bushy eyebrows. My father always had Brezhnev style eyebrows. So as a kid I thought that's what men are supposed to look like. I was looking forward to having eyebrows like that and move them up and down, say "habba, habba" to imitate Animal from the Muppet Show.
posted by joost de vries at 9:52 PM on October 31, 2010 [5 favorites]


The Whelk speaka da truth. Safety razors are an invention of the devil. Cutthroat or nothing. Mostly nothing, to be honest (NECKBEARD ALERT), but there's really nothing like some old Sicilian or Afhani fucker scraping off your epidermis to make you feel renewed.
posted by unSane at 9:56 PM on October 31, 2010


I remember a Russian Ex-Pat, a cut-throat Dandy saying Bah! Safety razors are for businessmen who have to show up on time to things. He didn't have to show up on time for things, things waited for him. So he did not use a safety razor.
posted by The Whelk at 9:59 PM on October 31, 2010 [5 favorites]


I've gone to Porter's Barber Shop in Spokane a few times. They're wonderful. Young masculine men doing great classic barbering for men of all hair and beard types. I've never looked as good as I do walking out of there. Sadly, I can't afford them at the moment. I will be able to again, however!
posted by hippybear at 10:09 PM on October 31, 2010


Recruiting poster, WWII.
Dogface, WWII.
posted by cenoxo at 10:14 PM on October 31, 2010 [1 favorite]


Women write novels too, you know!

What? Oh.
posted by danb at 10:28 PM on October 31, 2010


This makes me vaguely insecure, as any attempt to grow facial hair on my part results in an awful, patchy mess. Thou embeardened gents, what is your counsel? Can I slather some Rogaine on my face?
posted by invitapriore at 10:54 PM on October 31, 2010


Man, and here for the first time in half a decade I shaved off my bear, just in time to fail.

My beard story: I had one, and it was all brown. I shaved it off just before my twins were born. I grew it back about six months afterwards, and now the center third of it is grey. I BLAME THE CHILDREN.

on the other hand, now that I shaved again, I look 30. I suppose that is its own reward.
posted by davejay at 10:57 PM on October 31, 2010


Er, um, I shaved off my beard, even. I don't know what shaving off a bear would look like. And if you do, please don't post links.
posted by davejay at 10:58 PM on October 31, 2010 [1 favorite]


Eh, big hairy deal. I stopped shaving just yesterday. Hat courtesy of MeFi's own knitmaster MC ErikaB.

Hands off, hair-mos! This one's fer th' ladies!
posted by loquacious at 11:00 PM on October 31, 2010


Chin hair is a mystery wrapped in an enigma wrapped in creamy nougat and caramel filling.
posted by The Whelk at 11:03 PM on October 31, 2010


Can I slather some Rogaine on my face?

Actually, yes you can. But you have to be aware before you do... Rogaine enters your system and affects all the follicles on your body, not just where you apply it. So if you do that, you should know the following:

1) You will need to invest about 18 months to the project. Possibly up to 3 years.

2) You can expect to find other hair appearing while you're using it.

3) Hair follicles which have been awakened by monoxidil won't stop once you've stopped using the project.

4) You may find your blood pressure dropping if you use too much of the product.

My personal council is... if you have beard growth that simply is a bit patchy, it may fill in over time. Hair follicles produce at different rates, and so what appears patchy after 3 months may fill out and look fine after 6 or 9 months. If this is the case, then if you can get through the early stages, then it'll fill in and look great over time as the slow growing follicles catch up with the faster ones. Don't resort to drug treatments if you don't have to.

Protip: Rogaine can also be applied to stimulate chest hair growth. You know, for that maxiumum bear look, if you don't come by it naturally. YMMV, but I've read extensive threads on it online.
posted by hippybear at 11:04 PM on October 31, 2010


loquacious: nice. you have great beard going on there. But maybe I shouldn't say that, since it's "for the ladies"...
posted by hippybear at 11:07 PM on October 31, 2010


I have never been so happy that all the men on my mother's and father's side are long haired and hirsute.

WOO GO CELTIC-ITALIAN BLOODLINE! WOO
posted by The Whelk at 11:07 PM on October 31, 2010


No hair loss but lots of schizophrenia and running off with your mistress! I WIN! I WIN!
posted by The Whelk at 11:08 PM on October 31, 2010 [1 favorite]


Thank you for the reminder. The last couple of years it's taken at least a couple of weeks for me to realise why so many men were extra fuzzy.
posted by kjs4 at 11:12 PM on October 31, 2010


FUZZY WUZZY WAS A BEAR BUT FUZZY WUZZY HAD NO HAIR SO FUZZY WUZZY WASN'T FUZZY, WAS HE?
posted by The Whelk at 11:13 PM on October 31, 2010 [1 favorite]


Beards are for guys with extremely straight, thin hair, or guys who really enjoy digging ingrown hairs out of their face with sharp pointy metal things, potentially scarring up their otherwise smooth and unmolested skin.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 11:40 PM on October 31, 2010


Every year, starting in October, I put the razor on the shelf and don't pick it up again until May.* I call it Winter Beard Phase. When people point out my newfound facial hair I say "oh yes, I'm in Winter Beard Phase." This is usually followed by awkward silence. What, doesn't everybody have seasonal grooming phases?

I am, however, still waiting for my annual beard to endow me with awesome powers (such as Walt Whitman, Socrates, Moses, and of course Colonel Sanders)


*I still use the razor to keep the edges clean, and my wife (who has a degree in old-fashioned barbering) keeps everything else neat with her special scissors.
posted by jnrussell at 11:46 PM on October 31, 2010 [1 favorite]


Ladies of the Northern Hemisphere,
Pubember is upon, marking the start of the fluffy months. Enough already with the landing strips and hardwood floors, and enough with the up the crack front and back underwear. Grow a womanly patch and put on some decent underpants that won't floss your nether bits with every step.
Thank you for your time.
Lots of Regular Guys.
posted by pracowity at 11:59 PM on October 31, 2010 [10 favorites]


This makes me vaguely insecure, as any attempt to grow facial hair on my part results in an awful, patchy mess.

We should form a club. We can have T-shirts! That will hopefully distract everybody from the weird mishmash of hair that forms whenever we go a weekend without shaving.
posted by Rangeboy at 12:42 AM on November 1, 2010


nice. you have great beard going on there. But maybe I shouldn't say that, since it's "for the ladies"

Thanks. Actually - I'm just being lazy and saving razors. Obviously it's more like 3 weeks instead of one day, I was being facetious. And it's been getting cold so it's nice to have some face fur on bike rides. And while I've been lazy and distracted - I've been noticing particular magical effects around certain humans of the female persuasion, such as wider smiles and more frequent salutations which I'll happily accept to prop up my fragile and needy ego.

Anyway, you bear hunters should be thankful I remembered to put on a shirt for that pic. It just wouldn't be kind or fair to tease that much. ;)
posted by loquacious at 12:44 AM on November 1, 2010


When I grow my beard and I look in the mirror I secretly congratulate myself on looking like a mousquetaire/ swashbuckler. Erroll Flynn, Burt Lancaster. The 8 yr old in me rejoices.
Last time I was aiming to look like Joseph Conrad. But I found it too much work. So I shaved it off again.
posted by joost de vries at 12:52 AM on November 1, 2010


face fur on bike rides
One of the things that few people tell you is that in winter the vapour in your breath will condense in your moustache.
Ugh. Another reason to shave it off.
posted by joost de vries at 12:55 AM on November 1, 2010


lol just shaved my beard but it will be back!!!
posted by gkr at 1:09 AM on November 1, 2010


But, joost, a beard can really make a difference in keeping your cheeks warm.

For Halloween, I was a corporate consultant. Among other things, I was shaved my facial hair and had my hair slicked back. It's been freaking my wife right out because in eight years of knowing me, she's never seen me without at least what gets called a goatee these days*, and, typically, a full beard for the winter. Also, I'm reminded that I don't like how I look without my beard.

So November really will be grow facial hair month for me.

* It's closer to a Van Dyck, and closer still to a box beard but without the hair extending down the jawlines and up to join my sideburns.
posted by Zed at 1:17 AM on November 1, 2010


every year i think to myself, i am going to shave my beard off for movember, but i am mostly a bear (though i am much too femme to be a bear, has one noticed that the bear community is really into fake butch?) and i look a little dateliney w/o it.

maybe next year
posted by PinkMoose at 2:00 AM on November 1, 2010


I aim to look like myself with a mustache. I also aim to help all the men out there with prostate cancer. Is there a Mefi group?
posted by parmanparman at 2:28 AM on November 1, 2010


Sorry guys, I want kisses from Mrs. Scoo more than I want to raise awareness.
posted by Scoo at 3:40 AM on November 1, 2010


I haven't shaved for ten days. I look like I have 2 day stubble.

Actually, you know those programs that come round every few years where they take a bunch of guys and girls and try to teach them to behave like each other? And the women look 'manly' by painting their downy face hairs in mascara to try and make it look like 5 o'clock shadow?

Yeah... I look like a really bad F>M transvestite right now.

By the end of November (even with a week headstart) I might have enough beard to craft one of those shitty nearly-goatees that 16 year olds seem to like.
posted by sodium lights the horizon at 3:49 AM on November 1, 2010


Movember turns good looking men into 1980's porn stars. Can't we have sixpacktember instead?
posted by cholly at 4:11 AM on November 1, 2010


I was ahead of the game. I stopped shaving about three weeks ago and my beard is just about at the stage when it looks like a proper beard as opposed to the result of not being arsed to shave. This is the second time I've grown a beard this year. Oh, the myriad joys of unemployment.
posted by Decani at 4:11 AM on November 1, 2010


Beards are for guys with extremely straight, thin hair, or guys who really enjoy digging ingrown hairs out of their face with sharp pointy metal things, potentially scarring up their otherwise smooth and unmolested skin.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 7:40 AM on November 1


Or for guys with lovely, lovely, non-pore-ous skin, like mine. I have fairly thick facial hair which likes to grow in a wild variety of directions during the "long stubble" phase, and I never get any problem with ingrowing. If you can steel yourself enough to look at my profile picture you will see that I have the mien of a man who says "HA!" to the notion of ingrowing beard hair.
posted by Decani at 4:19 AM on November 1, 2010


Every year, starting in October, I put the razor on the shelf and don't pick it up again until May.* I call it Winter Beard Phase. When people point out my newfound facial hair I say "oh yes, I'm in Winter Beard Phase." This is usually followed by awkward silence. What, doesn't everybody have seasonal grooming phases?

I do the same thing but if anyone asks anything about it, they usually ask if its a "hunting beard". It's a Pennsylvania thing.
posted by octothorpe at 4:54 AM on November 1, 2010 [1 favorite]


My calendar:

Bearduary
Beardruary
Bearch
Beardpril
Beay
Bune
Beardly
Beardgust
Beardtember
Beardtober
Beardvember
Beardcember
posted by orme at 5:21 AM on November 1, 2010 [19 favorites]


A moment of silence for the vastly-more-engaging and now-at-rest Whiskerino.
posted by songfromme at 5:31 AM on November 1, 2010 [1 favorite]


I'm with Cholly, (mostly because of the missus' dim view of moja-moja, but also because the six-pack is finally starting to peek out after 15 years of hibernation)
posted by bashos_frog at 5:42 AM on November 1, 2010


I was very close to joining the MOvement, but the character I'm performing in this year's panto simply would not work with a moustache. And although our Fairy Godfather did shave off his impressive specimen, a 'stache will work for his character.

And so I remain. Perhaps next year!
posted by seanmpuckett at 5:59 AM on November 1, 2010


I've gone to Porter's Barber Shop in Spokane a few times. They're wonderful. Young masculine men doing great classic barbering for men of all hair and beard types. I've never looked as good as I do walking out of there.

That's almost tempting enough to make me drive to Spokane.

Sorry guys, I want kisses from Mrs. Scoo more than I want to raise awareness.

My partner thinks I look icky and too young without facial hair. So no kissing for me if I shave.
posted by Forktine at 6:19 AM on November 1, 2010


I stopped shaving on my honeymoon. In 1998.

I trim the edges of course, and keep it generally fairly short, but I am much happier with having a beard than not having one. Plus, Mrs. Frogs digs it (so long as I keep it well-kempt - when it gets too long she starts giving me sidelong looks until I sort things out again.)

On the topic of shaving now. I found this lovely store in the local mall, The Art of Shaving is the name I think. They had some nice stuff. $150 silvertip badger-neckhair brushes. On racks next to Mach 5 razors. Fancy handles, but still a Mach 5.*

What kind of idiotic, absolute TOOL would spend $150 on a badger brush then shave with a god damn cheap-ass shitty disposable multi-blade razor? Seriously, I only have an inexpensive boar-hair brush, but my razor is a Parker with a high-carbon Feather blade.

*To be fair they have some nice Merkur razors and even straight razors on display, but they are locked in a tiny case, not really obvious, and EVERY STINKING BRUSH on prominent display is paired with a frickin' Mach 5. It's just plain sad. It makes me not want to buy anything there (even though the badger brushes look quite nice).
posted by caution live frogs at 7:01 AM on November 1, 2010


I dunno it's weird. I work with a guy that's 5'2" and skinny as hell, but also has a pretty hirsute chest (like poking above his collar). And typically has some pretty serious sideburns happening. He weighs like 90 pounds and so can not be a bear, but - well I have no idea.

I believe he would be an 'otter'
posted by device55 at 7:07 AM on November 1, 2010 [3 favorites]


On the topic of shaving now. I found this lovely store in the local mall, The Art of Shaving is the name I think. They had some nice stuff. $150 silvertip badger-neckhair brushes. On racks next to Mach 5 razors. Fancy handles, but still a Mach 5.*

People like cartridge blades like the Mach 5 because they don't require any skill to use. You have to work at cutting yourself.

Art of Shaving's products like shave oil, shaving cream, etc, are quite good and can make a big difference if you have sensitive skin.

I have fight with in-grown hairs if I don't shave very carefully - and I can say from my experience that the type of blade makes little difference. The products used do however.

While a Parker razor like your sounds lovely in theory - I'd use it once, have a baby soft face for half a day, and then have to wear an inverted phantom of the opera mask for 3 weeks while my face healed.
posted by device55 at 7:19 AM on November 1, 2010


A fun cause, and I like to donate to those that do it. But I can't participate because for the first 3.5 weeks it would look like I had crazy glued a few pubes to my upper lip.
posted by jeffmik at 7:24 AM on November 1, 2010


Perfect timing -- I was just watching Tombstone the other day and thinking what a better place the world would be if more fully 'stached.
posted by FelliniBlank at 7:26 AM on November 1, 2010


device55 - The stamped-metal multiblade cartridges are cheap. That's the problem. They wear out fast, get dull faster, are hard to keep clean and thus get pitted and full of bacteria faster. They are rougher on your face and teach you that it's OK to scrape the razor hard into your skin to get a decent shave. That's the big problem - they make it more likely that a cut will end up as a big infected bump, and they are charging you an arm and a leg for the blade. The Feather blades are really inexpensive. I think it usually works out to something like 5 to 10 cents a blade, vs. $15+ for three razor heads with a Mach 5 kind of thing. Which encourages you to use them far, far longer than you should, to get your money's worth.

The Parker, Remington, Merkur etc. safety razors are not hard to use. I went from crap cartridge to the Parker single-blade in one shave. You just have to be sure you are using a really light touch, letting the weight of the razor head do the work for you (and keep your wrist straight, don't bend it).

I don't get ingrown hairs any more. I don't get red bumps. I do occasionally get one or two small nicks, which do bleed a bit but I very rarely have anything that isn't OK by the time I am done with the morning grooming routine and ready to put my shirt on for the day.

Good shaving soap, oils, creams, etc. are definitely helpful, but the blade itself makes the biggest difference. Pushing too hard into your skin (as cartridge blades teach you to do) cuts the hair off below the surface. Think about all those cartridge razor commercials with animations showing how the hair is first tugged out and then cut to snap back - this puts the tip of the growing hair under the surface of your skin. This gives you ingrown hairs. You can't really do this with a safety razor, because it's sharper (it cuts the hair on the first pass, no tugging), pushing that hard would cut your skin, not your hair (if you are not careful you will learn REALLY fast not to push at all - like the very first stroke you take!) and it cuts the hair off AT the surface, not under it, so the tip of the growing hair is not going to be covered by skin if it happens to be at the wrong angle on the way out of the follicle.

With the Parker I shave with the grain, then do another pass against the grain. There is no way in hell I could ever do that with the cartridge blades unless I wanted to have a raw, shredded face and a lot of bumps and ingrown hairs. I tried in the past, and it sucked - but with the single-blade safety razors this is my everyday technique. I do it this way every day I shave (which is about every other day, given how clean the razor cuts and how fast my hair grows back in).

Think about it this way: If you go to a barber for a shave, what do they use? Not a cartridge blade, and it isn't for sanitary reasons - it's because single blades are best, and unless you want to deal with the hassle of keeping a straight razor well-honed the safety razors your grandfather used are the next best thing.
posted by caution live frogs at 7:37 AM on November 1, 2010 [9 favorites]


Movember turns good looking men into 1980's porn stars. Can't we have sixpacktember instead?

Don't worry, I'll do both. Then I can look like a slightly drunk 80's porn star.
posted by FatherDagon at 8:01 AM on November 1, 2010 [1 favorite]


I tried growing a moustache once. One side wound up growing faster than the other.

I had to either shave it off or go as an extremely half-assed Two-Face for Halloween.
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 8:31 AM on November 1, 2010


Facial hair makes one manly? What about the legion of bad facial hair pussy-ass skinny jeaned hipsters out there?
posted by DieHipsterDie at 8:52 AM on November 1, 2010


Five reasons I have a beard:

1) It's fashionable and acceptable these days
2) My skin doesn't take kindly to shaving and ends up all purple and ugly
3) Seems like I get more female attention, god knows why
4) Aziz Ansari and Das Racist are role models
5) I get to horrify my mom, who thinks I look like an Al-Qaeda operative (but it seems like I get hassled less at airports now.)

I think it's a good decision.
posted by naju at 8:54 AM on November 1, 2010 [1 favorite]


Back in '06, at the end of my ill-fated two-year stint as a freelance gentleman craftsman, I finally got sick of the absurd prices for stupid plastic razor blade cartridges and remembered my first awkward introduction to the concept of shaving.

"You just unscrew the razor at the base like this," my father said, opening up the barn doors on his Gillette Adjustable. He peeled the paper off a new blade, as thin and fine as a fish scale, and dropped it in place with a bell-like tink. "Then you close it up like so, and there you go."

He held the thing up. It looked like torture gear—heavy and aggressive—and it was the eighties, when everything went plastic, light, Euro, and futuristic.

The brush didn't have to be badger, just good, and the cup didn't have to be a milk glass Old Spice shaving mug, but it worked, and the soap didn't need to be bay rum, but it had to hold a foam, and not be too frothy or too gummy.

The wash, the swirl, the brush, clinking around in the mug, the application—it was all just-so and that just seemed so…aren't we living in the world of the future yet?

I paid attention, but defected to Atra as soon as I had a say in things.

But 2006, well, I was floundering, just absolutely floundering, and when I unexpectedly won a four figure grant from our state arts funding body for standing in a crowded theater and rambling about my search for a fairy godmother, I made a few key decisions about thrift and made a few pricy purchases in that direction.

I got myself a 1951 Gillette Super Speed safety razor on ebay, and a package of 100 Derby Extra double-edged blades that come in a package covered with Turkish writing. Picked up a cheap boar bristle brush and a cheap bar of Williams shave soap and used a coffee mug that was too small to really amount to a satisfying cup of coffee.

The feel was odd, and I nicked myself up here and there. With a plastic fantastic razor, you just sort of drag it on your face, and it feels about like shaving with a tiny set of venetian blinds, no matter how many "lubricating moisture strips" they have. Every morning, prior to the change, I'd stand there, full of resentment, over the sink, dreading that awful scrape, which is why I grew a van dyke (to be an annoying literalist, I will point out here that what most people call a "goatee" is actually a van dyke). I'd skip shaving quite often, so I was sort of shaggy and awful to look at most of the time.

The Super Speed, though, put shaving into this taoist arena of work without work—a ritual that I do even on my days off, because it frames the day so nicely. The ritual becomes something of the day, rather than a chore, and I do my routine exactly the same way each day, trimming the sides of my mustache with a gentle flick, maneuvering around the corners of my mouth, carving out the gentle retrograde curves in my sideburns, then rising away the last little shards of foam with a warm cloth.

I cut the center out of my middle-class mouth doughnut around the same time, finding it was a pleasure to do a little facial topiary, and an evolving horseshoe 'stache with in-curling descenders has been there ever since, gradually settling in as a permanent fixture there. In the hot, humid summers, I keep it short, and cut to square tips that follow my jaw line, and in the fall, winter, and spring, when it's cool enough that I can keep the tips waxed below my chin in little in-pointing fishhooks (as seen on TV™) or complete loops, when I'm feeling positively Edwardian.

It's all a put-on, of course, and an affectation, but shaving is itself an affectation, and what you wear is an affectation, and what you say and do and how you dance and what you drive and—well, clearly, I fall on the side of being in favor of a little put-on. We're just so bland as a species, or when we step out, we do it in lock-step with whatever tribe we choose to join, rather than cherry-picking our favorites and just going in eight directions at once.

"Yeah, Joe, it's an affectation," my father explained, twisting the tips of his own anachronistic handlebar mustache with waxed loops that was not, by any description, de rigeur in 1980-whatever, "but a little bit of horseshit is how you get people to remember who you are."

When his red handlebar turned white, back in '84 or so, he went ahead and grew out a fluffy white beard that made him such a dead ringer for Santa Claus that he couldn't set foot in a mall in the month of December without being besieged by flocks of kids with lists to deliver.

"Kid, I'm off-duty just now, but if you go to the little workshop at the center of the mall, my agents will take your order," he'd say, leaving the troublesome sleeve-puller to stew in the moment.

I guess, running as I do in arts and hipster circles by the demands of my job, I could be mistaken for someone wearing my facial hair with irony, in that strange situation of our times where we adopt the look we find most ridiculous as a sort of reverse cool, standing above our disdain. I could be mistaken as such, except I think my mustache looks good, baby, and if yours is serious, well-groomed, and fits your face, well, umm, did it just get hot in here?

They call them porn star mustaches, too, and the funny thing is—porn stars were sexy. That's why we watched them, on scratchy old VHS tapes, and imagined having sex with them. That's why we watched Paul Barresi in LA Tool & Die and tooled and died, and why we couldn't get enough of the everyday boss man in a suit unzipping and holy crap that's nice Nick Fabrini and the men of Colt and so on.

Four years down the line, I've spent fourteen dollars on razor blades for four years of shaving, and my skin is nice and smooth and I don't need fancy tools to work on the cartography of my face, despite what the big razor companies want you to think. I have these moments where I even think I might go another step back, to a straight razor, but all I can ever think of is Whoopi Goldberg in The Color Purple.

It's all a put-on, but we like put-ons. The insincere, half-assed ones will come and go, as fashion dictates, and the people who don't get it will continue not to get it. For the ones that do, however, there's always that moment when you look and think, "nice 'stache" or "nice beard," and then find yourself irresistibly prone to daydreaming about how that scruffy little patch would feel if it were to go…well, maybe I won't go there, at least for now.
posted by sonascope at 10:16 AM on November 1, 2010 [13 favorites]


At the end of Novembeard it will be time to Decembeard, yeah?
posted by thetruthisjustalie at 10:36 AM on November 1, 2010


Mods, feel free to remove this if it is too self-linky or commercial, but my company is celebrating Movember with month long drink specials at 5 Manhattan bars for any of you NYC MeFites who might be interested.

All proceeds are going to the Movember Foundation.
posted by bashos_frog at 11:36 AM on November 1, 2010


And to quote the Vandals: "Never trust a man with a butt-broom on his face."
posted by DieHipsterDie at 11:58 AM on November 1, 2010


Sweet. I've been looking for an excuse to grow a mustache.
posted by joedan at 2:37 PM on November 1, 2010


I've been growing beards since the end of high school; I literally haven't shaved regularly since then. Anecdotal evidence: I'm one of those really short dudes that is hirsute by nature. Height genes and hairiness genes don't appear to be tied together in any meaningful way, based on... me. I've never rocked just a mustache before—didn't really think I could pull it off and wouldn't wanna wear it as a "mustache"—but maybe I'll give it a go.

MeFi, give me strength!
posted by defenestration at 3:00 PM on November 1, 2010


LOBO HAZ KITTY
posted by The Whelk at 4:35 PM on November 1, 2010


an ADORABLE space dolphin.
posted by The Whelk at 4:46 PM on November 1, 2010


I don't find moustaches appealing, in fact they make me quite uncomfortable, and my dad has always had a beard so beards are the opposite of sex to me, not that anyone here needs to worry about any of that since I'm married and my tastes apply to only one person, who in fact stopped shaving about a week ago and is just into that thick bad-boy stubble phase, all with flecks of gold and red, and yeah, that's some nice stuff right there. But I'm pretty sure he would hate everything about that Movember web site so I won't be passing on the link.
posted by Squeak Attack at 5:35 PM on November 1, 2010


I'm Chinese and facial-hair challenged, but I might - just might - be able to do a decent Tony Leung impression in a couple of weeks.

For all the other facial-hair challenged, I remember Johnny Dep couldn't grow a 'stache for crap until he got quite a bit older but can sport decent facial hair now in his mid/late 40's.
posted by porpoise at 7:52 PM on November 1, 2010


It would seem that some of us can't quite get it right.
posted by house.au at 9:51 PM on November 1, 2010


Every time I shave my beard off, I leave the moustache just in case. But I always look like a NYC cop when I do, so then I shave it off and normalcy is resumed.
posted by unSane at 9:58 PM on November 1, 2010


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