There are so many potential pitfalls for the man who’s chosen to grow a full beard.
When it’s done right, it’s a thing of beauty.
But it’s not always an easy ride. Here’s 11 struggles every hairy-faced man will go through.
1 Wetting someone’s face with your beard is a real and horrible thing that you’ve done
You have a sip of your pint. You go in for a kiss. You realise you have transferred your beard wetness on to their face. As they discreetly wipe down their mouth with their sleeve there’s literally nothing you can do to alleviate the shame that they now think kissing you is like being slapped with a wet sponge.
2 Getting food getting stuck in it is a genuine problem
That first page in The Twits is true. Particularly hazardous foods include: Pizza, ice cream, soup, corn on the cob, burgers, sandwiches, candy floss, ribs. The only way to get round it is to cut food into tiny morsels or (in the case of pizza) fold it over to keep the sticky bits on the inside.
3 Trimming it yourself
It’s like giving yourself a haircut. There are people who train for years to do this – yet you’re expected to just know how.
How the hell do you navigate the savagely fine line between a light trim to keep things neat and accidentally going full Craig David?
4 Getting someone else to trim it
How much of an eeijit do you feel sitting in a barber’s chair with a shaving cream beard over your own beard discussing what shape you’d like? Who even ARE you? You don’t know any more.
5 Random ginger and/or grey bits
People will insist that the salt and pepper look is sexy. In reality though, the grey never comes through consistently. You just get weird random white patches.
6 The feeling of inadequacy when you can’t grow a decent one
Pube beard / straggly beard / patchy beard… the struggle is real for many men.
7 Lego beard
Too dark, too short, too neat: however you got there, you know when you’ve been cursed by the Lego beard.
8 The neck beard is a real threat
If you’re a hairy man, your sexy and fulsome beard will quickly start creeping south in an attempt to join your chest hair.
One inch below the chin is fine. Take your eye off the ball and it will join up with your man rug leaving you looking like Teen Wolf.
9 Beard trimmings are tenacious b*stards and they get everywhere
Literally everywhere. Sink, soap, toothbrush. And your partner will be the one to find them. Even if you think you’ve cleared them all up. This beard-catching contraption will help – but you’ll look like a knob using it.
10 Your rechargeable clippers will fail you
Most likely when you’re on holiday without the charger and you’re halfway through shaving it off. And now you know that once the battery is dead no amount of shaking it will turn it back on.
See also: the pain caused when individual hairs get caught in clipper blades.
11 Shaving cuts are still a thing, no matter how little you shave
Even though you’ve pretty much forsaken the razor, you still have to go there sometimes.
And the resulting blood will always end up on the collar of your white shirt.
It’s almost worth shaving it all off and giving up… but not quite.