<p>I was at Costco the other day getting a hot dog (o come on!) and literally EVERY young man working behind the counter had a full beard and a beard cover on. It was pretty funny and clearly a “thing.” </p>
<p>S usually wears a full beard, although he shaves it off from time to time. Honestly, I think it’s because he’s lazy and it’s easier to take care of a beard than it is to shave every day. He looks a lot like Michael C. Hall, and with the beard he’s a dead-ringer for lumberjack Dexter. It is a little unnerving when your kid looks like a famous (thankfully fictional) serial killer.</p>
<p>I asked my son to stop by the chapter of my fraternity at his school to check it out. When we talked, he said, “I was out of there in 5 minutes. They’re a bunch of neckbeards.” As someone who has shaved nearly every day for 30-something years and is not up on slang, I had to have him explain it to me.</p>
<p>Is this a northern trend? I live in the southeast/midsouth and there doesn’t seem to be an unusual beard trend from what I’ve seen. Most highschool/college aged men are clean shaven with the occasional exception. </p>
<p>In my daughter’s neighborhood in Brooklyn, hipster-infested Greenpoint, it’s rare to see a man without a beard who isn’t obviously somebody’s parent. Lots of full beards, too, not just facial scrub.</p>
<p>I had a beard for not quite two years, from the week after high school graduation until the end of my sophomore year in college. Very few pictures survive; my kids had never seen one until I stumbled on one online last year. I kept it short and tolerably well trimmed, although I certainly didn’t trim it more than once a week. I wanted to look like (a) Alan Bates in Richard III (in Stratford Ont. five years before) or Women In Love, (b) Eric Clapton circa Ocean Avenue / Derek and the Dominoes, © M. Charlus as I imagined him to be, and (d) someone without acne. I couldn’t get it shaved off myself; I had to run to the barbershop halfway through and get them to finish (which was great!). </p>
<p>My son had a beard off and on his last two years of high school – sometimes scruffy whole-face, other times a slightly longer goatee. It looked fine on him, but he’s very good-looking; he can pretty much do anything and turn heads.</p>
<p>Our very handsome son has a beard right now. He looks great with it, and without it!</p>
<p>thumper, I think you’re prejudiced.</p>
<p>The costco is/was in Arizona. So not northern. Nope. </p>
<p>MY very handsome son (ahem) is one of the off and on (more on than off) beardsters. He looks good in it but learned a bad habit from his dad, torturing the rest of us by shaving it off incrementally. The John Waters mustache is particularly objectionable.</p>
<p>The scruffy 3 day growth thing is very prevalent in my midwestern area. S2 does something of a modified small beard or goatee, well-trimmed. It looks ok. S1 is blond and always clean shaven. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a blonde beard. His profession may require clean-shaven, but he’d do it anyway.</p>
<p>I don’t mind the scruffy look on the 20 something crowd. Our HS principal does it too (mid-30’s) and I think it looks really unprofessional and like he couldn’t be bothered to shave. Along that same thought, many seem to say this look is due to sensitive skin or unwillingness to shave–I guess it’s not an equal opportunity for the girls? Yuck on even the thought of that on my legs :(</p>
<p>Glen Hansard has strawberry blond hair ( kinda the same color mine is), and he often has a beard.
Beards are often darker ( and moustaches) than head hair.
Except my brothers.
He grows a mustache sometimes and its all I can do not to tell him he needs to wash his face.</p>
<p>
For me, at least, beards and hot and humid weather are not a great combination. In addition, beards and cold weather do go very well together.</p>
<p>DS1 is going to school in the Midwest. This year he as grown a goatee and mustache. I don’t hate it but don’t love it either. He went for a job interview in Texas, and I told him that I didn’t think the facial hair was a good idea for the interview, better to be conservative. He really didn’t want to part with it. We decided to look at the company website and find a picture of the team he’d be joining to see whether the guys in the group had facial hair. At least a half-dozen did, so he didn’t shave. And he got the job.</p>
<p>Both my sons have long hair. S1 shaves now (thanks to the DIL) and the other looks like Hagrid when his hair is not in a ponytail. S1 had no problem getting a FT job and he had a beard at that time.</p>
<p>My H has long hair. He wears it in a ponytail. He is quite the contrast to the girls sig others who wear their hair very short.
It is 80 deg here in hipster land and the men not only have full beards but they are still wearing their beanies!</p>
<p>S is 21 and couldn’t grow I one. H has never had one till a year ago. I hate it. Full beard. Just yuck.</p>
<p>My H has always had a goatee…I like it…I have always liked men with beards/moustches…my S has his version though he is hairy everywhere else…not so much on is face. My sister hates facial hair on men…but I find it very attractive.</p>
<p>My S grows a beard periodically, we razz him about it, and he shaves it whenever he decides to indulge us or if he has an event like an interview. He just looks better clean-shaven IMO. </p>
<p>A well trimmed beard can give definition to a face whose jawline is say, a little soft.
But some people look much snazzier without facial hair obscuring their jaw.
George Clooney for example.</p>