Category: Daily Living
Since a happy girlfriend leads to a happy life I am considering growing a beard. When totally blind how hard is it to keep a beard clean? I know they make beard trimmers but I have never used one so do not know if it is something a blind person can use. I know if I had to trim with a streight razor it would go poorly.
I only know one blind man with a beard, and he says he has his wife trim it for him. Every once in awhile when he needs a hair cut, he has the barber also trim the beard.
Good luck with the girlfriend, but honestly if she doesn't like your face the way it is, maybe she's not worth it.
Well good on you: you like a girlfriend who likes a beard. I had a bushy beard over 20 years ago, so hopefully I remember what it takes to tell you here:
First I always cleaned mine in the shower, but also used shampoo not just soap. Second, I found the moustache harder to keep clean than the chin part. You can comb a beard, I just used the ubiquitous pocket comb a good many of us males keep in the back pocket with the wallet. When you wash and comb it regularly, it's not hard to keep stuff out of it.
There are electric razors with trimmer teeth, although a safety razor isn't as bad as you might expect. Just go light unlike when you're doing a clean shave. If you're like me and go against the grain a good part of the time, you want to go with the grain if you're only wanting to trim just a tiny bit, not a real stray whisker or something.
Also pay attention when it grows in, where you're most likely to find the extra tufts growing. I found it pretty easy to keep track of that stuff, but then again, when I was in my early 20s, I had to work at it to grow the kind of full beard I could easily grow now.
I know now there are all these beard products out there. I'm a simple man, I don't use hair products other than shampoo and the pocket comb, so never used beard products either. Although in the early 90s they weren't so ubiquitous and we didn't have the beard culture there is now. No Manuary Beard Growers' Month, bearding community and all that you see now. I guess now, it's all in how far you want to take it. I've a couple friends have gotten in to all that, and it gets a bit like the cigars and pipe hobby: you can spend quite a bit of money and time fiddling with it and on products, if you want.
Honestly, when I would go and get my hair cut, I would get a beard trim. The one mistake I made was thinking all hair cutters are alike in this regard: I had a woman once who trimmed the beard, and went clubbing that night only to take some good-natured teasing and abuse about how my beard looked like it had been trimmed by a girl. Your only hope then is to shave all off and start over. She had done some kind of what she called layering. Anyway, you don't have to get it trimmed by someone else, I did that once a month as a matter of visual presentation insurance. But a lot of guys trim up as I did, by fell, without a mirror. It's like anything else, though: best to take any visual advice from someone who has actually grown one and knows how it's done.
In my opinion, the modern beard culture just complicates the whole beard experience, whether you're after the ZZ Topp beard like I was for awhile, or the Mountain Man sort of rustic trim, or the refined trim like a freshly mown lawn. Anything else and all their products and things sounds like serious overcomplication to me, but that's just an opinion.
Oh, one other thing: a woman I dated liked it when I used conditioner on the beard. She didn't know that's what I was doing, but complimented on how it felt softer. Their primary complaint is kissing bristles, which is only true for the first six to 8 weeks, before you've got enough length and enough times shampooing and conditioning it to make it no longer sharp. In fact, the more closely you trim it, the more bristly it will be. So maybe she will like how it looks short, but short is a near surety for bristles, no matter how careful you are about using a bit of conditioner.
Would I do it again? Probably just because, if I was unattached and I was no longer volunteering in activities where I'm in uniform and being beardless is a requirement.
Probably a bit of overkill here, but hope some of this helps.
I guess I need to say, for the children and the Tumblrettes, of course a woman can trim a beard successfully. My point was, at least from the lesson I learned, and what people (both men and women) told me afterwards, if it happens to be a woman, you just want to ask if she has done it before. I would think the same would be true for a situation that is uniquely female, where a male was going to help her.
Good advice, Leo.
I have been sporting a beard now for several years. I have unusually thick and rapidly
growing facial hair, and for me it was much easier to let it grow out than to keep a clean
shaven face. I can grow a full beard in about 2-3 weeks.
I use a hair trimmer, and use maybe a #2 comb on it to keep things at a uniform length.
It is fairly easy for me to just go by feel, and to recognize areas that may grow out faster
than others, but using a trimmer and comb generally yields great results. I found a hair
trimmer that one uses to cut hair with is far better, and often cheaper, than a beard
trimmer, and I appreciate the varying lengths of comb attachments that come with a hair
trimmer.
A full beard is easiest to maintain of course, if you try to style it at all you will probably
need sighted help. I also do my own hair in the same fashion, using a longer comb lenth.
This works well if you want a uniform hair lenth on the top and sides, but not so well if
you want something different or a particular style. As I always want my hair as short as
possible, this system works for me.
Starting with a fully shaven face and head hair shaved to a stubble with the hair trimmer
using bare teeth and no comb, I then let the beard and hair grow out for about a month,
then trim the beard every couple of weeks after that using the #2 comb. My hair I
typically trim with a #4 comb every 6 weeks starting from the time I shaved my head.
Every 3 months, I go back to shaving it all off (one time with just the electric trimmer
with bare teeth and no comb, the next time doing this plus shaving my facial stubble with
a disposable razor, but never shaving my head with a razor). This is a personal
preference, not because one has to do so, but what I find is that giving the face a week or
so to breathe with no beard every 3 months or so seems to help with moisturization and
preventing dandruff from becoming a real problem. Now, I realize that not everyone is
cursed with such thick and rapidly growing hair, so your routine and timing will likely be
different if you choose to follow my pattern.
In terms of keeping it clean, as Leo suggested, a pocket comb is sufficient, and wash with
shampoo and conditioner. Depending on your skin, water source, etc, you may find that
you need a dandruff shampoo, which you can not only use on your head but also your
beard. Dandruff has nothing to do with how clean or even how often you shampoo your
beard, it is a medical issue of dry flaky skin typically found underneath hair growth, so
don't be afraid to use whatever products necessary to deal with this or keep your skin
moisturized under there.
Hope this helps you.
Yes great advice.
If you use the trimmer, you can't go wrong. Decide on the length and use that trimmer number. You'll feel it, so will know what one you like.
I'm a black man, so use a small comb to keep mine neat.
During the day, just feel your face specially after you eat, or just go wash it with a warm cloth, or your hands and plain water. That way, you'll not have food in it.
It's easy, so do it.
During the winter, it looks manly. Probably why the girl ask.
Has other benefits too, but grow yours and find out. Smile.
You know, the clean shaven face as an expectation was a result of the safety razor industry. Before then, men grew beards more often than not.
Shaydz, two things: I find your hair trimming idea rather attractive as an option, but She at least in the past did not care for the buzz cut. She called it a rug, to be honest.
You don't have to answer this next one if you don't want, but, just curious: You're in your 40s now, right? When you were in your, say, early 20s, did you still grow a thick beard? I understand the medical situation, since you explained it, but, if you could grow a good thick one then, you must have been envied by others who, like me, would by default grow weedy stringy thin ones.
Mine would be nice and thick now if I grew it, but I read on a men's website that the older we get the thicker the facial hair grows.
Technically, we would be better off if we all grew them. You don't sunburn under a beard, for instance. And in cold weather, it is a bit of a heat layer for the face.
So Wayne, please don't take offense at this question, it is not intended to be offensive.
What is the difference between a black man's beard and a white?
I have read that African peoples and other groups thought white furry-faced people were animals when they first saw them. So our beards must look different?
I'm just curious, not poking fun, and it's not something I have ever asked someone face to face. Too chicken for that.
No offense, and a good question.
In my case, my beard grows close to my face. It gets thick, but not long and isn't like the hair on your head.
If I want it to look right, not notted, I use a small comb.
I think men with longer beards benefit for this as well, because if you've got lent, or other stuff in your beard, combing it will clean it, plus make it look neater.
My hairs corse, not soft, if that helps.
Depending on the type of black man, some can grow beards down to there chest.
That looks great. I'm not one of them. Lol
Imagine a womans hair that is curly, but you paste some on a mans chin.
I hope that helps you.
Please ask more if you want.
I also think a beard keeps your face warmer during the winter, plus, it keeps your skin clear.
Takes less time in the morning. Wash, dry, and you are out the door. No shaving.
Leo, in my twenties I did not grow a beard at all, I was always told by others I looked
better without it and the wife preferred it clean shaven initially. It was a personal choice to
stop fighting the battle in my mid thirties. I suppose men would have been envious,
although I did encounter a good amount of ribbing in high school over my hairiness.
In any case, I am not so fond of the rug look myself, but it is easy to maintain and not
very much work at all. I suppose I just don't care enough to put in the effort to do
anything else, or to bother paying for hair cuts or beard trims. I'm lazy that way, but I
obviously don't mind the look or I wouldn't keep it.
I personally don't think beards are fashion or not. Men wear them all the time and have.
Sure, they come and go as to how many wear them at least in America, but the beard is natural for most men if you leave it along. All you need do it keep it clean and trimmed.
Thanks Wayne and Shaydz.
And yes, I agree wholeheartedly with Wayne about combing the beard.
I'm coming up on35 and I still can't grow a beard. Oh I grow facial hair and lots of it, but it doesn't grow evenly, meaning I get all these patches on my face that have more than others and some not at all. Of course I don't think I would even if I could since the itching drives me nuts.
The itching will go away between two and six weeks into growing it.