Tips for beards?

[Vandiablo]

I want a giant bushy lumberjack

Partial quotes are fun!

I want a giant bushy lumberjack beard for now, then I'll decide later.

So yesterday, being Wednesday, you went shopping and had butter scones for tea?? Oh, you're a lumberjack and you're okay...

A little old lady came up to me and said she liked the colour of my beard (it's got a slight orange hue), and how full it was. She also said that more men should grow beards like they used to do when she was young. It made me smile and stroke my beard in satisfaction.

Whaaa... you didn't let her do it?

I've had a full beard since, lessee, 1984 or maybe early 1985.

I do just about exactly what Pete does, except I don't use his shower, and I use an electric shaver/trimmer every day rather than a blade.

I agree with the other posts that it's good to not have hair under your mouth. Even if it's short, you'll still get food on it, and I think the beard looks better without it. As for above the lip, it is best to trim that a certain distance above your lip, again for both food and appearance. (It would have to be very long to "style" it away from your lip.) I use small grooming scissors for above the lip.

As for frequency, shave every day or two (no one really notices if you miss a day), trim above your lip every week or so (or more frequently), and the full beard trim is a matter of preference. I do mine about once a month.

The full beard trim gets hairs everywhere, even when trying to be careful. I use the bathroom sink, but close the drain first, and it makes it easier if you put TP or paper towel in the basin before the trim.

And be warned, even though you remove thousands and thousands of hairs and dispose of them properly, if there's so much as two hairs in the sink when you're done, others using the sink may say that you didn't clean it up.

Once at work, while a co-worker and I were discussing beard maintenance, a female co-worker chimed in about shaving her beard. The two of us had a moment of stunned silence ("did she mean... yes she did") and then had nothing to say since anything we said at that point would be inform-HR material. She had a good laugh.