Gentlemen,

I’ve been silent for some time– while the beards have been growing along at their own pace, I reckon it’s time to put a hand on the wheel and true the direction of this ship. We’ve had a few casualties, including one of the nicest beards I’ve ever seen, so I can’t help but to speak some words of encouragement so that no more brothers will be lost un-needed.

  The first order of business has to be maintenance then – we’re undoubtedly beyond the point where you have your food’s entry into your mouth thwarted by a thick mustache who insists on bathing in your meals before you eat them.     There’s a few options for helping those chicken wings break through your beard’s defensive line relatively unmolested.

1.)    Mustache wax.   Not going to be the most popular option, but leaves you with the most authentic beard.  It might not be incredibly effective, and might leave your ale with a slight lemon flavor, but a properly waxed mustache can be gathered out of the way pretty effectively. This is my method for the first time – antiquated and bold.  Use lots of napkins with meals.

2.)    Trimming.  Now, this is going to take some know-how.  Don’t just grab trimmers, set them to a desired length, and start buzzing, because you’re going to want all of your mustache hairs at variable lengths for the richest mustache possible. You don’t want your beard too bottom-heavy, it will look saggy and weak!   A powerful mustache is important to keep focus near the center of your face, so do all you can to encourage it.

·         Be very sure your beard is fully dried before trimming, clean, and combed as straight as you can manage. A wet beard will be longer, so if you trim it when damp it will dry and ‘shrink’; then you’ll be left with your lips looking like this.

 Now, get some small scissors and cut along the shape of your lip .  If your upper lip is those shoes and the pants are your stache, you don’t want to be showing any skin between.  By just cutting along this line, you’re letting the hairs closer to your nose grow longer, so you have a nice, think, layered foliage. You can let the hairs that grow outside your lips continue long, un-cut… then can then blend in with the rest of your beard, or be waxed and curled. The best of both worlds!

This same advice goes for your chin hair. You can have your beard trimmed short and neat between your chin and adam’s apple, while the hair from your bottom lip to your chin grow long and lay over-top.  I’ll refer you back to a striking image from our first entry: it should make a lot more sense in retrospection, how he’s artfully layered his beard into a thick, regal, yet short and well maintained beard.  A masterpiece.

Wet, comb, and dry your beard again after trimming to make sure you have straight, clean lines.

Now, you don’t have to have a nearly trimmed beard, all of that advice is just to help with those of a more ‘professional’ mind-set.  You can also be a professional bad-ass.
Let’s talk about the elephant in the room:

I mean, obviously no one is going to look like this by March 16 (sorry to break it to you),  but there is a beard ideology here worth thinking about.  These beards are a wild and unabashed act of freedom, and a brazen display of a lack of social constraint.  While you may not have a beard down to your nipples by March, you can follow their lead and just let it go.    Your feral mane might offend some people;  you might be snubbed and disregarded by the bourgeois, and some women might think you foul,  but isn’t that the point??  Screw them.  Use your beard as its own napkin. If your beard insists on wading in chicken grease and beer foam like a Viking marauder through blood and glory,  let it.   Get rid of your beard comb, and bring that St. Baldrick’s bastard with the scissors to battle. When they insist on standing over the butchered devastation of your beard, make them bleed in the brambly tangle first.  



I hope you’ve all found a glimpse of your beard-destiny by now,  time is running short…

PS. We should take more group photos this week.  I’ll get ahold of the photographer, and field any location ideas.