Octopus Overlords

Yesterday I shaved off my beard and mustache, which I'd been wearing for more than six years. I typically go off-and-on with facial hair on about a two-year schedule, so this feels like a change. (My chin hairs turned completely white during this span.)

I thought it might be interesting to get a snapshot of what OOers (or the ones capable of growing significant whiskerage) are doing with their faces right now.

I've been clean shaven and short haired via self trimmer ever since I could groom myself after getting hit by a car. Previous to that I hadn't had a hair cut in probably 15 years nor cut back my beard in four or more. I was thinking about growing back over a cold winter but I'm stick of shedding hair all over the place. I'm old enough with slow growing and thin hair that I don't have to cut back via trimmer three or four times a year. Over the years before just not shaving I've had all kinds of beard and mustache and mutton chops; including handlebars and full on Yosemite Sam.

I've had a circle beard for (checks watch) ~29 years now and over the last year or so it has transitioned mostly white on my chin. I'm not enjoying that and have been considering shaving it off.

However, it would make my future escape plans more difficult as no one has seen me without facial hair for almost 3 decades.

I've said too much.

Currently? Just a moustache, a horseshoe. It's longer then they're usually worn, though.

I wore a beard for a while, and did the moustache + goatee for years, but I can't anymore - ever since the radiation, I have a couple of patches along my chin that won't grow hair.

My preferred compromise is a friendly - that is, a beard with everything but the chin. Think American Civil War. It's supposedly called a 'friendly' because the two sideburns are shaking hands (the moustache.) It's a lot of maintenance, however, especially since my bear hair tends to have lots of kinks in it, and I've been lazy lately. So horseshoe moustache it is for now.

Handlebar mustache with a Van Dyke beard, somewhat similar to this:

Clean shaven...give or take a week or two.
If I could afford it I'd laser it all off. I hate shaving and I hate having facial hair.
Head is buzzed at lowest setting. Wife cuts it about once a month or if it sneaks ip on us and gives me Wolverine hair.

I went with stashe and beard, but it's a goatee, not a Grizzly Adams.

Edit: Like this.

Blackhawk wrote: ↑Tue Feb 06, 2024 6:54 pm my bear hair

I suspect that I have similar to Smoove. I do shave the soul patch. And the chin is mostly white. I also don't like hair on the lip, so I keep the mustache part pretty trimmed. And it's all kept pretty short.

I grew it ages ago because I have a round head, and once the hair started going on top, I needed something to break it up. I was afraid someone would try and carve me for Halloween.

I have a "circle beard" (although I like to think of it as a Walter White beard).

I had been clean-shaven for almost my entire life (with the exception of two tours in the Arctic while I was in the armed forces) until the early pandemic, when I grew a proper pandemic beard. That soon got trimmed down to a circle beard so that it wouldn't interfer with masking, then just a mustache for a while when I was using an elastomeric respirator, but I grew the beard back after switching to trifold N95 respirators.

I first grew a 'moustache' in the sixth grade. Since then, I've only been clean shaven three times: Once when I was 16 and a job required it (a job that lasted ten days, after which I grew it back), once a little over 20 years ago on a whim, which lasted about a week, and when I had my surgery, which lasted one day. I get 'baby face' when I'm clean shaven.

Goodness, I don't think I've been clean shaven since I participated in a Movember at work (and posted a photo here) like thirteen years ago. And I don't intend/expect to be again unless I ever get in shape and am curious what I look like under there. Though I'd have to consider it if there were a major resurgence of COVID, for the sake of proper masking if I had to spend a lot of time in public... but off-the-shelf masks don't fit me anyway.

I didn't shave at all during the pandemic, which coincided with a period of major depression. It was then that I confirmed I just can't grow a satisfactory full beard. I have very wavy/kinky beard hair, and I can barely grow anything on my cheeks. And I've never been able to maintain a long moustache because getting hair in my mouth/messy eating drives me crazy. So these days I keep a moustache trimmed at the lip and have a really long, broad chin beard. I'm not totally happy with it, and if I returned to respectable professional life I'd probably trim it. But I'm embracing the rebellious youth I never had as I head into my 40s and am toying with a modified metalhead style that may eventually allow me to wear beard beads with a modicum of dignity.


Current-day Sudy:




Late-pandemic Sudy:

Other: only one occasional hair on my chin that gets plucked about every 4-6 years.

In 2017 I'd been growing a beard for 4 or 5 years with only minor trims.



I convinced myself that look wasn't the best for job hunting so I switched to my current mustache. Sometimes I'll use some wax to try to tame it but mostly I'm going for (at least according to my sister) somewhere between Wilford Brimley and the guard at the door to the Emerald City.



Sorry about the terrible pictures - I don't do good selfies at the best of times and trying to document a car walking around your head doesn't make it any easier!

I just let all of my hair do whatever it wants until it eventually pisses me off and I buzz it away. I haven't been to a barber since before the pandemic. I do trim my mustache enough to keep hair out of my mouth, and lately my eyebrows have taken to sprouting antennae that have to be snipped when they droop into my eyes.

Jaymann wrote: ↑Tue Feb 06, 2024 7:45 pm I went with stashe and beard, but it's a goatee, not a Grizzly Adams.

Edit: Like this.

this is me...minus all that hair on top of the head. I'm clean shaven there.

No beard, no mustache. No sideburns. Shortish except when I’m too busy to get to the hairdresser, when it gets wavy.

Clean shaven...doubt I could even grow a decent beard or mustache if I wanted, so I shave to dolphin smooth every 2-3 days.

I'm in the process of growing it all now.

Jaymann wrote: ↑Tue Feb 06, 2024 7:45 pm I went with stashe and beard, but it's a goatee, not a Grizzly Adams.

Edit: Like this.

You've stolen the image I have of myself in my brain. Like his, but the stache and the beard don't connect at the corners. Hair doesn't seem to grow there very well just like on the top of my head. Oh, and none of ruggedly handsome stuff going on either.

Have we ever banned somebody for being too handsome?

If those pictures are of yall we've got a bunch of handsome fellas here.

Throughout the year I'm mostly clean-shaven (though I work from home so I get scruffy). Every few months or so I'll grow a beard for 4-5 weeks, then I'll shave it. There's no real rhyme or reason to it. I do it when I feel like it, and I shave it when I feel like it.

I have been told I have a good "beard face" and usually I get more compliments with the beard than not. I also find the maturity factor of it makes people treat me slightly differently. Without the beard I get indifference from strangers for the most part. WIth the beard, I find myself becoming everybody's bro. I'll be standing in line and random people will just start chatting me up which almost never happens without the beard. It's bizarre.

Dammit, now y'all making me want to grow it back out so I can be popular again.

Kraken wrote: ↑Wed Feb 07, 2024 3:06 am Have we ever banned somebody for being too handsome?

Are you threatening me or something? What did I do?

I wish I could grow a decent mustache and beard, but my facial hair is just too sparse and patchy, even if I give it a few weeks. I blame my father's genes: late in life, he decided to grow out a beard, and it was the worst facial hair on planet Earth for those few years before he passed away.

Anonymous Bosch wrote: ↑Tue Feb 06, 2024 7:03 pm Handlebar mustache with a Van Dyke beard, somewhat similar to this:

You might have just moved into my Top 3 OOers that I need to meet in person. I will forever now imagine you wearing Steampunk gear all the time.

I grew out beard and mustache at some point in my 20's, thinking the clean shaven look wasn't getting me laid so...

It didn't matter. After a few years, I scraped it all off.

My brother still goes back and forth. He's currently in full beard and 'stache mode. AFAIK, he's not getting laid either.

I generally leaned towards having a beard/stache as a teacher (both HS and college) because I thought it made me seem wise and authoritative to students. I think it did.

Now that I've shaved, my new colleagues (fellow librarians and the researchers we serve) are all telling me I look much younger. Being 55, I accept this as a good thing.

Also, I kind of forgot that I have nice dimples.

Smoove_B wrote: ↑Wed Feb 07, 2024 7:22 pm

Anonymous Bosch wrote: ↑Tue Feb 06, 2024 7:03 pm Handlebar mustache with a Van Dyke beard, somewhat similar to this:

You might have just moved into my Top 3 OOers that I need to meet in person. I will forever now imagine you wearing Steampunk gear all the time.

I was in an area of Sarasota yesterday where everybody dresses like that. I bought some birch beer while I was there.

Smoove_B wrote: ↑Wed Feb 07, 2024 7:22 pm

Anonymous Bosch wrote: ↑Tue Feb 06, 2024 7:03 pm Handlebar mustache with a Van Dyke beard, somewhat similar to this:

You might have just moved into my Top 3 OOers that I need to meet in person. I will forever now imagine you wearing Steampunk gear all the time.

I didn't start shaving until I was 17 (late bloomer plus very light colored facial hair). It wasn't until my late 20s that I needed to shave every day for people to notice. I got into a routine where I would shave M-Th, then skip the weekends. Basically, shave on office days except for Friday, since that was casual day anyway. Never grew any kind of facial hair beyond a few days of scruff.

When COVID hit and we closed the office, I thought it would be amusing to maintain the routine of only shaving on office days. Wouldn't I look funny for the 2-3 weeks that the office was closed?! Nine months later (week between Christmas and New Year) I finally decided to shave what had become, according to one person from work who saw me on the occasional video call, my Hagrid beard. I did so unannounced to my family, and when I came downstairs my daughter stared at me for a few seconds and then said, "You look so weird!"

I hate shaving, but I have even less desire to maintain properly groomed facial hair, so I imagine that 9 months will be my lone foray into facial hair.

ImLawBoy wrote: ↑Thu Feb 08, 2024 11:00 am When COVID hit and we closed the office, I thought it would be amusing to maintain the routine of only shaving on office days. Wouldn't I look funny for the 2-3 weeks that the office was closed?! Nine months later (week between Christmas and New Year) I finally decided to shave what had become, according to one person from work who saw me on the occasional video call, my Hagrid beard. I did so unannounced to my family, and when I came downstairs my daughter stared at me for a few seconds and then said, "You look so weird!"

I stopped shaving in October 2020. I don't trim or groom the beard so people are often handing me spare change when I go out in public. Somehow I have managed to change jobs twice in this time, getting through video interview meetings. Each time I make a reference to the beard hoping it doesn't disqualify me from the job. As long as the wife doesn't veto the homeless look I will probably continue for awhile longer. No one has seen my face in over 3 years so I would get a lot of "weird" comments if I shaved.

Zarathud wrote: ↑Tue Feb 06, 2024 11:32 pm No beard, no mustache. No sideburns. Shortish except when I’m too busy to get to the hairdresser, when it gets wavy.

Pretty good description of me.

I had a stache for probably 30 years but it turned gray while the hair on my head stayed dark, so I shaved it off. I had an acquaintance tell me I looked 10 years younger and like I had lost weight.

I can't remember when I started growing a beard/mustache, it has been over a decade. I hate shaving or trimming so I tend to cycle like this:
clean shaven - > two months -> mountain man -> close trimmed -> two months -|
^----------------------------------------------------------------------

Yes my beard grown pretty slowly.

Also my beard is way more white than my hair, but it I like the look of the mix of white and orange and my hair doesn't have much of the orange it used to.

I also get the comments about looking younger when I shave, but honestly I don't much care. I'm not young. *shrug* Maybe if I am ever looking for a job again, I'll consider it.

This is a few years old. I shaved my face to match my passport photo when going to China. Now the beard has a lot more gray.

I stopped shaving in March 2020 and the wife decided she liked the beard. I enjoy only shaving once a week and only having to do my neck.

Well that and my ears. No one told me how much ear hair I'd sprout once I got old.

Jaymann wrote: ↑Tue Feb 06, 2024 7:45 pm I went with stashe and beard, but it's a goatee, not a Grizzly Adams.

Edit: Like this.

Yea, this is a totally different thing than a full beard and moustache.