We are excited to announce our brand-spanking-new Google+ Page! We invite you to check it out, add us to your circles and chat with us about your beards, mustaches, sideburns and all around hirsuteness. Stay tuned for product giveaways, contests, Hangouts and more!

We hope to see you there!

Today is November 1st, also known as the first day of Movember!

If you’re not familiar with the Movember, it’s the world’s largest fundraiser for prostate cancer research.

For 30 days, guys who sign up agree to grow mustaches and ask friends, family and coworkers to support them by donating money to the cause. Instead of a one day walk or marathon, the mustache creates a unique conversation-starter. Curious people will undoubtedly ask, “Dude, what’s up with the ‘stache?” and the Mo’Bro will have a unique opportunity to say, “I’m growing a mustache to raise awareness and money for cancers that affect men. Did you know that prostate cancer kills 32,000 men each year?”

The donations benefit The Prostate Cancer Foundation and LIVESTRONG.

And let’s be honest, Movember is a great excuse to finally take that mustache for a test drive.

The first rule of Movember is that Mo’Bros must begin the month clean-shaven. Nick Burns, co-author of The Bearded Gentleman: The Style Guide to Shaving Face, decided to shave his beard for the first time in two years! He visited barber extraordinaire Shorty Maniace for a straight-razor shave. And here’s the video to prove it!

You can donate to Movember and sponsor Nick in his fundraising efforts by clicking here. For every dollar Nick raises, his employer will match—so every dollar is worth two!

If you’re interested in growing a mustache of your own and raising money for a great cause, visit Movember.com.

For a limited time, Wahl is offering a limited-edition Movember facial hair trimmer! Buy a trimmer from Wahl, and the company will donate $10 to Movember. Visit WahlNation.com for more details!

Nick Burns, author of The Bearded Gentleman: A Style Guide to Shaving Face, tries out the Braun Mobile Shave (page 87) and tells you how to get that perfect shave

This spring, why not upgrade your stylish stubble or clean shave for a close-cropped beard that highlights your cheekbones, strengthens your jaw, and conceals a second (or third) chin? Grow your beard for three to four weeks, but shave below the line where your jaw meets your neck. Trim up the edges of your beard on your cheeks to create a clean, natural-looking line, for a polished look.

The Braun Mobile Shave is just the right tool to get this look on the go. It’s a small, battery-operated shaver that’s a must-have for overnight flights, quick touch-ups between meetings, or at the gym.

Both the clean-shaven and the hirsute will enjoy the convenience of this pocket shaver, and an added precision trimmer allows you to shave hard-to-reach places and shape up your facial hair.

(Originally published in British Airways High Life, March 2010)

(Originally published in New York Press)

Beards have been back for a while, and now that New York magazine has made a point of explaining the trend to its readers, we’re half expecting to see the pale, weak chins of Bushwick reappear in revolt.

And while the article pointed out the many ways that the modern urban mountain man can live the lifestyle that his facial hair advertises, from learning to butcher his own meat to buying $280 flannel jackets, one crucial aspect of the bearded man’s life was ignored: smooching.

As anyone who has kissed a man with a beard can tell you, where there are beards, there is burn. So to help sooth your skin after an all-night make out session with Paul Bunyon, we assembled a panel of experts to give us tips on what to do before (or, unfortunately, after) a bad case of beard burn hits.

It doesn’t matter if it’s always 5 o’clock somewhere, stay away from the stubble.

“I find it harder with stubble than with beards, which are softer,” explains Pinups Magazine editor Christopher Schulz. “I just kiss men with beards. I’ve actually seen this problem a lot but now that beards are trendier, it’s a lot easier not having that problem with a beard. I think in the history of hair trends there’s always been an up and down with it. In the ’70s, it was really popular. Men all had beards and didn’t shave their bodies at all and then in the ’80s and ’90s we all did, and now I just think it’s returning to that ’70s trend.”

Treat the hair on your face like the hair on your head.

“The biggest thing for guys with beards is a lot of them don’t realize that they need to wash their beards like they would the hair on their head,” says Diane Wood, of King of Shaves, a line of shaving products. “A lot of people complain that their husbands or their boyfriends beards are hard, and one of the reasons they do get like that is from the hard water and soap that they use on their beards. Regular bar soap contains a lot of fatty acids, which basically builds up like the soap scum would around your bathtub, so when a guy gets that really hard beard it’s from build up. What they should use is a hair conditioner like you’d use for your head because it has something that will neutralize those acids and make the beard a lot softer. It will also condition the hair underneath.”

Moisturize before you make out.

“I’ve had this problem myself,” explains Nick Burns, author of The Bearded Gentleman: The Style Guide to Shaving Face. “I’ve kissed many a bearded gentleman. I used to get [beard burn] so bad, it was horrible. The most important thing is making sure your skin is moisturized. Dry skin tends to be more sensitive and easier to get irritated especially from a beard. Find a good moisturizer for your skin type. Some are heavy in fragrance, which can irritate your skin. If you’re using an aggressive exfoliant like alpha-hydroxy acid, that can make you sensitive as well, so if you’re going to be kissing a bearded gentlemen, you should probably figure out what’s making your skin sensitive.”

If you do get burned, proceed to the nearest pharmacy.

“If you do experience beard burn, the best thing to do is put moisturizer on it as soon as you can.” If the damage seems more severe, Burns recommends you “use a little over-the-counter hydrocortisone cream to sooth the irritation. It will also take out the redness.”

Or at least try a triple antibiotic.

“Beard hair is as strong as copper wire of the same thickness, so if you’re really getting cut up that badly, it’s more of a cut than it is anything else, so treat it like you would any other minor cut. I’ve heard of people using stuff like Neosporin,” Wood says.

Check out this video of the men of New York Fashion Week as they offer tips, advice and espouse their love for a hairy Valentine’s Day.

The rapidly evolving facial-hair canon.

By Nick Burns

The Mutton Man

Model: Terry Richardson

Nothing says “I’m a wilderness buff with artistic tendencies” quite like muttonchops, especially when accompanied by a fast-plummeting mustache (not a goatee, mind you; the chin stays bare). Works best on extroverts with narrow faces.

The Chin Curtain

Model: Abe Lincoln

Not to be confused with the chin strap, the pencil-thin strip favored by David Ortiz types. This is more of a backwoods look, with up to an inch-and-a-half-long “curtain” descending from the jawline. Flattering for less-prominent chins.

The Garden Gnome

Model: Brad Pitt

When Pitt really lets himself go, this is what he ends up with: a scraggly upside-down pyramid. Best for men with straight or wavy whiskers and square or angular (not round) faces. Consider rubbing Clubman wax into your mustache to hold the pointy shape.

The Hollywoodian

Models: George Clooney, Jon Hamm

A mountain-man classic, often appropriated by stars looking for a quickie image shift. The thicker the coverage, the more authentic the man. Trim occasionally and clean up the neck, lest one end up with…the Van Winkle.

The Van Winkle

Model: Joaquin Phoenix, circa Letterman meltdown

The full monty as far as facial hair goes; takes months, if not years, to harvest. To counter its sex-repelling qualities, condition it a few times a week and run a comb through it now and then.

Nick Burns is the co-author of The Bearded Gentleman: The Style Guide to Shaving Face (May 2010, Arsenal Pulp Press).

Read more: The Urban-Woodsman Primer – The Rapidly Evolving Facial-Hair Canon — New York Magazine

Published Jan 31, 2010 in New York

Illustrations by Justin Bryan Nelson

By REED TUCKER

Originally published by the NY Post.

SEXIEST man alive — or the guy who dealt weed in college?

When Brad Pitt’s facial hair first appeared in the fall of 2008, we thought it was just a temporary thing. Maybe the guy got exhausted caring for his 48 kids and just didn’t have the energy to shave. It happens.

But now here we are, two years later, and the beard is not only still there, it’s gotten longer, grayer, scragglier and even more knotted.

At this point, you get the feeling he can’t shave it lest he displace the family of spiders living inside.

Pitt was once considered the hottest man in Hollywood.

Now he’s lucky Angelina Jolie doesn’t go running back to Billy Bob Thornton.

The actor is reportedly growing this topiary experiment for a role in the upcoming film “The Lost City of Z,” in which Pitt is tipped to play Col. Percy Harrison Fawcett, an early 20th-century explorer who went missing in the Amazon.

Fine.

But films have makeup departments, you know. Why grow the real thing and subject us to this national nightmare?

“Generally men grow beards to change their faces,” says Allan Peterkin, author of  “One Thousand Beards: A Cultural History of Facial Hair.”

“Maybe he’s reached a point where he doesn’t want to be considered for his looks. He might want to put forth another face.”

Mission accomplished.

And the face he’s putting forth is that of Capt. Jack Sparrow.

Like Johnny Depp’s pirate, Pitt has been photographed with beads twisted into his goatee.

Michael Malbon, owner of Lower East Side barber Frank’s Chop Shop, says that Pitt’s scruffy look is in keeping with current trends, and that beards are especially popular during winter when the facial hair can offer some protection from the cold.

“It’s a good look for him — though I don’t know bout the beads,” Malbon says.

“With the guy he is, it just lets the world know that he’s free and wild and still young and doesn’t have to be all cleanshaven. He’s saying, ‘I’m chilling, I don’t need to conform to attitudes.’ ”

Kris Payne, who calls himself “premier” of the Gotham City Beardsman Alliance, says that even in beard growing, Pitt excels. Bastard.

“The hair grows in nice and even, which is something most of us can’t say for ourselves,” Payne says.

But the burning question for most people is, what does Angelina think of the scruff? She has yet to hold a press conference and break her silence, but we can make some educated guesses.

“There have been studies where women will be given pictures of men with and without beards,” Peterkin says, “and they invariably rate the men with beards as more virile and more masculine.

“But,” Peterkin continues, “when asked if they want to kiss him or date him, the answer is no.”

See that, Brad? You just blew your chances with the ladies.

by Sharon Clott

Originally published in New York Magazine’s The Cut

We’ve been noticing a lot of furry men lately. Like real men, not just Brad Pitt and David Beckham and their magical mustaches. Why the extra fuzz? Just to prove that they can. “Men grow facial hair now with a bit of irony,” says Allan Peterkin, author of One Thousand Beards. “It’s rebellious but playful at the same time. They’re saying: ‘I’m no corporate slave. I can get away with this in a way my grandfather couldn’t.” Do men look better with or without facial hair? [Independent UK]

After years in the fashion wilderness, moustaches are back. But what’s a chap to do if he can’t actually grow one? Archie Bland goes on a face odyssey

Originally published in The Independent by Archie Bland

After years in the fashion wilderness, moustaches are back. But what’s a chap to do if he can’t actually grow one? Archie Bland goes on a face odyssey

There is simply no such thing as a neutral beard or moustache. Whatever the style, the hirsute male can always expect a reaction. Or, at least, nearly always. There are, in fact, a few of us left who still can’t quite make up our minds.

We are the full-grown cherubs; the men with the faces of boys. We can’t grow facial hair, or at least not properly, not in a way that doesn’t draw the censure of snickering teenagers on the bus. Publicly, we’re airily dismissive of it all. Secretly, though, we hate everyone with a beard. We fear them a little. And we long to steal the hair on their faces.

In the past, this has been a mere niggle. Each November, when well-meaning men’s health charities renamed the month Movember and asked for sponsored moustaches around the world, the less virile would console themselves with the fact that social (all right, female) disapproval would ensure that all those taches would disappear by Christmas.

But this time around things are different; There’s an ominous tendency amongst the genuinely hip towards moustaches, and in the last year it has reached fever pitch. It began when Brad Pitt cultivated a lip-rug for the filming of Inglourious Basterds. It got worse when James Franco offered a delicately hairy confection of his own. And then Hamish Bowles (pictured, right), European editor-at-large of Vogue, joined Terry Richardson, the feted fashion photographer, to give it an edge. Moustaches are cool.

“In any men’s magazine now, probably every third face you see is furry in some way,” says Allan Peterkin, author of a cultural history of facial hair, One Thousand Beards. “There are a lot of great moustaches walking around. If you can’t grow one and you want to, you’re really at a bit of a loss.”

It’s not that we want facial hair, exactly – but that we’d like to be able to make the decision for ourselves. It’s just easier to be a confidently refined male when you know that your very face contains the possibility of hulking machismo.

That’s not how it is for me. If you want a hairy neck, look no further. I’m your man. Cheeks and the upper lip, on the other hand, appear to be a problem, populated as they are, at best, with patches of rust, randomly distributed, and a French schoolboy’s candy-floss wisp. This remains the case after weeks of growth, during which period the clucking enquiries as to whether I am trying to grow a beard take on the same humouring tone that mothers employ when their baby boys pretend to be astronauts.

For anyone wishing to look up to date, this is a problem. According to Richard Scorer, a hairdresser and men’s grooming expert who has worked on photo shoots for magazines including Esquire, GQ, and Dazed & Confused, the look has taken a firm hold in the hip East End of London.

“You get lots of boys busting a moustache in Brick Lane market on a Sunday,” he says. “Five years ago it would have been comedy, and now it’s how people go to work. I shot some really high-end fashion the other day, and there was a guy wearing a moustache and taking it totally seriously.”

And this is not your father’s moustache. Instead of a miniature broom under his nose, the modern-day dandy wears something villainous, strokable, and as twirly as possible. However sternly the moustache might seem to be worn, the face it adorns is never entirely straight. “Men grow facial hair now with a bit of irony,” says Allan Peterkin. “It’s rebellious but playful at the same time. They’re saying: ‘I’m no corporate slave. I can get away with this in a way my grandfather couldn’t.’

I’m not actually sure this is a particularly positive development, given that the louche moustache Peterkin and Scorer point to basically just makes everyone who adopts it look like he’s about to make off with your life savings on the pretext of selling you a set of spoons. To style your clothes ironically is perhaps just about acceptable, in a very limited range of contexts; but to style your face as if you don’t take it seriously is surely some kind of fundamental admission of defeat.

But fashion is a merciless god, and if we want to look on-trend, we beardless boys are going to have to find some kind of solution. “To improve facial hair is difficult,” says Dr Peter Williams, Hair Transplant Surgeon at the Hospital Group. He suggests that minoxidil, beloved by the follicularly-challenged everywhere in the form of Rogaine, might help, but it’s unproven.

Richard Scorer is no more optimistic. “If you’ve got a gappy beard you just have to give up,” he says. But what if you’re desperate?

“Well, if you’re an old man, there’s a thickening spray called Mane,” he says doubtfully. “It thickens each hair so they cover more space. But we are really in the realms of cheesiness here. On a shoot I could make it work. As a normal human being I wouldn’t go anywhere near it.” Meanwhile, Keith Flett – organiser of the Beard Liberation Front, so he should know – points to a tried and tested approach. “The more you prune it the more it grows,” he says sagely. “It’s like a hedge.” Unfortunately, while that tactic might conceivably make hair appear a little coarser, and at least make stubble a little more Clint Eastwood, there’s no evidence it will actually promote growth in the vast deserts between my occasional follicular oases.

And that’s about it, unless you’re willing to ask Dr Williams for a transplant. The only alternative is simulation. “You can buy very good theatrical products,” says Allan Peterkin. “But that would definitely be the last resort.”

Well, last resort it may be. But I’ve had enough of feeling like a man-boy. Two weeks ago, I paid a visit to Screenface, a professional cosmetics supplier that provides hair and make-up for a string of major TV shows and films. Manager Breanna McCarthy explains that a hand-knotted ‘postiche’ moustache (from £39, rising to £141 for a full beard) comes on a lace backing that can be glued to the upper lip. You just trim the droopy walrus-type prototype back to your desired style, and glue it on.

This is easier said than done. Still, after a certain amount of trial and error, my retro nosebush is in place. It’s kind of ridiculous, admittedly – I look more like one of the Thompson twins than Nick Cave – but I rather like its solemnity. My facial hair has come to seem a matter of character, and not merely style.

No one I encounter in my moustachioed afternoon seems to suspect. I could swear that fellow moustache-men shoot me admiring, conspiratorial looks, and I’m sure two teenagers behind the counter in the newsagent treat me with a little more deference than usual. Some people even look unnerved. “People will not sit next to you,” says Keith Flett. “There’s a subconscious association with being dodgy. But facial hair definitely adds gravitas.”

The adolescents in the shop certainly seem to think so. I ask them how old they would guess I am, and when they estimate 30, my heart sings a little: it’s not six months since I’ve been ID’d buying an 18-Certificate computer game. Eventually I reveal that it’s a fake. “No way, man!” one whistles admiringly. “It looks totally real. You wouldn’t know.”

So the experiment is a qualified success. As it’s not really a plausible regular policy, some advice from the pages of Peterkin’s forthcoming tome, co-authored with US grooming journalist Nick Burns: The Bearded Gentleman: The Style Guide to Shaving Face. Grow it out for as long as possible to see what you’ve got to work with, and don’t trim it too early. Brush down longer hair to cover the gaps – if that’s an option for you, which it certainly isn’t for me.

And, finally, work to your strengths, they recommend. All right, a full ‘stache might be impossible. But what about sideburns? My own strengths, sad to say, don’t seem like they will ever come into style. “Hairy necks aren’t generally the way to go,” Richard Scorer says gently. “That’s just the way it is.”

My voyage through facial hair has forced me to the only realistic conclusion: you can shave regularly, ignore the casually virile masses, and wait it out. After all, come next Movember super-smooth skin might be all the rage again.

From Brad Pitt to Chuck Todd to Larry the Cable Guy, all types of men are wearing goatees. Bryan Curtis on the beard for all seasons. Plus, a gallery of A-list whiskers.

Breaking: Brad Pitt has a full-blown goatee. It’s long and gray and bushy, and when Pitt showed it off last week at a movie premiere, it was beaded in a style favored by the pirates of the Caribbean. If there were ever a time to reassess the state of facial hair, this would seem to be it. It used to be that growing a goatee was some kind of fashion statement. Now the goatee has become the Gap T-shirt of beards. The New New Goatee can be worn at home or at the office, by the hip and unhip alike, signifying, well, just about anything.

The New New Goatee is a beard for all seasons, as harmless as a tattoo. This becomes apparent by reviewing a list of Americans who have been sporting goatees lately: Kobe Bryant, Tim McGraw, Pastor Rick Warren, chef Rick Bayless, NBC’s Chuck Todd, Todd Palin, Larry the Cable Guy, even Mariah Carey in her latest music video. “There is no kinship at all,” Chuck Todd, who is a good sport for answering his phone, tells me. Larry the Cable Guy does not concur: “I think Brad Pitt might have the goatee just because I pulled it off so good,” he says.

What does a New New Goatee mean? First you have to understand that the goatee has always been hard to pin down. Shakespeare had one, as did the Flemish painter Anthony van Dyck, whom the Van Dyke was named after. (For simplicity’s sake, I have grouped the Van Dyke and the goatee together, even though the Van Dyke is the official name for the lip-chin combo.) “Imagery often shows Pan or the Devil with a goatee,” says Allan Peterkin, the author of One Thousand Beards: A Cultural History of Facial Hair. In the 20th century, the goatee was alluring enough to attract Lenin and Buffalo Bill, Burl Ives and Dizzy Gillespie, Colonel Sanders and Malcolm X, Dobie Gillis’ Maynard G. Krebs and Spike Lee, Anthrax’s Scott Ian and Kurt Cobain. It was Cobain and his grunge mates who resurrected the goatee from its Beat obsolescence in the 1990s. Though the goatee retains little of their residue of cool—if you’re at the cutting edge of facial hair, you’re wearing a full Zach Galifianakis—it is oddly more prominent in mainstream American life than ever.

The New New Goatee sometimes symbolizes brainy gravitas. This is most notable in Chuck Todd, NBC’s chief White House correspondent. Todd’s ginger goatee, which he grew in the summer of 2002, is a bracing counterpoint to clean-shaven mugs like Brian Williams’. “It highlights that nobody on TV has facial hair,” Todd says. But those carefully trimmed whiskers are part of Todd’s magic. A veteran of the D.C. insider tip sheet The Hotline, Todd is NBC’s numbers guy, its Election Day stats guru. In the blowhard universe of TV news, Todd’s pronouncements seem to carry real weight—you actually believe he knows what he’s talking about. Todd’s goatee confers upon him the same kind of authority as a political-science professor’s goatee.

Last month, when Todd lost a public bet with ABC News correspondent Jake Tapper and appeared poised to shave off the goatee, blogger Dan Amira compared it to Samson’s locks. Todd made a $2,000 donation to charity and kept the goatee by a whisker.
Another take on the New New Goatee: It is a symbol of bloggy, stay-at-home cred. “I wish I were part of some grand sociological trend,” says Jonah Goldberg, the goateed conservative pundit and frequent blogger on National Review Online. “But I mostly do it because I work from home and it makes it easier to go very long periods of time without shaving.”

The New New Goatee can signify both youth and maturity. Billy Joel’s goatee is a sign of an older man trying to recapture his youth. Michael Phelps’ goatee is a sign of a golden boy trying to look older.

There are, of course, aesthetic considerations. “First and foremost, they’re thinning,” says Larry the Cable Guy. When he debuted as a morning radio personality in the 1990s, Larry’s act was delightfully offensive but his face was baby-smooth. “I looked like a kid, a punk, no facial hair, nothing,” he says. Larry grew a full beard, but that was a smidge too country—“I looked like an Oak Ridge Boy”—so he pruned it down into a goatee. Paired with a baseball cap and sleeveless shirt, these days Larry looks like he has just exited a Golden Corral buffet. He has redneck gravitas.

Don’t like your New New Goatee? Simply change an accessory or two. Add some pricey eyewear, and a goatee can make you hip, as it does Johnny Depp. Doff your shirt, and it can make you all-powerful, as it does Shane Carwin of the Ultimate Fighting Championship. Stand in the vicinity of a Republican presidential candidate, and a goatee can make you look like the campaign’s sage, as with McCain aide Mark Salter. A goatee can lend an otherwise unremarkable creature a touch of menace. Google News turns up dozens of criminal suspects like this one from Oregon over the weekend: “a white male about 5 feet 9 inches or 6 feet tall and weighing between 160 and 180 pounds. He may have a goatee.” Ooga-boogah!

How did we end up with all this chin foliage? On the one hand, the New New Goatee is the case of something hip becoming something mainstream. It is also the case of the American office becoming a more casual place; Allan Peterkin notes that about the only people who can’t have goatees nowadays are politicians and bankers. The New New Goatee is also a sign of our neo-Bohemia, where formal culture has mixed with hipster culture and created a mix of the two: the Wall Street trader who wears a goatee with his Michael Kors suit.

Pitt reportedly grew his goatee for his role in The Lost City of Z, a real-life Victorian adventure. But what you make of the facial growth depends on what you make of Pitt. Some cast it as a youthful star finally confronting middle age (“Meet Joe Grey,” quipped The Daily Mail). Others have suggested he grew it just because he knew he would still look great. When Pitt attempted an earlier version of the look in January, there was at least one howl of outrage from a female fan at the Golden Globes, who was apparently convinced Pitt was hiding his magnificent face.
What ultimately persuaded NBC’s Chuck Todd to preserve his goatee, however, was not aesthetics but an inter-generational sentiment: His dad sported a red beard before him. “After my dad died,” says Todd, “I saw my red beard, and it was like this one, odd commonality I had with my old man. I didn’t want to shave it. It’s like I’d be letting him down.”

It is a sweet sentiment, and hints at goateed depths we have yet to plumb. Cut it however you like: The New New Goatee is the beard for everything!

Originally published on The Daily Beast.