As the title says I'm a first-time beard owner... at 60. While I tended to shave a couple or three times a week, I often let my facial hair grow out, sometimes more sometimes less, usually over the Christmas/New Year holiday. This has been the first time I've let it go to a full beard. It's been growing since about the middle of December (so 2 months at this point) and I'm not sure how long I'll let it go. It makes me look like Orson Welles, though considerably less rotund. I go hot or cold on it all seemingly by the hour. The cheeks are filling in, though, on the thin side. I think being salt and pepper makes it seem thinner than it is. They definitely thin out at the sideburns, always have. The mustache and goatee areas are quite full at, as best as I can tell (I haven't measured) about 3/8" to 1/2"+. I haven't trimmed anything yet. I'm working on training the mustache to part in the middle and lay to the sides, and I can get some curl at the ends. The goatee areas are white/silver and very full on either side. I find it odd that the center line, from the soul patch downward seems to be lagging in growth, though still full-ish.
As I said I go hot and cold on it. The fuzziness of the neck and lower sides annoys me, though trimming may help that. I'm quite taken by how wooly and dense the chin/goatee are is. Below that the hair annoyingly grows in the opposite direction - down from the chin then up from the neck! I haven't tried mustache wax yet. Being the cheap SOB that I am, I've tried whatever I already have in the house - a bit of soft Stirling Margaritas in the Arctic shave soap massaged and combed into the mustache seems to work well at making it succumb to my will.
If I do opt to shave it off, I'll wait until my son comes home on break and we can have some fun taking it through different style incarnations as it comes off. I'm a big fan of and quite miss using my RazoRock Gamechanger .84.
If I keep it I'll likely trim it to a goatee with a bit of a handlebar mustache or more likely something approaching a van Dyke (can't wait to counter the Colonel Sanders comments!).
Conceptually I've never really prescribed to facial hair. My brothers have always had beards, but mostly because they were inept at shaving in my opinion. It's just never been my thing. I've always claimed that shaving is what separates us from animals. Besides, I work around too many college students for whom facial hair is thought to be an expedient to maturity. Actually, I kind of like how I look but not how it feels, largely. Though I'm getting used to it. The wife says it makes me look mean, so it's been a success - perceived meanness has always been my defense mechanism (but that's another story).
Sorry for the rambling stream of consciousness. I'd be glad to hear comments and/or advice, or not.
Below is a picture of what I'm working with.
As I said I go hot and cold on it. The fuzziness of the neck and lower sides annoys me, though trimming may help that. I'm quite taken by how wooly and dense the chin/goatee are is. Below that the hair annoyingly grows in the opposite direction - down from the chin then up from the neck! I haven't tried mustache wax yet. Being the cheap SOB that I am, I've tried whatever I already have in the house - a bit of soft Stirling Margaritas in the Arctic shave soap massaged and combed into the mustache seems to work well at making it succumb to my will.
If I do opt to shave it off, I'll wait until my son comes home on break and we can have some fun taking it through different style incarnations as it comes off. I'm a big fan of and quite miss using my RazoRock Gamechanger .84.
If I keep it I'll likely trim it to a goatee with a bit of a handlebar mustache or more likely something approaching a van Dyke (can't wait to counter the Colonel Sanders comments!).
Conceptually I've never really prescribed to facial hair. My brothers have always had beards, but mostly because they were inept at shaving in my opinion. It's just never been my thing. I've always claimed that shaving is what separates us from animals. Besides, I work around too many college students for whom facial hair is thought to be an expedient to maturity. Actually, I kind of like how I look but not how it feels, largely. Though I'm getting used to it. The wife says it makes me look mean, so it's been a success - perceived meanness has always been my defense mechanism (but that's another story).
Sorry for the rambling stream of consciousness. I'd be glad to hear comments and/or advice, or not.
Below is a picture of what I'm working with.
