Shaved facial hair versus a beard, my experience

LastSamurai

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First of all, hello everyone and happy 2020..What a f*****g year.

Anyway. I haven't been on here for a while to be honest. If anything I've been living my life and to be honest the COVID pandemic had kind of sucked my attention away from my hairline. I buzz cut my hair back in December 2019, and to be honest my hair grew back relatively fast. I passed through different points of beard and short hair / stubble before I started to get some length back. By April / May I already had decent growth again, so actually looking back it didn't take much longer than 4 months or so.

I've been dating a great girl over the past 2 months. But last night I had a kind of feeling that she looked at me and I could tell she was looking at my hair and being disappointed. In fact, she looks at my hairline more than I care for. Last night, I had gone for a tighter cut on the sides and also clean shaven after having stubble for a while. The reality is, I don't look so healthy anymore with a clean shave. The years of looking at a computer screen and living in the centre of a busy city have taken their toll somewhat, I look gaunt yet like a boy, its almsot like my face is too 'young'. A bit of a baby face that sometimes at age 31 doesn't work in my favour.. When I rocked up to hers, she made this remark, 'your hair is really short!' but in a kind of 'omg, you are balder then I realised' kind of manner, reading between the lines. And generally, I just felt a bit uncomfortable around her, it was that kind of feeling that you weren't sure whether she completely accepted you or not. She didn't at one point say, nice cut, you look great, or anything. And perhaps that lack of reassurance left me feeling somewhat insecure.

Anyway, it was a cruel reminder that clean shaving is no longer an option for me with my gaunt face and nw3.5 kind of look. I need to constantly maintain a beard. And the thing is, facial hair does make a massive difference to my face, older, more self assured, more manly. It's just a better look in so many ways. I kind of look like a boy in a man's body without a beard, and it does look kind of strange. I guess a weird thing happens when you have a beard for 3 months +, in that after that time period going back to clean shaven just doesn't seem natural anymore. Anyway. I'm not sure where I'm going with this. Only that I've remembered why I don't clean shave. Because it looks like sh*t. There is something about a beard that softens the features and takes the eyes away from the hairline. Especially if you still have coverage on top, most people don't even realise. But all of a sudden, you shave and it's like bam, people notice straight away.

Back to a substantial beard I think.
 

OralMinOnlyMaybe

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I was hoping that if I can manage to get a girlfriend she won’t care when I go bald More reason not to mess up my DHT and risk preventing full beard development. I’m only 23 and this is my main concern when it comes to finasteride.
 

justinbieberscombover

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Grow it again bro.

I saw some threads on reddit from wives telling that their husband shaved his beard, he refuses to grow it back and all of a sudden they're not attracted to him anymore. One woman even said she started crying when she saw her husband because he looked so different she could barely recognize him, apparently it's that much of a big deal.

I will stick with my heavy stubble/short beard. Definitely makes me look younger and healthier. With the beard I look even younger than my age. Without it I look 5 years older
 

Haironnu

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Grow it again bro.

I saw some threads on reddit from wives telling that their husband shaved his beard, he refuses to grow it back and all of a sudden they're not attracted to him anymore. One woman even said she started crying when she saw her husband because he looked so different she could barely recognize him, apparently it's that much of a big deal.

I will stick with my heavy stubble/short beard. Definitely makes me look younger and healthier. With the beard I look even younger than my age. Without it I look 5 years older

they are not attracted to them anymore because their husbands probably have manlets jawlines and lower face, that's how it is. you absolutely MUST have a beard or a stubble if your lower face features are weak. like in op's case.
and it's the opposite for men with strong facial features, if you have a prominent jawline going with a beard only takes away from your looks, if I had a sculptured jawline and strong facial features I'd never grow a beard in my life.
 

Haironnu

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I was hoping that if I can manage to get a girlfriend she won’t care when I go bald More reason not to mess up my DHT and risk preventing full beard development. I’m only 23 and this is my main concern when it comes to finasteride.

don't want to bum you out but she 100% will care. even if she tells you she doesn't care, she cares.
 

Derelict

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Sorry to hear that OP, i don't suit facial hair at all so not an option for me.
 

justinbieberscombover

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they are not attracted to them anymore because their husbands probably have manlets jawlines and lower face, that's how it is. you absolutely MUST have a beard or a stubble if your lower face features are weak. like in op's case.
and it's the opposite for men with strong facial features, if you have a prominent jawline going with a beard only takes away from your looks, if I had a sculptured jawline and strong facial features I'd never grow a beard in my life.
In general you are right that men with a strong jawline look better without a beard than men with a weak/average one. But we don't know if that's the reason why their wives felt weird. For all we know the husbands might have an Adonis jaw, which is why they realized they don't really need a beard. Their wives were used to one look and preferred it. One woman was like "his smile suddenly looks different without the beard" lmao, there are some things we don't really understand.
 
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LastSamurai

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don't want to bum you out but she 100% will care. even if she tells you she doesn't care, she cares.
The reality is no girl wants to get married to guy who is anything more than an nw2. That wasn't the disney dream they were sold as children. Prince charming always had a full head of hair. That said, you hope she comprimises and you also hope that your aeshethics are good enough in other areas to make up for it. Good teeth, a fit body and a good complexion are all better than having bad teeth, being obese and having bad skin. So work with what you have.
 

LastSamurai

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In general you are right that men with a strong jawline look better without a beard than men with a weak/average one. But we don't know if that's the reason why their wives felt weird. For all we know the husbands might have an Adonis jaw, which is why they realized they don't really need a beard. Their wives were used to one look and preferred it. One woman was like "his smile suddenly looks different without the beard" lmao, there are some things we don't really understand.
My features would look better clean shaven if it wasn't for my recession, but my recession makes me look more gaunt somehow. I suppose my jaw line is quite narrow so although it has a good angle its quite pointed verses a wider jaw line that is more typical in a stererotypical bodybuilder for example.

Anyway, I'm grateful for the beard. Even today after a bit of stubble has grown back I already feel a bit better. The journey from clean shaven to 3 month beard is literally that of effimenate boy to macho looking guy. Not a bad ROI for something that requires virtually no effort. My girl hasn't seen me with a full beard but I think she will like it once she sees it.
 
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Derelict

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How many years have you gone with the bearded look over clean shaven exactly?
 

Marky

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First of all, hello everyone and happy 2020..What a f*****g year.

Anyway. I haven't been on here for a while to be honest. If anything I've been living my life and to be honest the COVID pandemic had kind of sucked my attention away from my hairline. I buzz cut my hair back in December 2019, and to be honest my hair grew back relatively fast. I passed through different points of beard and short hair / stubble before I started to get some length back. By April / May I already had decent growth again, so actually looking back it didn't take much longer than 4 months or so.

I've been dating a great girl over the past 2 months. But last night I had a kind of feeling that she looked at me and I could tell she was looking at my hair and being disappointed. In fact, she looks at my hairline more than I care for. Last night, I had gone for a tighter cut on the sides and also clean shaven after having stubble for a while. The reality is, I don't look so healthy anymore with a clean shave. The years of looking at a computer screen and living in the centre of a busy city have taken their toll somewhat, I look gaunt yet like a boy, its almsot like my face is too 'young'. A bit of a baby face that sometimes at age 31 doesn't work in my favour.. When I rocked up to hers, she made this remark, 'your hair is really short!' but in a kind of 'omg, you are balder then I realised' kind of manner, reading between the lines. And generally, I just felt a bit uncomfortable around her, it was that kind of feeling that you weren't sure whether she completely accepted you or not. She didn't at one point say, nice cut, you look great, or anything. And perhaps that lack of reassurance left me feeling somewhat insecure.

Anyway, it was a cruel reminder that clean shaving is no longer an option for me with my gaunt face and nw3.5 kind of look. I need to constantly maintain a beard. And the thing is, facial hair does make a massive difference to my face, older, more self assured, more manly. It's just a better look in so many ways. I kind of look like a boy in a man's body without a beard, and it does look kind of strange. I guess a weird thing happens when you have a beard for 3 months +, in that after that time period going back to clean shaven just doesn't seem natural anymore. Anyway. I'm not sure where I'm going with this. Only that I've remembered why I don't clean shave. Because it looks like sh*t. There is something about a beard that softens the features and takes the eyes away from the hairline. Especially if you still have coverage on top, most people don't even realise. But all of a sudden, you shave and it's like bam, people notice straight away.

Back to a substantial beard I think.
Just the simple fact she even mentioned the hair says it all. They do pay attention to this stuff and the facial expression says more than the words coming out.
 
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justinbieberscombover

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My features would look better clean shaven if it wasn't for my recession, but my recession makes me look more gaunt somehow. I suppose my jaw line is quite narrow so although it has a good angle its quite pointed verses a wider jaw line that is more typical in a stererotypical bodybuilder for example.

Anyway, I'm grateful for the beard. Even today after a bit of stubble has grown back I already feel a bit better. The journey from clean shaven to 3 month beard is literally that of effimenate boy to macho looking guy. Not a bad ROI for something that requires virtually no effort. My girl hasn't seen me with a full beard but I think she will like it once she sees it.
A narrow jaw is actually more ideal but yeah, the clean shaven look is definitely nicer with zero balding. Facial hair kinda offsets recession in a way.

When I buzzed my beard a few weeks ago, all of a sudden I started noticing every guy who had a nice one and felt envy. But I didn't pay attention to anyone's jawline lol.

Now that my beard is back I don't give a sh*t about anyone else's beard.

Funny how that sh*t works.
 

justinbieberscombover

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I'm actually looking into the option of getting my hairline lowered from NW2 to sort of NW1 now. If all goes well, I won't care about people's hairlines anymore. Which is crazy bc that's something I've been conscious of for an entire decade of my life.
 
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