The Bearded Man by Martin Gaard

ART, FASHION, CULTURE & LIFESTYLE

THE bearded Man First issue

Published and distributed by Martin Gaard

Welcome Letter from the editor

Again I have to say welcome! I am so exited. You are now holding the first (hopefully the first of many) issue of The Bearded Man in your hands. It has been a long road and now we have finally arrived at our destination. We hope you like what you read and learn in the magazine.

The bearded man aims to be the best lifestyle magazine for men. We want to inspire, teach and guide you to be the best man that you can be. Forget all that stupid feminine stuff. It’s time to be a man! We are going back to the roots, and we think that the era of man is approaching.

Why are we called The Bearded Man you may wonder. That’s simply because we love beards, and we think that all men should grow a beard. It’s time to differentiate the men from the woman, and the best way to do that is to grow a beard. Men and woman are not created equal. Happy reading from Martin Gaard.

Content Real men take it on the chin 6 F/W 2012-13 - A photoshoot 12 Timber! 18 Bearded Ladies 22 The modern manâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s guide to beards 28 30 Things you must know about grooming 30 Color - A photoshoot 38 What your beard says about you 42 No shave November 44 Beard and Wonderful 46 Beard jealousy 48 8 beards 50

Real men take it on the chin Writer: Tony Parsons, model: Tom Bull, photo: Jack Draper

In the face of an increasingly feminised modern world, the beard is enjoying a surprise growth in popularity. From five o’clock shadow to feral bush, facial fur is the ultimate masculine restorative.

The beard came off this morning. I thought we might have a bit of fun. A bit of the old naughty role-playing while nobody was about. You know the sort of thing. Give myself some Harry Flashman mutton-chops. Shave down to the Robert De Niro satanic goatee that he had in Heat. Maybe even toy with a George Clooney moustache. But after you have had a beard for more than a month, the thing has moved in. And it does not go quietly. So I hacked and slashed and cleaved my way through like a man in a rainforest with a blunt machete. My beard clung on with terrible tenacity, like an alien on John Hurt’s face. I thought that having a beard would set me free - like getting a dog or a garden. But a beard is for life, not just Christmas. And as with your first garden after a lifetime of flats, you swiftly learn that uninvited creatures nest in the dark, dense corners of the undergrowth. It doesn’t quit. Your beard ends up being a lot more work than merely shaving your face every day. And we do a lot of shaving in the course of a lifetime. If you start shaving every day when you are 15, and live until you are 80, then you will wet your razor 23,740 times, factoring in leap years. At 20 8

minutes a shave, that is the equivalent of working a 40-hour week as a barber for almost four years. Growing a beard is far more time-consuming than that. So why do we do it? That’s easy. It’s because the ladies like it. Or at least some of them do. And here is the great mystery about the sexual attraction of the manly beard. Is it a minority or a majority taste? Do all women like it or is it just a twisted, fur-loving few? Is a beard the equivalent of tall heels and short skirts? Or is it the equivalent of nipple clamps and an orange up your back passage? A well-loved favourite or a fetishistic, acquired, pervy taste? Time magazine reported that a Harris Interactive poll judged that a third of women like men with beards. That means most of them don’t. Ultimately it probably depends on the beard, and who is wearing it. What is undeniable is that the most desirable men in the world have all got beards. Google “stars with beards” and what you see - shining from those 812,000 results in less than 0.09 seconds - is that this is a boom time for celebrity beards. Every man your girlfriend fancies is here. Brad Pitt, David Beckham, George Clooney, Johnny Depp, Leon-

bly be somebody else. And that’s the secret attraction of beards. You grow one when you have had enough of your face for a while.

ardo DiCaprio, Keanu Reeves, Russell Brand. The beard no longer begins and ends with Noel Edmonds. Indeed the beard is now almost a prerequisite for a sex bomb - especially when he is off-duty. And being himself. Even Mad Men’s Jon Hamm - the most clean-shaven chap in the world when playing Don Draper - wore a big bushy one when he picked up his 2010 Golden Globe, and launched more than 8,000 blogs chewing over the merits over his face fuzz. When Hamm shaved off his beard, New York magazine carried an obituary. Celebrities have taken the beard mainstream. Previous generations of men tried to get their hair like Johnny Marr or Rod Stewart or Liam Gallagher. Now they are far more likely to try to get their beard like Brad Pitt or David Beckham or Johnny Depp. “The beard is the mark of a man,” wrote St Clement of Alexandria. A beard makes a man more manly (strangely this is true of even wispy poetic beards). In a world where the sexes are closer together than at any time in human history - bringing up our children together, fighting the Taliban together - the beard is a way of emphasising the gap that still remains. In the midst of the increased feminisation of men, the beard is a way of clinging to the old.

Bigging up beards online since 1996, beards.org reckons, “The male beard communicates an heroic image of the independent, sturdy and resourceful pioneer, ready, willing and able to do manly things.” It is also one of the few ways that men have of experimenting with our appearance. A beard is the acceptable face of male transformation. We demur at the prospect of removing unsightly hair with a back, sack and crack. We hesitate shyly at the very thought of Botox. We know that a hair transplant - though increasingly all the rage - can so easily make you look like a 65-year-old dinner lady if you go a bit potty with the fringe. But an experimental beard - a beard is all right. A beard is as stolidly butch as a pint of real ale, or a well-oiled power tool. You can have a beard without outraging the neighbours, scaring the horses, shrinking your

testicles or compromising your masculinity. This is not to say that a beard is dull. For generations, Hollywood used facial hair as a signifier of male potency. We think of Clint Eastwood’s gorgeous stubble in his Sergio Leone Westerns, or De Niro’s full ‘Nam-vet bush in The Deer Hunter or, more recently, Ben Affleck in the final frame of The Town. Affleck’s character has seen his best friends wiped out, he has lost his true love, and he is on the run with Jon Hamm’s Fed breathing down his neck. What’s a man going to do? Grow a beard, of course - a sproutyour-own Papa Hemingway job to cover his chops as he sadly watches the sun go down over the Florida Keys. Affleck’s beard signifies change, enlightenment, resignation and a kind of world-weary stoicism. And it is also a disguise. It makes this mostwanted man look as if he might possi-

Women can put their hair and makeup through endless permutations. But we are largely stuck with ourselves. Apart from the beard. And the beauty of it is that - unlike the giant steps of a back, sack and crack, or penis enlargement, or making your hair resemble that of a 65-year-old dinner lady - you need no appointment, no specialist, no credit card details to make it happen. You don’t have to start doing something to acquire a beard. You only have to stop doing something. There is an existential quality to every beard, an I-gotta-be-me plea for personal identity. This can descend into a dreadful cliché, of course, like every drunken dummy in the room singing “My Way” when they get up at karaoke. But part of the beard’s appeal is that growing one is not a radical act. Plucking your eyebrows is more daring than cultivating a spot of the old face furniture. Growing a beard is an act of gentle rebellion in an age of kinder masculinity. If your beard could talk it would say - I may wear a suit to work, and yet I am not a suit. Your beard insists - I am not a number. 9

“Beards are back,” says Allen Peterkin, author of One Thousand Beards: A Cultural History Of Facial Hair and a pogonologist (beard expert). “It is an act of rebellion. Men are trying to prove that they are no corporate slave.”

Women can even change the shape of their bodies, increasing or reducing the size of their breasts. Beyond the changes wrought by diet and exercise, men are stuck with what gawps back at them from the mirror. But facial hair never sleeps.

It is probably closer to the truth to say that beards are more mainstream than they have been for centuries. For beards have never really been out of fashion. Travel back in facial-hair history and we find Sean Penn and Ethan Hawke revealing the sensitive side of beards, then Bruce Willis, Harrison Ford, Sean Connery, Burt Reynolds and Kris Kristofferson demonstrating the wilder, more rugged side of beards. The biggest swordsman in Tinseltown history - Errol Flynn - wore his beard like a five-speed vibrator. And in Old Hollywood, facial hair was often limited to a moustache - think of Clark Gable and David Niven. The golden age of beards is right now.

And it changes. The beard is your baby. It never stops growing. One day you are dropping it off for its first day of school. The next it is stealing the keys to your car and rifling through your wallet for drug money. In The Man’s Book: The Indispensable Guide For The Modern Man, Thomas Fink lists the seven ages of the beard.

And perhaps that is enough to sounds the death knell for the beard as any kind of groovy ground-breaker edge.

A beard grows at the rate of half an inch a month. That will take you from the Man With No Name to Father Christmas in five weeks, with plenty of bail-out clauses on the way. Fink cites the November Beard Club at Yale, who record 16 distinctive beard types. Some of them are just silly (chin curtain, French fork, handlebar and chin puff) but there is still the goatee, the petit goatee, the short-boxed beard and the Hollywoodian. Take your pick.

“Once beards become completely acceptable, they are no longer a statement of individuality,” says Phil Olsen, founder of Beard Team USA, which takes part in international beardgrowing competitions. If the beard goes bourgeois, the argument runs, and is totally drained of all sedition and all hint of insurgence, then what is the point? But beards work. The beard is versatile. It covers imperfections. It masks the ennui you get when you have stared at the same face for a few decades. It is what we do to ourselves when we are bored with ourselves.

Shadow (whiskers imperceptible). Umbra (he hasn’t got round to shaving lately). Stubble (he really hasn’t got round to shaving lately). Designer stubble (he is deliberately growing). Bristle (red-blooded pubes). And beard (the real Captain Birdseye deal).

After I shaved off my beard, I started missing it instantly and went out and spent £50 on a stubble trimmer. Soon I will look so much like George Michael that I won’t be able to walk past an undercover policeman without being invited to sit on his truncheon. The point is - you don’t have

to keep your beard until bits of Alpen are clinging to your upper lip. Get the right kit and the beard is your oyster. That is why shaving on a daily basis is going the way of the tie - a manly ritual that increasingly we can take or leave as the mood takes us. From sleek goatee to sexy stubble to going all Jon Hamm caveman, the beard is now a basic staple of male grooming. A paradigm shift in the culture has taken the beard beyond fashion, like long hair in the Seventies. Once you had to play lead guitar in the Kinks to have it and then suddenly you couldn’t tell a City boy from a member of the Eagles. Was long hair still a symbol of anarchy? No - but so what? Guys liked it. Not least because women did, too. What’s fashion got to do with it? Recently we have seen the rise of the uncool beard. The beard that says - I have status, security, money, talent and I don’t give a toss. Out of office hours, Jon Hamm sports an uncool beard, as does Jeff Bridges when collecting an Oscar and - sometimes Brad Pitt. You bring your personality, your state of mind, the secrets of your heart to every beard. It can be as neat and clipped as Johnny Depp’s face on a summer’s day, or it can be as wild and untamed as Brad when he resembled a roadie for ZZ Top Your face is a blank wall, and your facial hair is the only spray can in town. The beard is not back. The beard is here. And as every modern guy soon discovers, it is not so easy to get shot of.

F/W 2012-13 Photo: Rafael Stahelin, models: Paraskevas Boubourakas and Jenna Randy

Oui Set Fashion - The Fall/Winter collection. 12

“Tattooed Man”

TIMBER! Writer: Tony Parsons, photo: Jack Draper and Chad Eaton

In early 2006, artist and six year screenprinter, Chad Eaton, drew a lumberjack line drawing and printed it on a few t-shirts for his own amusement. Friends began asking for them. Friends of friends began asking for them, and before he knew it, he was listing them online for sale.

Eaton is an enigmatic young artist who sometimes goes by the name of Timber! (That exclamation point is part of his name, we weren’t suddenly overcome with excitement that he calls himself “Timber!”) He specializes in paintings of Lincoln-ish gentlemen, tall and sleepy-looking, with stovepipe hats. They listlessly frolic in starkly beautiful, autumnal landscapes, and for no adequately explored reason, they are sometimes conjoined at the beard. Several of Eaton’s works are meticulously crafted, and some of his paintings are framed by elaborate, cartoony leaf wreaths that look just like something that would decorate the cottage of the Seven Dwarfs. Oh, and he paints lumberjacks with impressive beards, too. We aren’t surprised to learn that Eaton himself sports some pretty im-

pressive ZZ Top-esque facial hair. All Timber! t-shirts are hand-drawn and hand-screened in a garage in California. In the world of underground art, it seems that the most popular visual pioneers really know how to corner the market. Some do it with recycled trash and hot glue, others go for the gross factor with taboo sexuality that no one else would dare replicate. Chad Eaton uses beards. And though he’s not “avant garde” enough to trim fibers of face fuzz and stick them on canvas, Eaton’s storybook paintings of lumberjacks and Abe Lincoln looka-likes strike a curious chord with the young and cultured. All of the Timber! designs fit into a story that sets a conflict between lumberjacks and their bosses with forest dwellers, including bigfoot, stuck in the middle. Each

design adds more to the story, and as a body of work, Eaton have created a complex mythology involving issues with environment and labor among other things. Eaton is very popular in the US and he’s had several exibitions. And when he releases new designs on t-shirts, pillows etc. they always get’s sold out.Chad Eaton’s eccentric paintings depicting Abe Lincoln-ish bicyclists have been baffling folks all over OC. With their autumnal colors and handmade frames that always make you think of stuff outside Disneyland rides, Eaton’s oils are haunting yet profoundly goofy. We may not have that much to write about Chad Eaten, but we think he deserves to be in the magazine anyway. Because his work is awesome. 19

“Ride & Fall”

“Keeper” Screenprinted poster

Eaton doesn’t just design shirts. He also designs pillow cases, beanies, sweaters and more.

“Lumberjacket”

BEARDED ladies Writer: Caroline Johnsen, photo: Various sources

Julia Pastrana, image from a 1900 book

Yes you read it right! Bearded ladies. Allthough it is rare to see a woman with a beard (Thank God!) there has been some bearded ladies through the ages. In this article we will bring forth some of these rare ladies. These women have long been a phenomenon of legend, curiosity, ridicule, and more recently, political and fashion statement.

A relatively small number of women are able to grow enough facial hair to have a distinct beard. In some cases, female beard growth is the result of a hormonal imbalance (usually androgen excess), or a rare genetic disorder known as hypertrichosis. Sometimes it is caused by use of anabolic steroids. Cultural pressure leads most to remove it, as it may be viewed as a social stigma. Notable exceptions were the famous bearded women of the circus sideshows of the 19th and early 20th centuries, before so-called freak shows became unpopular. Hypertrichosis Julia Pastrana (More about her later) was history’s most famous bearded lady. In the 19th century, she fascinated spectators as part of a traveling circus, dancing and singing in clothes that showed off her hairy visage and limbs. In 1857, The Lancet documented Pastrana as a “peculiarity,” but modern medicine shows that she suffered from a real disorder known as congenital generalized hypertrichosis terminalis (CGHT). Now, Chinese scientists have begun to unravel the genetic story behind her condition. CGHT is an extremely rare but highly heritable disorder. Scientists are unsure how many people have the condition, but there are at least 30 cases in China’s billion-strong population. Affected men and women develop excessive dark hair across their bodies and faces. Some suffer24

ers also have a broad, flat nose, large ears, a large mouth, and thick lips, and, occasionally, an enlarged head and jaw. Hoping to discover the genetic basis of CGHT, geneticist Xue Zhang of the Peking Union Medical College in Beijing scoured his country for cases of the disease. After 4 years of searching through medical literature, the Internet, and even television, his team found three affected families, including 16 afflicted members willing to participate in the study. The researchers scanned the DNA of these individuals and compared it with the DNA of 19 family members without CGHT. After narrowing down the search to a short section on chromosome 17, the team looked for mutations called copy number variations, in which large chunks of DNA are repeated or removed. All of the CGHT sufferers had a copy number variation in which DNA was deleted across the same four genes, the authors report today in the American Journal of Human Genetics. None of the unaffected family members had the mutations Zhang speculates that the mutations change the local structure of the chromosome. Indeed, one neighbor, SOX9, is linked to hair growth: Mice without it are known to suffer from hair loss, or alopecia. If the CGHT mutations somehow alter this region of chromosome 17 so that the SOX9 protein is overproduced in hair follicle stem cells, this would cause excessive hair growth, says Zhang.

Julia Pastrana Julia Pastrana (1834–25 March 1860) was a woman born with hypertrichosis who took part in 19th-century exhibition tours in Europe. Pastrana, an indigenous woman from Mexico, was born in 1834, somewhere in the Sierra of Sinaloa State. She had hypertrichosis terminalis; that is, her face and body were covered with straight black hair. Her ears and nose were unusually large and her teeth were irregular. Charles Darwin described her as: “Julia Pastrana, a Spanish dancer, was a remarkably fine woman, but she had a thick masculine beard and a hairy forehead. During her career, she was advertised as a hybrid between an ape and a human, as well as a ‘Bear Woman’. She was examined several times to dispel the accusation that she was of African American descent. One doctor, Alexander B. Mott, M.D., certified that she was specifically the result of the mating of a human and an “Orang Outang”. Another, Dr. S. Brainerd of Cleveland, declared that she was of a “distinct species”. However, Samuel Kneeland, Jr., a comparative anatomist of the Boston Society of Natural History, declared that she was human and of Indian descent. Francis Buckland stated similarly that she was “only a deformed Mexican Indian woman”. Theodore Lent discovered her and purchased her from a woman who might have been her mother. Lent

taught her to dance and play music and took her on a worldwide tour with the name “Bearded and Hairy Lady”. She also learned to read and write in three languages. They married and she became pregnant. During a tour in Moscow, Pastrana gave birth to a baby with features similar to her own. The child survived only three days, and Pastrana died of postpartum complications five days later. Lent did not abandon the tour; he contacted Professor Sukolov of Moscow University, had his wife and son mummified and displayed them in a glass cabinet. He later found another woman with similar features, married her and named her Zenora Pastrana. The mummies disappeared from the public view. They appeared in Norway in 1921 and were on display until the 1970s, when an outcry arose over a proposed tour of the USA, and they were withdrawn from public view. Vandals broke into the storage facility in August 1976 and mutilated the baby’s mummy. The remains were consumed by mice. Julia’s mummy was stolen in 1979, but stored at the Oslo Forensic Institute after the body was reported to police but not identified. It was identified in 1990 and has rested in a sealed coffin at the Department of Anatomy, Oslo University since 1997. In 1994, the Norway Senate recommended burying her remains, but the Minister of Sciences decided to keep them, so scientists could perform research.

Jane Barnell Jane Barnell (3 January 1871, Wilmington, North Carolina – 26 October 1951, Los Angeles, California) was an American bearded lady who used the stage name Lady Olga. According to later accounts - notably Joseph Mitchell’s article “Lady Olga” in Up In The Old Hotel - Barnell’s mother sold her to the Great Orient Family Circus, which was later merged with a larger circus. This circus took her to Germany. She fell ill in Berlin and was left in an orphanage, where she was later found by her father. As an adult, when she was working on her grandmother’s farm she met a circus strongman who invited her to join John Robinson’s Circus. She tried several stage names before eventually settling on Lady Olga Roderick. At that time her beard was 13 inches long. Lady Olga toured for a time with number of circuses, including the Ringling Brothers circus, and later joined Hubert’s Museum in Times Square, New York. She appeared in a number of films, most famously Tod Browning’s Freaks (1932) which, according to the documentary on the Freaks DVD (Freaks: The Sideshow Cinema, 2004), left her unhappy with the overall portrayal of the sideshow performers in the film. Barnell was married four (!) times. Her last marriage was to Thomas O’Boyle, her thought-to-be manager, an excircus clown, and a sideshow talker for Hubert’s Dime Museum.

Jane Barnell with her husband

Jennifer Miller Jennifer Miller (born 1961) is an American circus entertainer, writer, and professor at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY. She has lived as a woman with a beard for most of her life. She is a juggler and fire eater. Miller lives in New York City. Miller is the youngest daughter of two Jewish-turned-Quaker professors and she grew up in Connecticut and California. Miller became involved in the performing arts and theater while in high school, and was involved in the downtown dance scene in New York in the early 1980s. In her career as a performing artist, which has spanned over 20 years, she has performed with numerous choreographers and dancers, several circus companies, and in the Coney Island SideShow. In 1989, she co-founded the acclaimed NYC political performance troupe Circus Amok and has directed it ever since. She was also a focus of Tami Goldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s documentary Juggling Gender and Circus Amok has been the subject of numerous documentary films. Miller is widely recognized for her work and is the recipient of awards including the Obie, Bessie, BAX 10, and most recently the Ethyl Eichelberger Award. She currently teaches in New York at Pratt Institute, and has taught at several universities including UCLA, Cal Arts, Scripps College, and NYU.

Jennifer Miller. Notice her thick beard.

The Modern Man’s Guide to Beards Writer: Kasey Panetta, photo: Jason Roethlisberger

Whether you’re sprouting a Galifianakis or a just a little stubble, here’s everything you need to know to keep your face in check. So put down your razor and start growing!

For years, the clean-cut man-boy was ruling the runway. Parted hair, waifish waist, skin smooth as a Botoxed three-year-old. Then a gritty crew rolled in and changed the game. With it, the beard invasion began. Whether we’re talking about a thick, irreverent Galifianakis or a jawline-amping mown lawn, a beard is just about the most on-trend accessory you can pull on this season. And while they look great on a beanie-and-cardiganwearing gang like Fleet Foxes, they’re not just for dudes who dress down. “When a guy wears one with a suit, it’s just like, whoa is that sexy,” fashion director Madeleine Weeks explains. “They give you this handsome, don’tmess-with-me appeal. Just look at Jeff Bridges and Paul Newman. All icons who wore them well.” The key is not overanalyzing it. Nothing too manicured or manscaped. Nothing too wild and overgrown. You want to look like you’ve let go. A little, at least. Andrew Richdale Beards show that you’re the independent type and possibly selfemployed, seeing as how facial hair is frowned upon in certain uptight conformist corporations: the New York Yankees, for example. Consider Ben Roethlisberger. He made the mistake that many beard wearers

tweezer, and go at it. Grab the hair as close to the base as possible to pull the bulb out. If you yank it from the top, you’ll just split the hair in half, and then you’re screwed.” New York dermatologist Dr. David Colbert sets us straight on three common beard misconceptions. commit: He shaved his neck almost up to the chin. Men think this always sharpens the outline of their face and even makes them look thinner. Wrong! This is the worst thing a guy with the slightest weight issue can do. It makes you look like you have a double chin. Chances are you’re going to need a little sculpting here and there. A little on the cheeks, a little on the neck depending on the kind of look you’re going for. Ideally, you’d leave that all to a pro. A hot shave once a week isn’t realistic for most of us, though. Beard-sensei Nick Wendel from The Blind Barber,esteemed NYC barbershop/speakeasy hybrid, lays down some ground rules for taking matters into your own hands. Do: “If you want to sculpt super-close, there’s no alternative to a straight razor. Buy one from The Art of Shaving and

they’ll tell you everything you could possibly need to know. A number of regular razors come with a single blade on the back for sculpting,” Don’t: “It seems like a no-brainer, but so many guys treat shaving like a race and end up with nicks. Take the few extra seconds to add water to your shaving cream for an extra-smooth shave, and always go with the grain.” Do: “Use a hot towel to open the pores before you sculpt and a cold towel or a cold rinse to close your pores after. This keeps ingrown hairs, redness, and nicks in check.” Don’t: “Never squeeze ingrown hairs like they’re pimples. Dirt in your nails can lead to infection.” Do: “When you have an ingrown hair, put a hot towel on your face, disinfect the spot with some alcohol, take a

Myth #1: Certain foods make your beard grow quicker. “No food or vitamin makes the beard grow faster. However, we do need amino acids or protein in our diet to grow hair. For instance, guys who are anemic often experience beard thinning.” Myth #2: If you shave more often, your facial hair will get fuller. “Shaving absolutely does not make your hair grow at any different rate. One reason it might seem that way? If you shave often, you’re feeling the prickly sensation of hair growing back more frequently.” Myth #3: Gray beards are coarser. “If anything, our follicles become smaller as we age. Gray beards are not much different than regular ones, structurally speaking. If a Santa-like beard seems coarse, it’s just because it hasn’t been conditioned properly or is full of split ends. 29

30 THINGS MUST KNO GROOMING Writer: Kasey Panetta, photo: Jennifer Olsen and iStockphoto.com

YOU OW ABOUT G

A wet shave and a wash with soap and water may have sufficed for your dad but nowadays splashing on a bit of Old Spice is no longer considered an acceptable grooming ritual. While many of us have invested time and money into pots and potions, what do we really know about our bodies? What’s the difference between an ingrown hair and a spot? Who has more sweat glands men or women? What makes it a cologne or an eau de toilette?

Grooming habits and what is considered “good grooming” have varied greatly over time. Around 10,000 B.C., scented oils were a popular method of cleaning and softening skin and masking body odor. In ancient Egypt, kohl and red ochre featured prominently in the grooming arsenal of most men, as did a variety of skin care creams. Additionally, tribes around the world frequently used makeup in the form of dyes and paints for medicinal and cosmetic purposes as well as to psychologically prepare for battle. In Elizabethan times, ultra-pale, powdered skin was the dernier cri in men’s grooming, as was hair bleaching. The repressive conditions of the Victorian period, however, led to a decline in the importance of men’s grooming. During the 20th century, the popularity of men’s grooming waxed and waned, but there’s no doubt today that male grooming has made a strong comeback with the market for men’s grooming products experiencing explosive growth and huge profits. Unlike females, however, most modern men were not inducted into the world of grooming from an early 32

age. Fortunately, we’re here to help. So, consider The Bearded Man your secret weapon when it comes to grooming and be confident that anytime you have a grooming question, we’ll have the answer. The sheer abundance of grooming products available today can be overwhelming to say the least. All you want to do is look presentable, but where’s a guy supposed to start? Many men need a little help in the grooming department when it comes to figuring out which products to use, how to use them and what all those confusing ingredients mean. For the most up-to-date information and advice on skin care, hair care, shaving, and much, much more, turn to us. We’ll give you the lowdown on the latest hair removal technologies and tools, from cuttingedge razors to how to best deal with unwanted body hair. We’ll also help you find the best products from shampoo to cologne to face serums that suit your skin type, personality and lifestyle. So, think of us as your one-stop resource for all things grooming related and then breathe a sigh of relief because looking your best just got easier.

Dandruff can appear anywhere there’s hair. Anywhere. If you’ve noticed a snowstorm on your shoulders, check to see if you’ve got flakes in your eyebrows or other hairy bits.

Forty per cent of guys shave every single day. Which doesn’t give their skin much time to recover. Give your beard a break every now and then.

The skin on your lips and surrounding your eyes is four times thinner than the stuff that covers the rest of your face. Always treat it gently and with a specialised product.

Sweat itself doesn’t actually smell of anything. It’s only when it comes into contact with the bacteria on your skin that your unique brand of man smell becomes apparent.

Facial hair grows at a rate of 1.3 cm per month. That Gandalf beard is not as impossible to achieve as you might think.

Shaving against the grain is fine. So long as you’ve shaved with it on the first pass and then re-lathered

Most psychologists concur that it takes less than one second to judge someone by their appearance. Just saying.

Let go of the stigma associated with grooming. Unlike women, 70% of men don’t groom out of sheer vanity. They do it first and foremost to boost their self-esteem.

Self-tanning products usually contain DHA (dihydroxyacetone), a derivative of fructose, commonly used as a food colourant.

Dandruff isn’t caused by a dry, flaky scalp. It is actually very rare. The white flakes are the visible result of skin cells reproducing too quickly.

Women have more sweat glands than men. And yet men tend to sweat twice as much as ladies.

The average guy can lose two and a half litres of water while working up a sweat at the gym. You might want to keep a bottle of water handy.

Most men misdiagnose themselves with sensitive skin. Chances are it’s a shoddy shave and the wrong product that’s causing any redness or irritation.

Forty-five per cent of high-flying execs admit their appearance has helped fast track their career.

Sometimes what looks like acne isn’t really acne. Folliculitis – an inflammation of the hair follicle – is caused by shoddy shaving.

A close shave isn’t just about using fancy products, It’s all in the preparation: a hot towel, a good scrub and enough shaving product will upgrade your shave dramatically.

Most of your sweat glands are on your feet, not under your arms.

If you have oily skin, resist the temptation to strip it dry with a harsh cleansing product. Doing so forces the oil-producing sebaceous glands into overdrive, which will leave you worse off than you were to begin with.

Don’t wait until you’ve found your spot on the beach before you slap on the sunscreen. Always apply sunscreen at least half an hour before you go outside.

Bad news: The ageing process starts in your mid-20s, when cell regeneration beings to slow down. Even though the outward signs of age might not be visible yet, it’s worth putting some damage control in place by investing in an antiageing product.

The average guy will shave around 20,000 times in his lifetime. It might be worth learning how to do it properly.

Not all skin is created equally. Men’s skin is oilier than women’s, 20% thicker and has 22% more collagen.

The difference between an eau de toilette and a cologne is in the alcohol content.

If your hair is starting to thin, avoid using a hair dryer as heat styling fries the cuticle. Always towel-dry your barnet instead. 36

Toothpaste won’t ‘dry out’ zits or make them disappear. The best products for spots contain glycolic or salicylic acid and / or benzoyl peroxide.

Skin will respond better to a product during the night because it isn’t busy defending itself from all the smoke, pollution and other aggressors it encounters during the day. Invest in a night time recovery product to work through the wee hours.

A hot shower or setting the heating on full blast might seem like a good idea, but the high temperature actually zaps your skin of that all important moisture.

Plucking the odd grey hair won’t cause another four to appear in its place. It will, however, mess up the roots and potentially cause scarring.

Grooming isn’t just about what you stick on your face, it’s about what you put inside your body too. If you’ve got dry skin or are prone to eczema, gorge yourself on oily fish. The omega oils they contain help nourish skin at a cellular level.

Changing your pillowcase regularly is a good idea if you suffer from breakouts on your face.

Color A mini photoshoot by Armin Morbach

Armin Morbach Photographer, hair & make up artist, producer, and publisher at TUSH Magazine 41

What Your Beard Says About You Writer: Alex Williams, photo: Team Models

FOUR years ago, I grew the first full beard of my adult life on a whim. I was 41, and it was neither a fashion statement nor a midlife crisis.

It was the dawn of an era, when dewy actors like Ryan Gosling and Jake Gyllenhaal started showing up on red carpets sporting cheek-fringe that seemed to boast, “My cover-boy looks can shine even through this tangle”; when it became obligatory to show up at Brooklyn warehouse parties with the shaggy jowls of an 1890s beaver trapper; when the Unabomber chin mane became unexpectedly chic on fashion runways. The beard — a traditional signifier of age and wisdom in most cultures — had become a symbol of youthful rebellion (and a different sort of conformity) for the first time since the heyday of Fillmore East. In downtown Manhattan, where I live, the beard was de rigueur for young creative professionals — the sort who read Vice, wore shuttle-loom denim jeans and drew their style cues from blogs like Backyard Bill. And that made sense. A beard was the perfect 42

retro-sportsman accessory to go with a scratchy wool plaid shirt and knit cap, a perfect ironic predigital curio that seemed overdue to be brought back into fashion. But then there was me. My beard was hardly a bid for coolness. On a trip home to California, I was too sick with the flu to shave for the better part of a week, and started to wonder: what would life be like as a bearded guy? My girlfriend (now wife), Joanna, spurred me on. For someone who came of age in the clean-shaven 1980s, a beard felt like generational treason. I was the Clash, not the Eagles. But in her view, the beard gave me a rugged Jeff Bridges quality. Presuming she meant the Jeff Bridges of “Against All Odds” and not “The Big Lebowski,” I let my whiskers sprout for a few weeks. A few weeks became a few years.

In the early going, however, I wasn’t sure if it was me. Like the fuzz on a 14-year-old boy’s upper lip, a new beard is never a pretty thing. It is patchy, scraggly, vaguely pubic — a look that only Bob Dylan should attempt, if even Bob Dylan should. When your beard becomes full, you find yourself wondering if people still recognize you. A beard is a mask as much as a fashion accessory, hiding the “you” that everyone knows as you and replacing it with whatever they happen to associate with the phrase “guys with beards.” (Until recently, that typically landed at some unfortunate point along the hippie continuum from Jerry of Ben & Jerry’s to Jerry Garcia to Charles Manson.) When you look at yourself, it feels jarring not to recognize the person in the mirror. Your face widens. You lose all the angles — the cheekbones, the jaw line.

People around me also scratched their heads. Older friends looked at me as if I were trying too hard — the same as if I showed up at a high school reunion in leather pants. Friends my age said diplomatically, “I don’t think I could pull off a beard.” Translation: “Neither can you.” For them, a beard on a grown man seemed like an indicator that he had, to some degree, lost his senses. Think of Al Gore, post Florida-recount, whose shaggy beard seemed to announce a surrender of lifelong ambition; or, more dramatically, Joaquin Phoenix, whose hermit beard on Letterman a few years ago suggested a break from sanity, abandoning an acting career that has garnered Oscar nominations to try to make it as a rapper (even if it was a marketing ploy for a movie). Those rogue connotations followed me into the workplace. The modern

corporate environment, after all, is fundamentally militaristic in structure. And unless you’re talking Stonewall Jackson, there is nothing military about a beard. To many bosses, a beard is a dangerous sign, like a neck tattoo or a pierced nose, that says, “I am a free spirit, not a team player.” Given the resistance, I don’t think I would have kept my beard if Joanna, 13 years younger than me, hadn’t all but forbidden me to shave. “Growing up in Michigan, your idea of a man is a woodsy, outdoorsy guy with a beard, who can start a fire with two sticks,” she explains now. “A beard just reminds me of that, what a manly man should look like, compared to these skinny hipster guys in New York, all lanky and bony.” The thing was, all those lanky, bony city kids suddenly had beards, too. The beard, once a symbol of age, had suddenly become a sexy symbol of

youth for the first time since the Allman Brothers ruled FM.

10 pounds burlier. A beard was a lazy man’s alternative to weightlifting.

For me, that meant an unforeseen windfall: In the eyes of young, cool New York, I had unwittingly shaved 10 years off my age by not shaving. I was getting carded at nightclubs. Tattooed young women working the register at coffee shops no longer called me “sir.” At downtown parties, I invariably found myself huddled in the corner with bearded guys in their 20s, talking about the new Fleet Foxes album or the best way to get past the velvet rope at the Box. I was a member of a tribe.

I was so happy to grow into my new proportions that I didn’t take (too much) offense when a flight attendant on American Airlines leaned over me and said, “I’m sure you get this all the time — Seth Rogen.” In my mind, I was dangerous. On my latest passport photo, I looked like the type that the T.S.A. might detain for an extra round of questioning. It felt liberating. “Don’t mistake me for another 9-to-5 cubicle drone.” My beard, in my own mind, was freedom, the open road, “Easy Rider” — even if I was just riding the C train to work.

That experience changes you. Having a beard functioned as a substitute for hormone replacement therapy. Not only did my beard advertise, on a fundamental physical level, testosterone, but also I was starting to feel the testosterone. I found that wearing a beard makes you feel two inches taller, and

After half a decade as a changed man, my only regret is that this whole moment is surely fleeting. At some point, the gray hairs will sprout too quickly on my chin, and form a distinct white patch (a cool look on Brad Pitt; not sure about on me). I’ve already made

a pact with myself: the point that I officially become a graybeard is the point I become a no-beard. Even if I don’t abandon the beard in the next year or two, everyone else might. At some point, the beard is destined to go the way of the trucker hat. (The fact that beards have their own coming reality series, “Whisker Wars” on IFC, might indicate that they are about to go mainstream, thus lose their edge.) And there’s never any question when a beard moment is over. The last time around, it was the precise moment that Kenny Loggins went solo in 1976. Still, seeing tabloid shots of the never-uncool Justin Theroux squiring around Jennifer Aniston while sporting a beard suggesting King George V makes me think we have at least another year to go. And so, I guess, do I. 43

NO SHAVE NOVEMBER Writer: Tony Parsons, photo: Ryan Bell

Men, step away from the shaving equipment. Women, prepare for a bout of stubble burn. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Movember: the month men grow their beards as they raise awareness for prostate cancer. So we challenged our reporter Ryan Bell to not shave for a month.

Beard and Wonderful Writer: Fred Pratt, photo: Suzie Winsor

Illustrator Suzie Winsor has a passion for hairy fellas, and the exhibition, which runs until 28 February, is a good reflection of all creatures beardy.

Aptly entitled ‘Beard and Wonderful’, the first solo exhibition of illustrator Suzie Winsor launches at London’s KK Outlet gallery this February. Featuring a collection of ‘great men and their even greater folical accomplishments’, the London-based artist has captured the images of the instantly recognisable beards of our time from Jarvis Cocker, Sebastien Tellier, and Geoff Keegan (Byker Grove) to Charles Darwin. Having worked alongside the likes of Paul Smith, Tatty Devine and Rob Ryan, Winsor has continued the trend of artists with a delightful sense of humour and personality in their illustrations. The Bearded Man: You venture in both photography and illustration... which is your favourite medium to explore? Suzie Winsor: Illustration is some-

thing I’ve enjoyed from a very young age and I find it really relaxing. Photography I started at A Level and find a bit trickier because the technical side! I’d say I prefer to do illustration I think. TBM: You’ve worked with bands and designers already, who would be your dream collaboration? Suzie Winsor: My dream collaboration was to work with Belle and Sebastian. I still have to pinch myself when I see my name on the website because I still can’t believe it happened! I absolutely love them. TBM: What is it about beards that draws you to.... draw them? Suzie Winsor: I think beards add a lot of character. They can make a face look kind, intellectual and distinguished. I’m definitely not a fan of

sculpted beards though a la Beppe from Eastenders or Craig David. TBM: First beards, what’s next? Suzie Winsor: I’m not sure about my next project yet. I have a couple of ideas but nothing is definite at the moment. TBM: Who is your favourite bearded man? Suzie Winsor: My favourite bearded man is Jarvis Cocker. TBM: What next have you got planned? Suzie Winsor: I’ve been working with friends on gig posters recently and doing my own t-shirt designs. I’m hoping to get some printed in the next few months. The exhibition runs from 4 - 27 February, at KK Outlet, 42 Hoxton Square, London. 47

beard jealousy Writer: Steven Kurutz

A testimonial from a non bearded man.

Not since Walt Whitman edited The Brooklyn Daily Eagle has the borough’s beard-to-man ratio been this high. Whether it’s the artisanal food movement, which has young men looking like turn-of-the-last-century farmers, or the heritage fashion look, which has them dressing like they’re on a deer hunt, the common signifier is a mountain-man beard. Soon men won’t be allowed into the Brooklyn Flea or on the L train without at least three days’ stubble. So imagine my frustration in living in this land of urban Grizzly Adamses, unable to grow a beard. My beard envy isn’t new, but lately it’s become a full-fledged itch as I encounter bearded men everywhere from my backyard to the wider culture. Hollywood is full of designer stubble (see: Ryan Gosling, Jake Gyllenhaal). The fashion world has embraced the hirsute look, too. Do designers think guys with beards have more fun (the male follicle version of blondes, perhaps)? Tom Bull, a 22-year-old model, was on the cover of Ralph Lauren’s look book for the Purple Label this spring with a full chestnut thatch. Since growing the beard last January, Mr. Bull said he has booked more jobs and with higher-end labels like Armani and Brioni. “The money jobs come to you when you have the beard,” he said. “You look older.” That was certainly the case at the Ralph Lauren casting. 48

“On the spot they said: ‘Yes, we love him for Purple Label. Don’t shave the beard.’ ” Thankfully, there is no beard premium in journalism. Still, what if I want to switch professions and become a major-league relief pitcher? What if I had been born Amish? I would be cast out. At 35, I can grow a decent goatee and mustache, both recent developments, but my cheeks are so prepubescent smooth, with nary a whisker pushing up, that a full beard is impossible. Apparently, I’m not the only one. I mentioned my frustration to Steven Wilson, who runs Beards.org, a Web site created to “increase awareness, appreciation and understanding of the beard.” He’s heard the story many times. As Mr. Wilson explained to me in an e-mail, many men who suffer from this “terribly profound personal problem” are “extremely distressed” by their lack of beard-growing capability. They experience “pain and suffering” and “face ridicule” from their bearded friends. They can even be “intimidated by the sight of someone with a great beard.” Wait a minute. Are we still talking about beards and not another symbol of male virility? I have never felt tortured by my inability to grow a beard, and it hasn’t undermined my sense of manhood,

either. (Until, maybe now.) For me it’s a style matter: I can’t rock fat sideburns like Neil Young circa 1972, or pair a suit with a greasy biker beard, as Joaquin Phoenix did to sublime effect a few years ago. Back in my early 20s, I once contemplated seeking medical help to grow thicker fuzz. Seeing so many men with beards has me wondering again about a solution. Is there Rogaine for the beardless? Dr. Kenneth Beer, a dermatologist in Palm Beach, Fla., said the medical options are limited. The reasons for poor facial-hair growth vary, he said, but can be because of a lack of sensitivity to testosterone, which turns soft vellus hairs into thicker terminal hairs during puberty. If testosterone levels are low, hormones can be prescribed. And men who have patchy beards because of a skin disease like alopecia areata can take medications. “But if there’s no medical reason,” Dr. Beer said, “it’s just genetics.” A second opinion from Dr. Joel M. Gelfand, an associate professor of dermatology and epidemiology at the University of Pennsylvania, was no different. Medical researchers — or, for that matter, pharmaceutical companies looking for the next blockbuster drug — haven’t focused on products that grow facial hair, Dr. Gelfand said. (Drugs like Rogaine and Propecia grow hair on the top of the head, while Latisse works on eye-

lashes, but their effects on a man’s face have not been studied). He also cautioned against testosterone injections for men with normal levels, saying it can cause hair loss on the scalp, severe acne that can leave permanent scars and liver problems that can be fatal. On the infrequent occasions when Dr. Gelfand sees an otherwise healthy man who is dejected by his lack of facial hair, “I usually recommend no treatment,” he said. I floated a last-ditch theory past Dr. Gelfand. My facial hair seems to have grown thicker in my 30s. Is it possible, I wondered, that I’ll continue to sprout whiskers and grow a beard later in life? Dr. Gelfand wasn’t optimistic. “Once you hit your 20s,” he said, “for most people that’s going to be the extent of their facial-hair growth.” Dr. Gelfand also debunked the popular myth that shaving promotes hair growth. Hair grows in cycles — some are growing and some are resting — and shaving frequently, he said, “causes all the hairs to cycle together.” In other words, the hairs appear thicker but there aren’t more of them. Not ready to let the dream die, I called up a man who knows about growing facial hair: Phil Olsen, captain of Beard Team USA, which competes in the World Beard and Mustache Championships. Did he know any se-

cret tricks used by top competitors? He suggested a strategy endorsed by Jack Passion, the two-time world champion in the highly competitive “full beard natural” category, who adheres to a high-protein diet. Mr. Olsen, who sports a lustrous onefooter, also said drinking beer might help. “All I can say is I’ve been to many beard competitions, both in the U.S. and Europe, and there’s a very high correlation between beard growing and beer drinking.” NOT long ago, I commiserated over coffee with another beardless guy, a 28-year-old men’s wear designer named Renalde Jett. At a distance, Mr. Jett has what appears to be a robust full beard, until you zero in on the mustache area. It looks as if thin metal shavings have collected on his upper lip and are being held there by a very weak magnet. I had flashbacks to my high-school stoner ’stache.

a goatee, my days were numbered. Mr. Jett nodded sympathetically. “She wanted the full beard.” Soon our conversation turned into a therapy session for the follicly challenged, with Mr. Jett revealing that his father can grow a full beard any time he wants, and with me sharing how my oldest friend, Chris, grew all sorts of facial hair configurations when we roomed together. “He’s teasing you,” Mr. Jett said. “That’s messed up.” In support-group fashion, we bucked ourselves up. We’ll always look younger, I said. Less hassle with shaving, Mr. Jett pointed out. And neither Mr. Jett nor myself would have fallen prey to the so-called Hipster Grifter, the Brooklyn con woman who has a tattoo declaring her love for bearded men.

“I never actually shave this,” Mr. Jett confessed. “I can’t. I’m afraid it’s not going to grow back.”

“I’ve adapted and learned to groom myself accordingly,” said Mr. Jett, keeping a stiff upper lip.

Mr. Jett also lives in Brooklyn, and like me has charted the rise of the beard from an outsider’s vantage. “It’s become acceptable that women find it attractive,” he said. “It’s like this sex symbol. So, yeah, I’m just missing out on that whole boat.”

That’s what I’ve done, too. Growing a beard is just one of those things that didn’t happen, like becoming a professional ballplayer: a minor disappointment I’ve accepted.

I mentioned how a few years ago a girl I met told me straight out that she likes guys with beards. Even with

Besides, if I’m going to lack hair, better that it’s on my face and not atop my head.

8 beards Writer: Steven Kurutz, photo: Steven Kurutz

8 men, 8 different beards and 8 stories.

Jacob has got designer stubble down to a subtle art form, clearly in homage to his distant french roots. This being a man who has never had a wet shave in his life, with trimmers in hand he’s faster than his shadow.

Mehmet couldn’t grow a beard if his life depended on it. But what he lacks in chin-fuzz he makes up for with this not at all dodgy comb-over. Go Mem.

Tomasz has outstanding thickness and all round consistency. Although he’s not that far off looking at ease in an Amish community, so he shouldn’t rest easy.

Kubba - perhaps the pioneer of the whole movement - had a whole other realm of growth before christmas, but two weeks spent in native Poland made him inexplicably reach for the trimmers. One word. Chicks

Virgil doesn’t really have time for these trivialities. When he’s not busy adding the finishing touches of raw muscle-mass to his biceps, he’s on the phone to his mums back home in madrid, or he’s trying to get a hold on his newfound clinical addiction to Branston pickle. Sabba purposefully keeps a hold on his facial fuzz, with good reason. If he looks like a criminal now, imagine a little further down the line. Even just a few days unmonitored growth can lead to a morning of stop & search warrants on his ass. Nobody wants that kind of heat.

I take back what i said about Mehmet. Jin could not grow a beard if his life depended on it. But when all’s said and done he’s got the fu manchu style absolutely licked, leaving us all trailing pathetically in his moustachio’d wake. Last but not least Paul keeps his shit rolling on that grade one tip. Even if he wanted to go renegade he’s have to keep it in check for fear of scaring the daylights out of his six year old kid. And yes, the man is as soave as he looks below.

THE bearded Man First issue