Back last summer, I decided that I would experiment with my facial hair. Every time previously I had increased the amount of hair I had on my face, it was an improvement. This was probably due to the fact that the more hair I grew, the more of my face was concealed, which could only be a good thing. So I decided to try letting my beard grow long and seeing what happened. Initial results were good. The occasional trim was required to keep it in the right shape, and it started needing combing every morning or it would look a mess, but it was starting to look pretty good.
By late November I had a large bushy beard and all was well. But by late December, I noticed that it had stopped getting any longer. By January it still wasn’t getting any longer and was getting noticeably tatty around the edges. After a couple more weeks I decided that this was enough, and trimmed about half of it off. It now looked considerably neater, and for a little while all was well again. But it quickly got to the point where it needed frequent combing to keep tidy, and was getting uneven where I kept fiddling with it and breaking the ends off.
So eventually, I decided that the experiment was at an end, and came to the following conclusions:
- A large beard may look good but requires quite a lot of maintenance
- I can only grow a beard about 6cm in length before the hairs break or fall out.
- Unless I can lose the urge to fiddle with it (not very likely; it’s a nervous habit and they’re hard to lose), I can’t sustain a beard of any great length without it getting tatty.
Having reached my conclusions, I have now trimmed it back to about 2cm. It’s a shame, but I think it’s the only option for now.