The big reveal

[LightDrizzle]

AIBUto wonder about what will happen when the beard fashion finally bites the dust. There must be thousands of people who have never seen their partner's chin and jawline except in childhood photos, and a lot of sculpting can be achieved with facial hair.

Are there any Mumsnetters who lived through this in the 80s? I remember when a 50 year old colleague finally shaved his Uncle Knobhead beard off in the early 90s, he'd had it since the 60s because he was self-conscious about his slightly crooked jaw, he looked great and so much better without the (crap) beard and I think the feedback made him sad that he had stuck with it all those years. It made me realise that unsurprisingly some men do use beards to flatter or disguise their features. Is it hard to adjust to such a radical change? I know colouring and cutting hair is radical, but I think we are much more attuned to and focussed on faces.

I have to control myself when dh goes full beard.

Not keen on the hipstery Beard thing though.

Neither me nor my mum have ever seen my dad without his beard. I have one photo of him pre-beard and I treasure it! He'll never get rid of it, but I don't think I'd recognise him without it :)

I love a beard and endlessly plead with DP not to shave for work on Sunday nights. He just looks and feels very different clean shaven and I can't quite explain to him that it's a bit of a turn off

When I met MrZippy, he had a full-on Captain Birsdeye beard. He said it kept his face warm when he was at sea. It looked fine, but I made him shave it off (or rather, I trimmed it so badly that he had to shave it off!) because I didn't want to marry him without ever having seen his face. He looked masses better without it.

Now I'd actually quite like him to grow the beard back. He has 5 o'clock shadow before 10 o'clock tea and he hates shaving so is often stubbly. I like having skin on my face and his stubble is very sharp, but the beard wasn't sharp at all.

My husband had a beard without moustache before we met, so about 10 years ago. Gingery. I liked it.

He shaved it all off one day and poked his head round the door and I became hysterical with crying. I've no idea why because I'm not an emotional person (apart from with ds now).

He grew it back, with moustache and it's about an inch long. I am very happy. But I don't know if I'd like it if he had long hair too like a hipster, he has a number 2 all over so it's not scary hairy.

My papa always had a huge Twits style bushy beard and one year we travelled to stay in the holidays and he waited outside, all of us walked past him because we didn't recognise him with it shaved off

My dad had one in the 70s and 80s. He shaved it off once when I was about 6 and I cried because I didn't recognise him he grew it back and only got rid of it for good about 6-7 years ago.

I see so many of these vast beards on men in their late, twenties/30s and when some of them have shaved them off, you can see that they are not in fact late-forties, what's the point, might as well give up, ITC or Geogrpahy teacher with esteem issues, but reasonable looking and reasonably young men. Why wait till you're middle aged to look middle aged.

Or even 'why not' wait.

I've had a beard since 1976. DCs have never seen me clean shaven and the one time I did shave it off DW refused to speak to me until I grew it back so it looks like they never will.