The end

Well, it is now 2 minutes after midnight, and I just got back from the bathroom after shaving off the majority of my facial hair. I have a strange feeling that I am about to reenter the world of regular shaving. My morning routine is about to get longer and a little more complicated. It's really sad, a person can get really attached to his (or her) facial hair. Luckily I am now gradually stepping into the world of clean shaveness. I officially have a moustache.

I think I will only be keeping it for the weekend, but you never know.

I am still having computer issues, but as soon I can I will post pictures of my hairy adventures.

Stay posted!

Future plans

Well, it is almost the end of the month. I have yet to decide what I will be doing with the facial hair after the 30th of the Month. In the past I have shaved it off in stages so that I can take pictures of a goatee/moustache combo then the fu-manchu, etc. This time around I am seriously considering just shaving everything except the moustache, and just going with that. Maybe not a long time with the moustache, but long enough.

My computer is on the fritz right now, so I am unable to upload my pictures from my camera to my computer to post them on here, so once I have enough pictures to show you of my facial hair and whatever I choose to do with it, I will put them up here.

Jokes

I hope by now you have heard some or most of the Chuck Norris jokes that are all over the Internet.

The following, taken from here, is an applicable example.

"There is no chin under Chuck Norris' Beard. There is only another fist."

And one of the classic Spamusement comics here.

The beard is growing... still

Well, I truly apologize for not posting for a couple days, but with going to Philadelphia, my computer breaking down, and then going to Seattle shortly thereafter, I've just found very little time to post on my facial hair.

A little update, my facial hair is still going strong (of course after the fateful day I shaved it all off). A number of my friends were planning on shaving their faces before or on Thanksgiving this past Thursday, so they could look acceptably decent for their families. I think this is ok, because it gives people something for which to not shave. They can look ragged and unkempt for a couple weeks and then right before they spend Thanksgiving with family, they can shave the hair off to look so much better. This is actually a large part of the roots of No Shave November, except the event for which to shave was December 1st.

A number of girls have also shaved their legs for Thanksgiving. I am just really proud of them all for sticking with it that long. A number of them did not think it was possible to last that long, but I assured them they could.

Here is a short poem written by one of my female friends regarding No Shave November and Thanksgiving (after shaving).

I am thankful for pants the last three and a half weeks.
I am thankful for razors. I am thankful for smoothness.
-Robyn

If you are still doing No Shave November, you aren't alone. Keep it up until the end of the month, and find out soon what I plan on doing with my facial hair at the end of the month.

Tough as Nails

There's one difference that I've noticed between shaving and not shaving. My beard seems to be a little rougher when coming in after shaving following a longer time growing the facial hair. I don't know why this might be, but it might have something to do with the slower growing of hair in this same situation.

With all these questions about facial hair, there should almost be an entire college biology class dedicated to facial hair. That would make a lot of things so much easier. It might also just show that I imagine a lot of these things, although I hope not.

Beard Community

Here's a great website about beards and facial hair as well as the entire beard and facial hair community. This website has a picture gallery as well as bulletin boards.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

If you appreciate good facial hair, including beards and moustaches, then you absolutely have to respect the men who compete in the World Beard and Moustache Championships.

Check out this website for pictures and information about this event, as well as to find out how you can compete and get involved in this amazing competition.

You don't know what you got 'til it's gone

I do miss my beard, but as I stated earlier, it's gonna come back in. Probably the biggest thing I have realized today is that having a beard really gives someone trouble when eating, especially messy foods. I have eaten almost exclusively eaten messy foods since being in Philadelphia. Last night a Slouvaki and for lunch today I had a Philly Cheese Steak from Pat's (provolone mushrooms wit). Both of these food items got very messy when I attempted to stuff them in my face. I realized then that my beard would be annoying with that messy food, cause all the sauces and stuff would just stuck in there, and cleaning it would be a pain.

I think maybe someone needs to invent some kind of beard bib. That way someone with a beard can eat without worrying about getting a ton of food stuck in there. I know there are the covers for people working in the food service industry with beards, but I am not sure that would work for this. Plus, they are not that stylish, someone could make them to look very nice. Imagine going to a nice fancy restaurant and putting a beard bib on.

Classy.

I feel terrible

As you may know, I am in Philadelphia, PA right now. I am representing my Honors College at the National Collegiate Honors Council Conference. As a representative of my University, I felt it was in my best interest to get rid of the facial hair, so I took out the clippers and started hacking away. I took a picture of my facial hair before I shaved it off, and I will post that picture when I get a chance. Fortunately it lined up nicely with the 15th, which is technically the date where people are allowed to trim. This was a bit of a trim, but I am planning on just letting it grow the rest of the month. What I've found in the past is that after not shaving for a while my facial hair isn't growing as quickly. Last year at the end of No Shave November I didn't have to shave for a whole week after shaving for the first time because it didn't get sufficiently long enough. So I can probably let the facial hair grow for the rest of my time in Philadelphia, and continue letting it grow for the rest of the month.

Ads

As Alex commented, this blog does get some interesting advertisements picked out by the wonderful computers at Google. I've also noticed some of these advertisements in my gmail account with messages that relate to No Shave November.

Here is one example...

"Female Pubic Hair Style - bettybeauty.com - Stylish Color For Hair Down There Gray? No Way! Get Your Betty Ready."

It's really quite disturbing, but I guess a small fraction of people discussing shaving in a blog or email would want to click on this kind of ad. Not for me, but there's something out there for everyone, right?

Color

I really have no idea why, but my facial hair comes in a different color than my head hair. In fact, my facial hair comes in a kind of reddish brown color. My normal hair is a dirty blonde/brown color with no visible red. It makes for some very interesting conversation, as far as I know I don't have any Irish or British in me (as the British Isles have the highest concentration of red hair on the planet). I've actually heard from a number of people that tell me their facial hair is coming in a different color than their normal hair.

I wonder why these hairs are colored different, is it because they don't show themselves as often, or maybe something genetic?

Aftershave

As I was getting ready for my day today, I was about to put on some aftershave/cologne. However, I had to stop myself for a couple seconds just to make sure I should be putting it on. Because I did not shave this morning (obviously) I was not sure it was appropriate to wear AFTERshave. I decided I would just go for it and that it wouldn't matter much in the long run.

Prickly

I guess the next phase of not shaving is prickly. Especially right around the mouth and lips, the hair can be very pokey. Not shaving seems to be going through a progression of three steps so far.

1)Dirty looking - This first step makes you look like a hobo, or just someone who doesn't really care about their appearance.

2)Itchy - The next step is the itchiness which I talked about before. This might be the worst steps so far.

3)Pokey - This last step (so far) isn't as annoying, and actually only seems to bug me on occasion. It isn't a problem all the time.

The other thing of note is none of these phases have lasted very long. Mind you, it is only the 11th day of the month.

Famous People

I think it is just because I am going through this process, but it seems like there are a lot of people (mainly people on TV) that I have seen with just enough facial hair to seem like their are participating in No Shave November. It is quite exciting, but then I realize that chances are they aren't participating necessarily, but they do realize the style and sophistication that coexists with facial hair.

Kenny Rogers

Ok, well I am going to have to give credit to my roommate Tim on this one. He introduced me to this website during our Freshman year.

http://www.menwholooklikekennyrogers.com/

It's really great when a website address explains exactly what the website is about. This website is dedicated to men who look like Kenny Rogers. One of my favorite parts of this website is the "Look Like Kenny Tips" page.

Also, you should check out the corn bread recipe.

Election

As you may recall from my post on Facial Hair and American Presidents I discussed a little bit about the upcoming American mid-term elections. Today was voting day, and I am very excited to see if any candidates were participating in No Shave November, or at the very least have facial hair (or hairy legs for the women). I am not sure where I might find a resource with this information, but if anyone wants to compile that kind of stuff, I am sure everyone here would love to find out.

I can't say for sure, but it looks like Wolf Blitzer is participating in No Shave November, he almost has the right amount of stubble.

Another experience

Well, I finally got off my butt today and played some racquetball with my friend Jack. I haven't played in a couple of weeks and so I was a little rusty, but I still did alright. One thing that was interesting to note, however, was that sweating with a beard is a strange experience.

Normally, at least for me, when I sweat profusely during a workout such as racquetball, it seems that sweat either runs off my face a lot easier or at least can evaporate off. I noticed that with the beard, sweat seems to stick around longer and stay in the facial hair. My normal practice is to use my sleeve to wipe my face of any sweat, and when I would wipe my beard portion of my face, it just felt like a lot of sweat was transferring to the shirt.

Sorry for the explicit nature of the description, but if you are reading this blog you probably have a higher tolerance for this kind of thing.

Movember

I was talking to my friend Laura from Australia, whom I met in Europe this past winter,
and she was excited to learn about No Shave November because her brother is participating in something very similar.

The name of the event is Movember, and here is the description from their website.

Movember (the month formally known as November) is a charity event held during November each year.

At the start of Movember guys register with a clean shaven face. The Movember participants known as Mo Bros then have the remainder of the month to grow and groom their moustache and along the way raise as much money and awareness about male health issues as possible. Movember culminates at the end of the month at the gala parties. These glamorous and groomed events will see Tom Selleck and David Boon look-a-likes battle it out on the catwalk for their chance to take home the prestigious Man of Movember title.

From the sounds of it, Movember seems to be Australian based, and from their website it appears that the event has spread to a few other countries.

I think a charity focus is a really great way to do the whole facial hair thing, in fact, that might even be a possibility for No Shave November in the future. I would encourage everyone to donate, and if you do decide to sponsor someone, you could even sponsor Laura's brother.

The address for the site is http://www.movember.com/
The address to donate is http://www.movember.com/uk/sponsor/
Laura's Brother's rego number is 6993

The Seventh Year Itch

(Although I don't really know how many years I have been doing this, six years might be a little better estimate)

I thought I was going to escape it this year, but apparently not this time around. If you've ever grown hair that you normally shave, you know exactly what I'm talking about. It's that annoying itch that makes you feel like your skin underneath is burning. It has finally happened to me today.

I'm sitting here after writing two term papers in as many days. It might be the total numbness from my brain being tired, but all I can feel right now is my itchy face. I wonder if I keep doing this for enough years, will the itch go away eventually?

This also gets me thinking about the possibility that girls might actually have a reasonable complaint with the itching. My face is a lot less area than a girl's legs, so I can imagine if my face is this itchy how much worse it must be for girls. My respect level for girls who are doing this just went up ten fold.

It hasn't even been that long

Well, it's that point of the month where we've had some people drop out already. It's mostly been girls, and I'm not going to name any names, but they only lasted until yesterday (the 3rd)! This gets one thinking about some of the factors behind No Shave November. I've heard mainly two poor reasons why people a)quit early and b)don't start in the first place.

1st - "It will be too uncomfortable, it will itch too much"
-This is not a very good reason because there are tons of people who get itchy when they are growing their hair that itch, and they stick with it. Plus that itchy phase doesn't last very long.


2nd - "It's too gross, people will see my hair"
-This is the excuse most often used by the girls. It actually brings up a very good discussion. My response to this excuse is that November is pants month anyways, so it's not a big deal. So if girls can wear pants for the whole month, and not even have anyone see their leg hair, then they have even less to worry about then the guys. The guys have their facial hair out for public viewing every single minute of they day. And yet, it's much more "socially acceptable" for guys to be growing their facial hair than for girls to be growing their leg hair.

There's really only one excuse that I've found to be acceptable for not participating, and that is for work reasons.

If you are doing No Shave November still, good work, and if you've made it this far, it's only a few more weeks until you can shave.

One of the best things about facial hair

If I were to pick one thing that made No Shave November absolutely worth it, I would say that it gives me a chance to stroke my face in contemplation. I have already found myself giving the beard a good ol' rub when in the process of thinking, and it's not even a full beard yet. Maybe the most surprising part of that phrase is the fact that I actually think.

Either way though, it would be very interesting to find out why people do that. It probably even relates to Rodin's "The Thinker" where thinking is associated with some sort of hand to face connection.

All I know is that I can feel very sophisticated with this beard.

Wikipedia

As my friend Alex noted in the comment of this post it seems that Wikipedia thinks that No Shave November is a hoax, and that no one actually participates in it. Well they are obviously wrong, and its quite a tragedy. I'd like to ask anyone that can to leave a message for the person that deleted this Wikipedia article. The link is here. Just let them know that No Shave November is a real thing, and the article should be restored.

Facial Hair and American Presidents

We unfortunately do not currently have a President who has embraced the wonders of facial hair and I doubt President Bush will be participating in No Shave November. While this may be a very real tragedy, we can find solace in the fact that previous Presidents have had the courage to sport the hairy face. Here's a little website that discusses this in frightening depth.

http://explorers.whyte.com/presbeards.htm

Especially this being election month, I think politicians should think about using No Shave November as part of their platforms. In fact, I think if there were a Presidential candidate in the 2008 election who decided to either sport facial hair or at least participate in No Shave November, I think he would have a good shot at winning. (Of course, this is assuming that the Presidential candidate is a male). If a female candidate were to participate in No Shave November during the campaign, I would totally vote for her.

It's underway

When I woke up this morning, I was very tired for some reason. Part of it might be that I ended up sleeping in a little longer than normal, and that always seems to make me more tired. But either way, when I realized that No Shave November had finally started I felt relieved and happy, which helped me wake up a little bit.

My normal routine is to shave immediately after showering, as the skin and hair on my face are quite moist (I shave with a razor). It was really nice to be able to just shower and get on with my day, plus I was running a little bit late anyways. So really, not shaving gives you more time in the day to do other things that are much more important. Wow, the more I think about it the pros side is much longer than the cons side of the No Shave November list.

The start of a beautiful thing

Well, in some places in the world it is already November, so hopefully those people have already shaven, and are ready to go the rest of the month without doing so.

If you are joining in the celebration of hair this month, or if you are just wondering about all the hoopla, keep checking the No Shave November blog to find out about all things facial hair, and updates on how my friends and I are coping with the new addition to our faces (and legs for the girls).

This month is going to be exciting, and this blog is the place to be.

Facebook Groups

There are a number of Facebook groups dedicated to this wonderful month. Check them out by searching for "No Shave November" in Facebook.

The countdown is on

Tomorrow is the last day to shave!

Here is a recap of the rules.

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-Guys - No shaving of the face

-Girls - No shaving of the legs

-In the United States - Keep the hair growing until Thanksgiving. (This way you can look fresh and clean for family)

-You are allowed to trim at 15 days, however, this is strongly discouraged.

-Rest of the world - You are asked to participate until the end of the month, besides, it'll help you stay warm.
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