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Over the course of history, men with facial hair have been ascribed various traits such as wisdom, knowledge, sexual virility, masculinity, or high social status, and conversely, filthiness, crudeness, or an eccentric disposition. In some cultures a beard was considered sacred, and many ancient cultures believed a shaved face was a sign of dishonor. In recent history, men who shrink from all forms of scissors, clippers and razors in fact compete in beard and mustache championships.

Images Worldbeardchampionship.com

Images Worldbeardchampionship.com

Via: Online Schools

Famous Beard Quotes
• “There are two kinds of people in this world that go around beardless — boys and women — and I am neither one.” – Greek saying
• “A woman with a beard looks like a man. A man without a beard looks like a woman.” – Afghan Saying
• “The beard is the handsomeness of the face, and a wife is the joy in a man’s heart.” – R’ Akiva, Eicha Rabbah
• Leonato: You may light on a husband that hath no beard.
Beatrice: What should I do with him? Dress him in my apparel and make him my waiting-gentlewoman? He that hath a beard is more than a youth, and he that hath no beard is less than a man: and he that is more than a youth is not for me, and he that is less than a man, I am not for him… -William Shakespeare – Excerpt from Much Ado About Nothing – Act 2, Scene I
• “You should be (look like) women, and yet your beards forbid me to interpret that you are so.” – Banquo, to the witches, in Shakespeare’s Macbeth.

Beard Championships 2010

Beard Styles
• Full — downward flowing beard with either styled or integrated moustache.
• Sideburns — hair grown from the temples down the cheeks toward the jaw line. Sometimes with a moustache.
• Chinstrap — a beard with long sideburns that comes forward and ends under the chin, resembling a chinstrap, hence the name.
• Donegal — similar to the chinstrap beard but covers the entire chin.
• Garibaldi — wide, full beard with rounded bottom and integrated mustache.
• Goatee — a tuft of hair grown on the chin, sometimes resembling a billy goat’s.
• Junco — a goatee which extends upward and connects to the corners of the mouth.
• Hollywoodian — a beard with integrated mustache worn on the lower part of the chin and jaw area, without connecting sideburns.
• Reed — a beard with integrated mustache that is worn on the lower part of the chin and jaw area that tapers towards the ears without connecting sideburns.
• Royale — a narrow pointed beard extending from the chin. The style was popular in France during the period of the Second Empire, from which it gets its alternative name, the imperial or impériale.
• Stubble — a very short beard of only 1 to a few days growth. This became fashionable during the heyday of Miami Vice. During this time, a modified electric razor called the Miami Device became popular, which would trim stubble to a preset length.
• Van Dyke — a goatee accompanied by a mustache.
• Verdi — short beard with rounded bottom and slightly shaven cheeks with prominent mustache
• Neckbeard (Neard) — similar to the Chinstrap, but with the chin and jawline shaven, leaving hair to grow only on the neck. While never as popular as other beard styles, a few noted historical figures have worn this type of beard, such as Nero and Horace Greeley.
• Soul patch — a small beard just below the lower lip and above the chin
• Friendly Mutton Chops — long mutton chop type sideburns connected to a mustache, but with a shaved chin.
• Stashburns — sideburns that drop down the jaw but jut upwards across the mustache, leaving the chin exposed. Similar to “Friendly Mutton Chops” But often found in south and south-western American culture.
• French beard (Bulgan in Kerala) — a beard with integrated mustache which wraps around the lips and continue as beard on chin. Cheeks are kept shaven. French beard, when fully formed is usually referred to as bulgan.

Bearded Women
A bearded lady or bearded women have long been a phenomenon of legend, curiosity, ridicule, and more recently, political statement and fashion statement.

Annie Jones toured with P.T. Barnum’s circus in the 19th century.
Image author unknown

A small number of women are able to grow enough facial hair to have a beard. In some cases, female beard growth is the result of a hormonal imbalance (usually androgen excess), a rare genetic disorder known as hypertrichosis, or sometimes 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 — and usually fake — bearded women of the circus sideshows of the 19th and early 20th centuries, before so-called freak shows became unpopular.

World Beard Competitions
Men who spurn all forms of scissors, clippers and razors compete in the World Beard and Moustache Championships. It’s a biennial competition in which men with beards and moustaches display lengthy, highly-styled facial hair. The first Championship took place in Höfen-Enz, Germany, in 1990.

Beard Championships 2009

On September 1, 2007, competitors of the world’s most hirsute faces from the UK, America, Germany and other countries got together for the championships in Brighton. It was hosted by The Handlebar Club with comedy performer and renowned mustache wearer Michael “Atters” Attree acting as Chairman and Master of Ceremonies. Categories included Dali moustache, goatee and full beard freestyle.

The 2009 event was held from May 19 to the 24th in Anchorage, Alaska. The host club distributed over $16,000 to local charities. Anchorage hosted the most ever competitors, eclipsing former host city Carson City.

The 2011 championships will be in Trondheim, Norway.

Beard Championships 2009

Beards of Ancient Cultures
The highest ranking Ancient Egyptians grew hair on their chins which was often dyed or hennaed, and sometimes plaited with interwoven gold thread. A metal false beard, or postiche, which was a sign of sovereignty, was worn by queens, kings and sometimes even cows. It was held in place by a ribbon tied over the head and attached to a gold chin strap — a fashion dating from around 3000 to 1580 BC.

Mesopotamian civilizations such as Sumerians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Chaldeans and Medians, devoted immense care to oiling and dressing their beards, and using tongs or curling irons to create elaborate ringlets and tiered patterns.

The Persians were fond of long beards. In Olearius’ Travels, a King of Persia commands his steward’s head to be cut off, and on its being brought to him, remarks, “what a pity it was, that a man possessing such fine mustachios, should have been executed.

Beard Championships 2009

Middle Ages
In the Middle Ages, the beard was one of the signs of a knight’s virility and honor. The Castilian knight El Cid is described in The Lay of the Cid as “the one with the flowery beard.” Holding somebody else’s beard was a serious offence that had to be righted in a duel.

Ancient Greece
The ancient Greeks regarded the beard as a badge or sign of virility. In the Homeric epics it had almost sanctified significance, so that a common form of entreaty was to touch the beard of the person addressed. It was only shaven as a sign of mourning, though in this case it was instead often left untrimmed.

A smooth face was regarded as a sign of effeminacy. The Spartans punished cowards by shaving off a portion of their beards, although from the earliest times, the shaving of the upper lip was not uncommon. Greek beards were also frequently curled with tongs.

In Greek mythology and art Zeus and Poseidon are always portrayed with beards, but Apollo never is. A bearded Hermes was replaced with the more familiar beardless youth in the 5th century B.C.

Beard Championships

Ancient Macedon
In the time of Alexander the Great the custom of smooth shaving was introduced. Alexander ordered his soldiers to be clean shaven, fearing that their beards would serve as handles for their enemies to grab and to hold the soldier as he was killed.

The practice of shaving spread from the Macedonians, whose kings are represented on coins, etc. with smooth faces, throughout the Macedonian Empire. Laws were passed against it but without effect, at Rhodes and Byzantium.

Even Aristotle conformed to the new custom, unlike the other philosophers, who retained the beard as a badge of their profession. A man with a beard after the Macedonian period implied a philosopher, and we have many allusions to this custom of the later philosophers in such proverbs as, “The beard does not make the sage.”

Beard Championships 2010

Ancient Rome
Shaving seems to have been unknown to the Romans during their early history under the Kings of Rome and the early Republic.

Pliny tells us that P. Ticinius was the first who brought a barber to Rome around 299 BC. Scipio Africanus was apparently the first among the Romans who shaved his beard. After that point, shaving seemed to have caught on very quickly, and soon almost all Roman men were clean-shaven.

Being clean-shaven became a sign of being Roman and not Greek. Only in the later times of the Republic, Roman youths begin shaving their beards only partially, trimming it into an ornamental form. Some young men oiled their chins in hopes of forcing premature growth of a beard.

Beards remained rare among the Romans throughout the Late Republic and the early Principate. During this time in Rome, a long beard was considered a mark of slovenliness and squalor. The censors L. Veturius and P. Licinius compelled M. Livius, who had been banished, on his restoration to the city, to be shaved, and to lay aside his dirty appearance, and then, but not until then, to come into the Senate.

Beard Championships 2010

The first occasion of shaving was regarded as the beginning of manhood, and the day on which this took place was celebrated as a festival. The hair cut off on these occasions was consecrated to a god. Nero put his into a golden box set with pearls, and dedicated it to Jupiter Capitolinus.

The Romans, unlike the Greeks, let their beards grow in time of mourning, as did Augustus for the death of Julius Caesar. Other occasions of mourning on which the beard was allowed to grow were appearance as a rues, condemnation, or some public calamity.

However, men of the country areas around Rome in the time of Varro seem not to have shaved except when they came to market every 8th day, so that their usual appearance was most likely a short stubble.

In the 2nd century AD the Emperor Hadrian, according to Dion Cassius, was the first of all the Caesars to grow a beard. Plutarch says that he did it to hide scars on his face.

Until the time of Constantine the Great the emperors appear in busts and coins with beards, but Constantine and his successors to the end of the 6th century, with the exception of Julian, are represented as beardless.

Beard Championships 2010

Celts and Germanic Tribes
Late Hellenistic sculptures of Celts portray them with long hair and mustaches but beardless.

Tacitus states that among the Catti — a Germanic tribe — a young man wasn’t allowed to shave or cut his hair until he had killed an enemy. The Lombards derived their fame from the great length of their beards (Longobards – Long Beards – Langbärte).

When Otto the Great said anything serious, he swore by his beard, which covered his breast.

Ancient India
In ancient India, the beard was allowed to grow long, a symbol of dignity and of wisdom.

The nations in the east generally treated their beards with great care and reverence, and the punishment for sexual immorality and adultery was to have the beard of the offending parties publicly cut off.

They had such a sacred regard for the preservation of their beards that a man might pledge it for the payment of a debt.

Beard Championships 2010

Renaissance Era to Present Day
In the 15th century, most European men were clean-shaven. 16th century beards were suffered to grow to an amazing length. Some beards of this time were the Spanish spade beard, the English square cut beard, the forked beard, and the stiletto beard. In 1587 Francis Drake claimed to have singed the King of Spain’s beard, in a figure of speech.

In urban circles of Western Europe and the Americas, beards were out of fashion after the early 17th century to such an extent, that in 1698, Peter the Great of Russia ordered men to shave off their beards, and in 1705 levied a tax on beards in order to bring Russian society more in line with contemporary Western Europe.

Throughout the 18th century beards were unknown among most parts of Western society, especially the nobility and upper classes.

Pirate Jack Sparrow. Image Lucia

Beards returned strongly to fashion during the Napoleonic Era. Veterans of the French Emperor’s Army were known as “Vieilles Moustaches” (Old Mustaches), while greener conscripts were forbidden to grow them, making them especially coveted and prestigious.

Photo Ed Burton

Throughout the 19th century beards, long sideburns, and moustaches were more common than not. Many male European monarchs were bearded including Alexander III of Russia, Napoleon III of France, Frederick III of Germany, as were many of the leading statesmen and cultural figures such as Benjamin Disraeli, Charles Dickens, Giuseppe Garibaldi, Karl Marx, and Giuseppe Verdi.

In the early 20th century beards started a slow decline in popularity, while some prominent figures retained them, like Sigmund Freud, although severely shortened from the fashion of prior decades. Most men which in the 20’s and 30’s still retained facial hair limited it to the mustache or a goatee such as Marcel Proust, Albert Einstein, Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky, Adolf Hitler, and Joseph Stalin.

Beards, together with long hair, were reintroduced to mainstream society in Western Europe and the Americas by the hippie movement of the mid 1960’s. By the end of the 20th century, the closely clipped Verdi beard, often with a matching integrated moustache, had become relatively common.

Photo Dogseat

From the 1920’s to the early 1960’s, beards were virtually nonexistent in mainstream America. The few men who wore the beard or portions of the beard during this period were frequently either old, Central Europeans, members of a religious sect that required it, in academia, or part of the counterculture, such as the “beatniks”.

After the Vietnam War, beards exploded in popularity. In the mid-late 1960’s and throughout the 1970’s, beards were worn by hippies and businessmen alike. The trend of seemingly ubiquitous beards in American culture subsided in the mid 1980’s.

Photo Robert Thomson

From the 1990’s onward, the fashion in beards has generally trended toward either a goatee, Van Dyke, or a closely cropped full beard undercut on the throat. By 2010, the fashionable length became a “2-day shadow.”

One level of American society where facial hair is virtually nonexistent is in government and politics. The last President of the United States to wear any type of facial hair was William Howard Taft, who was in office from 1909 till 1913. The last Vice President of the United States to wear any facial hair was Charles Curtis, who was in office from 1929 till 1933.

Professional airline pilots are required to be clean shaven to facilitate a tight seal with auxiliary oxygen masks, as are fire fighters restrained from full beards to obtain a proper seal with SCBA equipment.

Isezaki city in Gunma prefecture, Japan, banned beards for male municipal employees on June 19, 2010

Beards in Religion
Jesus is almost always portrayed with a beard in iconography and art dating from the 4th century onward. In paintings and statues most of the Old Testament Biblical characters such as Moses and Abraham and Jesus’ New Testament disciples such as St Peter are with beard, as was John the Baptist.

John the Apostle is generally depicted as clean-shaven in Western European art, however, to emphasize his relative youth. Eight of the figures portrayed in the painting entitled The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci are bearded.

Mainstream Christianity holds Isaiah Chapter 50: Verse 6 as a prophecy of Christ’s crucifixion, as a description of Christ having his beard plucked by his tormentors.

In Eastern Christianity, beards are often worn by members of the priesthood and by monastics, and at times have been required for all believers. Amish and Hutterite men shave until they’re married, then grow a beard and are never without one thereafter, although it’s a particular form of a beard. Many Syrian Christians from Kerala in India wore long beards.

Photo Catch2370

In present day, members of many Catholic religious communities, mainly those of Franciscan origin, use a beard as a sign of their vocation. At various times in its history the Catholic Church permitted and prohibited facial hair. Some Messianic Jews also wear beards to show their observance of the Old Testament.

Diarmaid MacCulloch writes, “There is no doubt that Cranmer mourned the dead king (Henry VIII),” and it was said that he showed his grief by growing a beard.

But “it was a break from the past for a clergyman to abandon his clean-shaven appearance which was the norm for late medieval priesthood. With Luther providing a precedent, virtually all the continental reformers had deliberately grown beards as a mark of their rejection of the old church, and the significance of clerical beards as an aggressive anti-Catholic gesture was well recognised in mid-Tudor England.”

A male Rastafarian’s beard is a sign of his pact with God — Jah or Jehovah– and his Bible is his source of knowledge. Leviticus 21:5 (“They shall not make any baldness on their heads, nor shave off the edges of their beards, nor make any cuts in their flesh.”) Likewise, it’s not uncommon for a Rastafarian beard to grow uncombed, like dreadlocks.

Mystics and priests in Taoist practices also grow their beards and hair, but always have the latter tied in a knot or tail.

The study of beards is called pogonology.

World Bead and Mustache Championship Parade 2009

World Beard and Mustache Championship 2010

Sources: Online MBA and Wikipedia

Tags:beard beards culture facial hair history moustache moustaches mustache sideburns world championships

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