Image Credit: Compilation/Jennifer Stahn

Male grooming fascinates me. Well now, that didn’t sound quite right, did it? What I mean is, I am perpetually astonished by the fact that grown men go to such absurd lengths to make themselves look… well, absurd.

Take the current obsession with facial hair. Everywhere you turn, otherwise sensible adult males have sprouted ludicrous beards. After minutes of careful observation in the mall on Monday afternoon, I can plainly state this indisputable scientific fact: if you are one of those misguided souls who has chosen to display pubic hair on his face, the chances are your beard fits one of four types.

1) The Amish Shrubbery. This consists of a huge matted mass of hair descending onto the chest and covering every facial feature. Birds are nesting in it. Amish Shrubbites look like they’ve just come from the set of Deliverance or crawled out of the forest after a decade lost in the wild surviving on berries and bear poo, much of which is still sticking to the beard. Men who choose the Amish Shrubbery drive pick-up trucks. They don’t talk much. When they do you can’t see their lips but the entire beard moves about as if it’s come loose. They wear sandals. With socks.

2) The Bilbo Baggins. This beard is sported by men who lack sufficient testosterone to grow a full-on Amish Shrubbery. The jaw is covered in a mangy tangle of hair which ends in a little pointy bit at the bottom. This makes the wearer look as if he’s just arrived from Middle Earth. Bilbos are jovial and cheerful. They have jobs in “media” and eat a lot of vegetables. They call you “man” or “dude.”

3) The Half Beard. It started with the simple “goaty” which was designed to disguise the lack of a chin but suggested the aftermath of a nasty shaving accident. Now it’s spawned myriad variations involving seemingly random, disconnected tufts. Half-beards look as if they have been the objects of a party game similar to pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey whereby they are blindfolded and children or drunks wobble up and stick bits of armpit hair to their face. Half-beards manage grocery stores and vacation in India.

4) The Wino. A lazy hipster favourite, the Wino is the easiest of all the beard types to effect: You just forget to shave for a couple of days. The result looks like an old pub carpet, threadbare and filthy. Some men actually shave around the scruffy patch so it ends in a neat line. This is ridiculous. It’s like letting your lawn die then trimming the edges and pretending it was always meant to be a weed-strewn patch of dirt. Wino-beards think they’re cool and creative but every one else thinks they’re just hung-over. They live in lofts, marry people called Brandi or Bobby and drive convertibles.

According to the font of all knowledge and wisdom, razors have been around for about 20,000 years. Frankly, it’s time some people learned how to use one.

— The Grumpy Old Git is fired by his absurd editor, Bilbo Baggins.

News from © iNFOnews, 2014