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Beards & Moustaches

rynner2

Gone But Not Forgotten
(ACCOUNT RETIRED)
Joined
Aug 7, 2001
Messages
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We've had threads on this before, but they no longer survive...

Moustached men of America fight back
By Tim Shipman in Washington, Sunday Telegraph
Last Updated: 1:41am BST 26/08/2007

America's biggest cultural battles normally rage around the notorious trinity of guns, gays and God. But where pressure groups debating abortion and the right to bear arms have gone before, a new campaign is following - fighting for every American's right to bear hair on their upper lip.

Campaigning against what they say is widespread and unacceptable discrimination in the workplace and society, the American Moustache Institute (AMI) is vowing to restore well-tended facial hair to the noble status it enjoyed in the Seventies. :)

The institute is now dedicated to fighting to create a "climate of acceptance and understanding" for all moustached Americans alike.

The evidence that this is one more minority group with reason for a grievance is compelling. A recent poll found more than half of American women would refuse to kiss a man with a moustache. Others have said the look reminds them of Village People, Seventies porn stars and rednecks.

Last year the US Supreme Court ruled that it was permissible for a trial lawyer to throw someone off a jury using the pretext that they have a moustache. :shock:

The AMI stands ready to assist any American who claims they have been discriminated against and wishes to bring court action.

Executive director Aaron Perlut, 36, a public relations executive who sports a Fu Manchu-style "horseshoe" moustache, told The Sunday Telegraph: "There's no question that there exists a measure of discrimination. People feel they have to shave before a job interview. We view ourselves as the American Civil Liberties Union for the moustache. But we know that we can win over young people for whom a moustache is a perfect means of self expression - and it's easier than a tattoo."

He dates the death of the moustache to the departure from American television screens in 1984 of news anchorman Walter Cronkite, owner of "the most trusted moustache in the media", and the end of Tom Selleck's reign as fictional private eye Magnum in 1988.

America has not had a moustachioed president since the back-to-back administrations of Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft, a century ago.

New York city controller William Thompson, who is expected to run for mayor, has just shaved off his moustache in preparation for the campaign. Meanwhile, the walrus-moustached John Bolton, President George W Bush's former ambassador to the United Nations, is no longer a presence in US politics after stepping down last December.

The AMI's offices in St Louis, Missouri, held a get-together earlier this month called Stache Bash, where 500 moustache supporters watched baseball player Keith Hernandez crowned winner of a competition to find the best American sporting moustache.

"It was our coming out parade," said Mr Perlut.

http://tinyurl.com/37ke37

rynner: full set, close cropped.
 
I was turned down for a pizza delivery job once because I have a goatee.

A neat, tidy, trimmed goatee mind.

It wouldn't have been so bad, but about six months previously I had been the manager of a similar establishment. With the same goatee.
 
I have a lovely descrete tache but its those horrid big hairs on my chin that have cropped up in recent years that annoy me.

I plucked out FOUR (I see you recoil in shock) last night.
 
I look like a mexican bandit - and can't grow sidies to save my life. And I'm a girl!
 
Bearded wonders go head to head

Some of the world's most hirsute faces are gathering on the English south coast to see who has the fullest beard or the most stylish moustache.
Competitors from the UK, America, Germany and many other countries are registering in Brighton for the World Beard and Moustache Championships.

The 2007 event is being hosted by The Handlebar Club which was set up exactly 60 years ago in a London theatre.

Categories include Dali moustache, goatee and full beard freestyle. :D

A hairy parade through Brighton on Saturday will precede the competition itself in the afternoon.

CHAMPIONSHIP CATEGORIES

Moustaches - Natural, English, Dali, Imperial, Hungarian, Freestyle
Partial Beards - Natural Goatee, Chinese, Musketeer, Imperial, Freestyle, Sideburns Freestyle
Full Beards - Verdi, Garibaldi, Natural Full, Natural Full with Styled Moustache, Freestyle

The contest's aim is to "encourage and celebrate standards of excellence in the growth, design and presentation of facial hair", while also "putting a smile on people's faces".

Show organiser Steve Parsons said there were some competitors who had gone to great lengths.

"The freestyle beard is probably the most spectacular one because basically, as the name suggests, it's freestyle, so you can do anything you like.

"For example at the last championships in Berlin, one of the competitors there actually styled his beard in the shape of the Brandenburg Gate with horses and flags and everything."

Proceeds this year will go to a testicular cancer charity and the Royal Alexandra Children's Hospital in Brighton.

Previous events have also been held in Norway, Sweden and the US, with the 2009 championships already set to head to Alaska.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/sussex/6972315.stm
 
I can safely say this is all true...it's been great fun driving around this weekend beard-spotting.
 
watch out ryn... here comes:

BeardHunter.jpg
 
Well, that muscle-bound homo better be warned that I'm armed and dangerous....

(Naturally, I won't reveal exactly what my defences are....)
 
It's funny how facial hair fashions particularly come and go. and who'd be seen with a hairy chest these days?

And that's just the ladies.... :spinning

Still reading about the competition - seems like such harmless slightly eccentric fun - though there are some chancers trying their luck from the looks of things - seen more hair on a toothbrush.

-
 
From the age of 19, to 30, I used to have a beard. Never managing more than a 'salt & pepper' goatee arrangement. I shaved it off at 30, to look younger.

I did grow it back, for a character part, as a sailor on an eighteenth century Dutch East India Company merchantman, but I shaved it off at the end of the season.

One day, I may grow it back, if only to annoy my partner. ;)
 
Report from the local paper, The Argus....

Hairy hordes descend on the coast
By Simon Barrett

From immaculately coiffured moustaches to wild free-flowing beards, the wonders of facial fuzz were celebrated in Brighton and Hove this weekend.

The World Beard and Moustache Championships kicked off with a parade from the town hall complete with several flags and banners. The championships is a biennial event which attracts beard and 'tache wearers from all over the world.

Saturday morning shoppers looked on in amazement at the hirsute hordes and many posed for pictures with competitors dressed as everything from Tarzan to Gandalf the wizard, from the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and even an Olympic fencer.

Impromptu entertainment was provided by two members of Salford-based band Thingumabob and the Thingumajigs, who wowed the crowds with ukelele-based tracks including "Imaginary Bear".

Vocalist Rob Shoard said: "My friend and band member Kev Rogers grew a moustache and I just had to have one.

"Now it is a bit like a Jedi knight overtaking the master and mine is far superior.

"I entered us both into the championships and here we are. It's just great fun."

The event, held at the Brighton Centre, saw about 250 competitors in 17 categories ranging from the Dali, Musketeer and Hungarian moustaches to the full beard freestyle. Contestants are allowed to use artificial gels and hair sprays, except in the natural moustache category.

Fritz Sendlhofer, who came from Austria to compete in the championships, said: "It's is wonderful to be here. It is my first time in Brighton and apart from the weather it is a lovely city.

"People who grow beards come from all walks of society. All these strange examples really bring a smile to people's faces."

A different country hosts the event each time, and previous championships have been held in Germany, Norway, Sweden and the USA.

Among the judges on Saturday were musician Nick Cave, Star Wars actor Ralph Brown and Brighton mayor Carol Theobald.

Paul Lewis, of Preston Circus, Brighton, entered himself into the natural moustache category.

The 36-year-old said: "I started growing a tache about five years ago. I saw a few people with beards and fancied growing one but a tache suits me much better.

"It gets quite a lot of interest, people ask whether it is real and most of them want to touch it. I was really pleased when I heard the championships was going to be held in Brighton and it hasn't disappointed."

The event hit the headlines this week when the Beard Liberation Front (BLF), a pressure group fighting discrimination against beard wearers, claimed the championships focus too much on the cutting and styling of beards.

The differing philosophy on hair growth has meant the BLF is a longstanding opponent of the Beard and Moustache Championships. The group is angry the event is organised by the Handlebar Club, which does not allow members with beards.

Gray Plunkett, from Georgia in the USA, said: "I wouldn't worry about that at all, it's all tongue in cheek I think. This is my first championships and the atmosphere is amazing.

"I wanted to go to Berlin last time round but couldn't make it. I don't know what it is about beards and moustaches but everyone is so eccentric. It's hilarious."

The event is expected to raise thousands of pounds for charities the The Rockinghorse Appeal and TacheBack.
 
couldn't they have had it on the isle of wight instead? at least then we'd get a chance to sink it while they're all aboard! :D
 
And what is wrong with the Isle of Wight, pray?

(unless you are rabidly anti victorian, which is possibly understandable)
 
Report from The Argus post-event....check out the comments left by readers of the site!

Hairy contest a success, say organisers
By Rachel Wareing

A hirsute talent show was a sell-out success, organisers have said.

Tickets for the World Beard and Moustache Championships at the Brighton Centre at the weekend were snapped up by curious visitors within an hour of opening.

Event co-ordinator Geoff Pye said a total of 2,600 passes were sold last Saturday.

He said: "The box office reported that they turned away as many people as they let in and people were waiting outside the centre to buy tickets off those leaving part way through the event.

"I even heard there was a black market for tickets - £10 for a £5 ticket."

More than 250 men from across the world took part in the annual event.
advertisement

Proceeds are still being totted up, but once the total is calculated it will be split between testicular cancer charity 'Tache Off' and the Royal Alexandra Children's Hospital in Brighton.

9:15am Wednesday 5th September 2007


Comments

Posted by: Furry, Brighton on 9:35am Wed 5 Sep 07
Can we have a local contest for Hirsute Women I like em' hairy , I have lots of videos

Posted by: Rob, Brighton on 12:30pm Wed 5 Sep 07
Furry, you are rather sad!

Posted by: Furburger, Hove on 1:18pm Wed 5 Sep 07
Rob, we like em hairy and what gives you the right to say what can be posted?? Hairy Huns rule!

Posted by: Heidi, Hove on 1:33pm Wed 5 Sep 07
Rob is in a minority. I am an extremely hairly women, my husband requests I dont shave . Our sex life is wonderful as a result

Posted by: Hairyhole, hove on 2:27pm Wed 5 Sep 07
Heidi, Do you have any photos to show off your hairy mound?

Posted by: Vanessa, Sussex on 2:48pm Wed 5 Sep 07
I have battled with facial hair and under arm plumes for ever since school I think for you disgusting men to have a laugh at the sake of us hirsute women is dispicable Furry and Fur Burger you should be ashamed.

Posted by: Furry cup, Hove on 3:37pm Wed 5 Sep 07
Vanessa........you say fur burger should be ashamed?? He is saying he likes hairy birds, just like you. Slightly confusing. Now run along and shave!
 
*reads comments*

*frowns*

*combs legs*
 
How Empire’s stiff upper lip was bristling with authority
Ben Hoyle, Arts Reporter

Military victories, trade, missionary zeal, racial arrogance and a genius for bureaucracy all played well-documented roles in making the British Empire the largest the world has known.

Rather less well understood was the importance of the moustache.

A monumental new history, The Decline and Fall of the British Empire by Piers Brendon, promises to restore this neglected narrative to its rightful place in the national story.

Dr Brendon, a Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge University, argues that colonial moustaches had a clear practical purpose: to demonstrate virility and intimidate the Empire’s subject peoples.

The waxing and waning of the British moustache precisely mirrored the fortunes of the Empire – blooming beneath the noses of the East India Company’s officers, finding full expression in Lord Kitchener’s bushy appendage and petering out with the Suez crisis in Anthony Eden’s apologetic whisps.

This analysis of the “growth of the stiff upper lip” is an essential strand of Dr Brendon’s epic 650-page political, cultural, economic and social history of the Empire, which is published on October 18. “It is a running gag in a serious book, but it does give one a point of reference,” he said yesterday.

In the 18th and early 19th century, sophisticated Britons wore wigs but spurned facial hair. The exception was the king, George III, whose unshaven appearance was mocked as a sign of his madness. However, by the 1830s the “moustache movement” was in the ascendancy. British officers, copying the impressive moustaches that they encountered on French and Spanish soldiers during the Napoleonic Wars, started the craze, but the real impetus came from India.

Just as British troops in Afghanistan today are encouraged to grow beards to ease their dealings with local tribesmen, so the attitudes of Indian troops under the command of East India Company officers in the first half of the 19th century altered the appearance of the British soldier.

“For the Indian sepoy the moustache was a symbol of virility. They laughed at the unshaven British officers,” Dr Brendon said. In 1854 moustaches were made compulsory for the company’s Bombay regiment. The fashion took Britain by storm as civilians imitated their heroes.

Dr Brendon writes: “During and after the Crimean War, barbers advertised different patterns in their windows such as the ‘Raglan’ and the Cardigan’.” Moustaches were clipped, trimmed and waxed “until they curved like sabres and bristled like bayonets.”

After 1918 moustaches became thinner and humbler as the Empire began to gasp for breath, even as it continued to expand territorially. It had been fatally wounded, Dr Brendon suggests, by the very belief in the freedom that it had preached. After the victory over Germany and Japan in 1945, independence movements across the red-painted sections of the world map, and Britain’s own urgent domestic priorities, meant that the Empire was doomed.

The moustache too was in terminal decline. “It had become a joke thanks to Charlie Chaplin and Groucho Marx. It had become an international symbol of ‘villainy’ thanks to Hitler’s toothbrush and ‘the huge laughing cockroaches’ under Stalin’s nose,” writes Dr Brendon. In Britain it was also synonymous with the “Colonel Blimps” clinging to an outmoded idea of colonial greatness.

In Eden’s faint moustache Britain’s diminished international status found a fitting symbol. It all but disappeared on TV and, moments before his broadcast on the eve of the fateful occupation of the Suez canal in 1956, his wife had to blacken the bristles with mascara. His successor, Harold MacMillan, was the last British prime minister to furnish his upper lip.

Harold Wilson, the self-styled man of the people, had been clean shaven since the 1940s, Dr Brendon notes. “He obviously believed that the white-hot technological revolution was not to be operated with a moustache.”

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/ ... 563388.ece
 
Sadly, beardophobia is still rife:

US police file beard ban lawsuit

Four police officers in Texas have filed a lawsuit arguing that a ban on wearing beards is discriminatory.
The officers are suing Houston and its police department, claiming status and pay have been reduced.

The department imposed the ban in 2005, saying gas masks could not be sealed over facial hair in bioterror attacks.

The officers say the ban is unfair on those with a particular skin condition that reacts to shaving and primarily affects black men.

The condition is called pseudofolliculitis barbae and sufferers who shave can be subjected to rashes, ingrowing hairs and severe irritation.

Two of the plaintiffs, Sgts Shelby Stewart and Kenneth Perkins, said they wore goatees because of the condition.

They said it affected more than 100 policemen in the department.

Police review

Sgt Stewart, who has been on the force for 26 years, told the Houston Chronicle newspaper: "When they took us out of uniform and told us we couldn't work second jobs in uniform, that meant that we had to take a financial hit that most officers would not take."

The lawsuit argues the ban disproportionately affects black officers.

Sgt Stewart said: "We made decisions that we had to make based on civil rights."

Houston police denied the reassignments were demotions and said it had changed its policy over the issue.

Police lawyer Craig Ferrell said officers who were unable to shave would be now allowed to wear a special mask over their beard.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7118888.stm
 
Hirsute marines compete for glory
By Caroline Wyatt
Defence correspondent, BBC News

The Royal Marines have found a novel way to keep a stiff upper lip while fighting the Taleban in Helmand Province this Christmas - by holding a "moustache contest".

The marines of 40 Commando are vying to see who can grow the most outrageous piece of face furniture in a competition that will be judged by a panel of their peers on Boxing Day.

The conditions the men are living in may be basic in the extreme, and the fierce battles they find themselves in often hair-raising, but judging by some of the photos sent in by Royal Marine competitors, the men themselves are hairier.

What the Duke of Wellington once said of his own troops is clearly still true today: "I don't know what they do to the enemy, but by God, they frighten me."

Second in Command of 40 Commando, Major Alex Murray, terms the competition a "morale-boosting bit of fun".

"Generations of our forefathers have been marching around these hills with the most splendid array of facial hair," he says. "We found throughout history, the upper lip has been stiffened with a good moustache.

"Some aspects of warfare are timeless, and in this case the requirement for impressive facial hair is as important today as it was for our forefathers working on the North West Frontier.

"Generations of British marines have operated in places like Afghanistan over the last two centuries. Often working in austere conditions, a good tash has proved essential in maintaining the stiff upper lip, and north Helmand in the current clime is no exception."

Clearly, when the terrain is harsh, and the conditions the men live and fight in are - at best - austere, there is a need for a little light Christmas distraction.

Major Murray says: "The moustache competition is really just a bit of fun and light relief in an environment that is otherwise deadly serious.

"Daily the marines and soldiers of 40 Commando are doing amazingly brave acts alongside our comrades from the Afghan National Army and police, and life can be pretty intense.

"Morale-boosting bits of fun like this go a long way to defusing the tension and keep everyone cheerful.

"Morale in the unit is especially high at the moment, especially with the added support of family and friends and the wider public over the Christmas period. They are constantly in our thoughts and we look forward to our return in a few months time."

The marines are not the only ones working over Christmas; most of the 7,800 men and women serving in Afghanistan will be on duty on Christmas Day, working as normal, whether on the front lines or as support and logistics staff back at the main British bases.

However, few will be sporting quite the tash-tastic facial hair of 40 Commando the Royal Marines.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7158637.stm

Nice to see the old traditions kept alive! - see my post here on 1/10/2007
 
At our recent xmas gathering 100% of the chaps had beards of some sort.

OK, so it was only 4 individuals but it's still a healthy figure!

Kath
 
*retreats before entering the bog of gender politics*

:p

Kath
 
Doesn't seem starting a new thread for this story, so I'm dropping it in here:

World's hairiest man WLTM hard-to-shock girl
By Tom Chivers and agencies
Last Updated: 2:29am GMT 24/01/2008

Yu Zhenhuan, the world's hairiest man, is looking for love online after breaking up with his girlfriend of three years.

Mr Yu said that online dating agencies are his best shot at happiness, as potential love interests are "shocked" when they see him in person.

Yu Zhenhuan, the world's hairiest man, says "many girls are shocked" when they see him in person

"I am being honest with any new partners", he told Zhejiang Online. "I tell them at the start that I am listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the hairiest man in the world.

"My whole body is covered with hair. I tried waxing it off but the pain was incredible, and I tried shaving but my skin was like sandpaper.

"This way many girls are shocked when they see me in person, but at least they see the real me and if they get to know me I hope they will like what they find."

The Guinness Book of Records gave him the title in 2002. Ninety-six per cent of his body is covered by hair, and Mr Yu says that his parents are worried that he won't be able to find a partner.

"I know I am ugly," said Mr Yu, "but I am a good person and I need love like everyone else.

"I feel like King Kong, ugly outside, but with a big heart."

http://tinyurl.com/2mre8a

(BTW, the photo seems to show him wearing a bra, but this is an unfortunate illusion caused by the way his knee is in the foreground of the shot!)
 
I like body hair on men. It's a pity it's unfashionable.
Fortunately the current Mr Snail is satisfyingly hirsute. :D
 
The beard is back
Film stars are sprouting it with abandon, women are tolerating it – even the man on the street is going ape. Yes, the beard has made a triumphant comeback
Luke Leitch

Five years ago, facial hair was a masculine affectation favoured only by unconventional minorities such as French footballers, real-ale aficionados, gentlemen of the road and Tom Hanks in Cast Away. The vast majority of right-minded men shaved daily. We were still seduced by Gillette’s multi-blade marketing and institutionally prejudiced by middle-class Britain’s longstanding antipathy towards the beard. Stubble was for pouting, knitwear-sporting continentals, while an unfettered facial flourishing was for ecological protestors and other antisocial elements – as well as hopeless anachronisms such as Noel Edmonds.

Five years on, and everything mainstream men thought then about beards – except about Noel Edmonds’ beard – has undergone a paradigm shift. Look around you: there are beards on fashion billboards (H&M’s current campaign includes a real whopper), beards starring in Hollywood films, and beards in bands (Dave Grohl is king of the muso beard). And the beard has trickled down, too: they may be by no means ubiquitous but nonetheless, from Fulham to Fife, well brought-up, youngish men in their droves are unapologetically sporting beards. No longer is the beard verboten, an object of feminine disgust, masculine ridicule and universal suspicion.

How did its remarkable social rehabilitation occur? It is a conundrum so perplexing that tackling it demands you have a beard of your own, for contemplative stroking.

It was in Shoreditch/Hoxton, East London, that shoots of recovery for the British beard first sprouted. Russell Manley is proprietor of one of that painfully self-conscious neighbourhood’s most successful hair salons, Tommyguns – and he’s about to export his brand to Manhattan. Manley reckons the beard’s moment came about three years ago. “Just when everyone else in Britain got into mullets and mohawks, Shoreditch stopped being into them – and you started to see beards. You still see them – and moustaches – around here today. I think they’re popular because they are a counter-strike against that whole metrosexual feminisation of guys.”

The British beard’s breakthrough came in the petri dish of East London, but it took hold in more conventional locales – spreading from the bohemian, self-styled “Shoreditch twats” who read Dazed & Confused to the bourgeois conformists who read GQ – thanks to an entirely foreign influence: the new Hollywood beard. Sicilian-born barber-to-the-stars Carmelo Guastella, who runs London salon Melogy, created Ali G’s horrendous faux-ghetto beard for Sacha Baron Cohen. He points out that today Cohen is just one of a new generation of movie stars who choose to wear beards in his “personal time”; not since the good ol’ days of Burt Reynolds and Kris Kristofferson have so many LA leading men been so free with their facial hair.

“Sacha has grown himself a beard, and it looks good: natural, with no harsh lines. Colin Farrell wears his beard like a statement: ‘I’m a hard man, I’m trouble – so watch it.’ When George Clooney grew his, it didn’t work at all – his chin is too strong. Keanu Reeves often wears quite a full beard, but it’s well looked after – it looks great on him,” says Guastalla.

“Russell Crowe has worn his beard for a while now,” he continues, “and it really works with the shape of his face: it makes his look. I have a client who grew his beard exactly like Crowe’s. He loved it. And that’s the thing: we do emulate celebrities, and celebrities have helped the beard go mainstream.

“Let’s face it, no man grows a beard if his wife hates it, but women are seeing these good-looking, rich, famous guys – Brad Pitt is the ultimate example here – with beards, so they’re not so against them. And the great thing for regular men who have beards is that it’s saying something: ‘I’m no suit – I can wear a beard!’”

George Prest, 33, a creative director at advertising agency Lowe, has been wearing an alarmingly full beard – complete with Messiah-long hairstyle – for about three years. He says: “The only downside was the initial risk of food becoming caught in it, but you learn how to legislate for that. And once you start going to a barber for your trim, it’s much less labour-intensive than daily shaving. The only reason I’ve got a beard is that I can have one – and people do expect me to do a job which is vaguely creative. I often get asked if I’m in a band or something like that.”

Prest is using beards professionally, too. “If a brand wants to portray itself as quirky and slightly left-field, then a beard is a pretty efficient way of signifiying that,” he says. “On the other hand, it’s surprising the number of clients for whom having a bearded man in their campaign would be a complete no-no – there is that residual ‘never trust a man with a beard’ prejudice. I can’t imagine having a bearded Prime Minister, for instance.”

Shoreditch still heaves with beards. But as the conventional masses continue to adopt them, will it fall to the men of Shoreditch to give them the chop, just as they spurned the mohawk? Back to Manley: “Facial hair comes in and out of fashion. It’s cyclical. Everyone at some points flirts with it. But here? Well, they’re still around – but by the summer I think they will have gone, at least for a while.”

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_a ... 617353.ece
 
I knew if I held out long enough, it would come back into fashion.
 
escargot1 said:
...Fortunately the current Mr Snail is satisfyingly hirsute. :D

Hairy snails...the mind boggles. Mind you they probably have them in Australia or bits of South America - anywhere evolution got bored and started showing off.

I could have a fine beard, my facial hair being multicoloured - grey, black various browns and a dose of red, from my Celtic grandmothers I suppose (not that they had beards). Unfortunately I hate and despise beards (for some reason I cannot get the image of a cat's arse out of my head when I'm talking to a man with a beard) and am therefore thinking of selling mine on Ebay.
 
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