Beards with Stories

Every Beard Has A Story.

[beardswithstories-blog]

"I started growing a beard pretty much as soon as I was able to grow a beard. One: because I thought it helped me not look like I was 12-years-old anymore. And two: it helped give me a jawline where as I put on weight I lost my jawline. So that's the beard. That's pretty much it."

[beardswithstories-blog]

“I started growing a beard probably when I was about 16 or so. Initially it was because my brother who is a year older than me couldn't grow one so I grew it just to annoy him. But then after that I had a goatee for a little while then shaved completely and then started growing it again. I like the way it looks. It's a little hot during the summertime but not too, too bad. Just always liked beards so I decided to grow it out and see how long it could get.”

[beardswithstories-blog]

“I decided to grow a beard because I’d never shaved in my entire life. When I quit my job I’d never shaved. And that’s the god-honest truth. In my entire life I’ve never shaved. I just started growing a beard when I was 36-years-old.”

[beardswithstories-blog]

“I never had a chance to when I was growing up due to the different jobs I had in hotels and restaurants. Then I was in Chicago and I just kind of started growing one and it started coming in without me really paying attention to it, and then some people told me it looked good so I just kept it there. Then more people told me it looked even better and so then I just kept it. And now it’s never going away ever again.”

[beardswithstories-blog]

“I wanted to see what I look like with a beard, and I knew that if my beard came out it would look kinda red. For heritage reasons, because I’m Scottish and Irish, I wanted to support my heritage upon my face so I grew it out and I’ve kept it ever since.”

[beardswithstories-blog]

"I decided to grow a beard because, number one, it's just easier to maintain, and it's practical to have in the cold months. Also I do carpentry and I'm doing firefighting this summer so I want to have a beard—just because it's really manly."

[beardswithstories-blog]

"I shaved clean right before Thanksgiving, which is the first time in a really long time that I did the whole clean shave. And then I went on a trip to Mexico and was living on a boat for a few weeks and built some churches and kinda just kept growing it. It's wintertime here in Chattanooga so there's no reason to shave it. Might as well keep it. Once it warms up I'm sure it will trim down."

[beardswithstories-blog]

"I decided to start growing a beard at the end of high school just because I didn't want to take the time to shave, to maintain it, and I was single so I had no one that really minded if I had a beard. Now I'm married and my wife loves my beard and so that's one of the main reasons I keep it as well."

[beardswithstories-blog]

Him: "The biggest reason why I started to grow a beard is because in the winter it gets cold and I work outside. So it was just a good time to keep warm. I started a couple years ago and this last year it became a part of me throughout the rest of the winter and I just really enjoy having it. I feel like it opens you up to a totally different subculture almost. It's just kinda fun to play around with and see the different people you can meet and get to know because of it, so it's kinda cool." Her: "We recently also started a roasting company (@namesakecoffee on Instagram); we're roasting coffee beans. Because of that—he does all the main roasting—every night when he starts roasting I'll come home and I'll know that he has roasted because his entire beard smells like roasted coffee. It will stay in there for a good day or so until he rinses it out and brushes it and puts all his beard oils in [his beard]. It's been interesting starting a coffee roasting company and then his beard is an integral part of that company because of the scent that it holds after roasting."

[beardswithstories-blog]

"I was in the Navy, so you know you can't have a beard there and have to be clean shaven. Then I went to Austin, TX and well I figured I'll give it a try."

[beardswithstories-blog]

"I just got lazy." Simple and honest answer from today's little interview.

[beardswithstories-blog]

"Well this isn't the first beard that I've grown. The first beard I grew was just for the heck of it. I was pretty young and hadn't done it before. The second one I did I kinda grew it out of a whim, but some classmates at my school (Walla Walla University) saw it as a mission opportunity. What they did was that they made two 'gofundme's- one for cutting the beard, one for saving the beard. People would donate to whichever they wanted. It went towards a mission project at WWU for building homes. We ended up earning $1600 for that. So the most valuable thing that I've owned is my beard. And this one, I kinda have just been growing it to see when the faculty would tell me to cut it. They gave us pretty vague guidelines on how it had to look. So out of curiosity I've been growing it until someone mentioned it. I figure by clinicals someone will say I need to do something about it."

[beardswithstories-blog]

We were featured on this super awesome podcast!! Beards Are Better: http://beardly.org/1nIKSal.

[beardswithstories-blog]

"When I was probably five my dad had a trucking company and he had a driver who had a full beard. And all of his drivers were my heroes but this one in particular, he seemed like he was the most together. He was probably a biker. Even people in the Bible, the older ones always had a full beard. And so to me, as the youngest son, I was always trying to get older, to catch up, and so it seemed as though to get away from being young I would grow a beard. So I tried to start shaving very early and that could have been part of what enabled me to have a full beard. But probably from the time I was in my late teens to early twenties I was already growing a beard—and a good full beard. I actually had a full beard for most of my life. There were a couple times, jobs and such where I had to cut it up short. When I was probably in my early 40s we had a family reunion and we had a masquerade ball and so everyone would wear a mask and no one would know who you were. Well because of my full beard everyone would know who I was. I thought, well I'll just cut my beard off and no one will know who I am and I won't put a mask on I'll just put on some big, thick, dark glasses and no one will know who I was. And it worked. It worked very well. My son was very excited because I was older [when I had my children] and he was wanting me to be like everyone else's dad. So he was very excited that I would cut my beard off. So he stood there in the motel watching me. He was watching me take it off and as I cut away and cut away he was very excited. And then when I finally got it all completely shaved, he looked up at me and he said, "Uh, dad, is there anyway you can put it back on?"

[beardswithstories-blog]

"I grew my beard when I was a sophomore in high school. During that time I struggled with acne and I feel like a beard is a man's make up. Makes every guy look better. And I've had it ever since. I've had my mom [and] past girlfriends ask me to shave it and I shave and they are always disappointed. I've had this since, I guess, '06. And you know, beard trends have changed for sure. I now brush and oil and things like that, where back-in-the-day it was just bushy. But yeah, I've always had it."

[beardswithstories-blog]

"I started growing a beard because I hadn't been able to 'til I was in my mid-twenties. I was dating a girl who didn't like facial hair, so when we stopped dating I was like, 'Oh, well, now I can grow a beard.' So I did."

[beardswithstories-blog]

"I grew my beard when I was going through a time at work when things were kind of out of control. So I grew my beard because it was the only thing I could control, and then my wife liked it and so I kept it. Happy wife, happy life."