# Why is facial hair shaven while head-hair is kept?



## atsizat (Sep 14, 2015)

Why is there a rule like that?

Facial hair is shaven while head hair is kept.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

There is no rule obviously, just personal (in some cases cultural) preference. In fact the shaven head with a beard is pretty popular.


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## atsizat (Sep 14, 2015)

Art Rock said:


> There is no rule obviously, just personal (in some cases cultural) preference.


Most of the works require men to be clean shaven in the face but you don't have to clean shave your head hair, unlike faciar hair. Why is it like this?

You can't keep the hairs on your face but you can keep the hairs on your head.

There hasn't been a job at which I worked with facial hair. Not even one day old facial hair. It was forbidden in all of them.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Most of the works? Maybe where you live, but I doubt that it is a general (global) rule.


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## atsizat (Sep 14, 2015)

There is also this rule in military and policing.


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## Red Terror (Dec 10, 2018)

Facial hair is en vogue in the West (has been for a while). Regrettably, so is the ubiquitous man bun. All "bun men" should be shipped off to Death Valley without supplies.


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## atsizat (Sep 14, 2015)

Red Terror said:


> Facial hair is en vogue in the West (has been for a while). Regrettably, so is the ubiquitous man bun. All "bun men" should be shipped off to Death Valley without supplies.


Even 1 day old beard is forbidden in restaurant jobs. Even 1 day.

But head hair is kept, unlike facial hair.

What is the logic?


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## Red Terror (Dec 10, 2018)

atsizat said:


> Even 1 day old beard is forbidden in restaurant jobs. Even 1 day.
> 
> But head hair is kept, unlike facial hair.
> 
> What is the logic?


A cultural issue, I imagine. If it were up to me, all restaurant workers would be shaved from head to toe.


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## CnC Bartok (Jun 5, 2017)

Red Terror said:


> Facial hair is en vogue in the West (has been for a while). Regrettably, so is the ubiquitous man bun. All "bun men" should be shipped off to Death Valley without supplies.


Please add ponytails to this little expedition.....!


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

Head hair helps keep the skull warm in winter and can protect it from the sun in summer, whereas facial hair is just a bloody annoyance. I used to 'beard up' for the winter but I was never really comfortable with it - it felt a little unhygienic when in full bloom and was as itchy as hell when it was in its early stages.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

CnC Bartok said:


> Please add ponytails to this little expedition.....!


I could never see the point in growing long hair only to have it tied back all the time. I'm no ponytail fan (I think it looks particularly ridiculous on a man who is balding on top i.e. Mick Fleetwood) but the 'man bun' is a total abomination. Many a hipster will look back on 30-year old selfies and quietly shudder about how much of a d1ck they looked.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Food, other debris, and ones friends' bodily secretions are less likely to end up in the hair on top of ones head than in a beard. As for stubble, there are intimate activities in which that is likely be an irritant to sensitive tissue.


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

elgars ghost said:


> Head hair helps keep the skull warm in winter and can protect it from the sun in summer, whereas facial hair is just a bloody annoyance. I used to 'beard up' for the winter but I was never really comfortable with it - it felt a little unhygienic when in full bloom and was as itchy as hell when it was in its early stages.


I've had a beard for decades, and I've always felt comfortable with it. True, getting a good beard started can take a few trials, but once you hit pay dirt it's nothing but a pleasure.


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## atsizat (Sep 14, 2015)

EdwardBast said:


> Food, other debris, and ones friends' bodily secretions are less likely to end up in the hair on top of ones head than in a beard. As for stubble, there are intimate activities in which that is likely be an irritant to sensitive tissue.


Even one day old facial hair is forbidden. You don't need to shave your face everyday for food.

It is obviously for the looks. But why? You may have 1 and half months old head hair as a man but you can't even have one day old facial hair at restaurants.

As for supermarkets, you still have to shave your face everyday. But they don't say anything about head hair. I saw long hair men but everybody were clean shaven.


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## Pat Fairlea (Dec 9, 2015)

One of the first things I did on retirement was give up shaving. Don't intend to start again.


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## CnC Bartok (Jun 5, 2017)

Pat Fairlea said:


> One of the first things I did on retirement was give up shaving. Don't intend to start again.


Why on Earth did you wait until retirement?! :lol:


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## ToneDeaf&Senile (May 20, 2010)

I've kept a fairly well trimmed beard/mustache being the day I retired from the military nearly 30 years ago. No issues with it whatsoever. In fact, just these past several month's it's become a necessity. I'm on CPAP treatment now. Since raising pressure beyond a certain setting, find I need a chin-strap to keep my mouth from drying out during the night. My beard provides a cushion for for the strap's lower portion that helps hold it in place without having to cinch it so tight it causes pain. Early on I mistakenly assumed my beard might be a hindrince to the strap, so shaved it away below my chin and shortened what remained. BIG mistake. The strap began slipping off my chin multiple times throughout the night. Until my beard grew back =) Lesson learned.

Also, beards are a boon to those with less than stellar chins.


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## atsizat (Sep 14, 2015)

CnC Bartok said:


> Why on Earth did you wait until retirement?! :lol:


Because job required him to be clean shaven.

Most jobs (customer related jobs) require men to be clean shaven where I live.

If you are a worker at a factory, then no need, I suppose. Because you don't talk to customers. It is not that kind of job.

Also if you have your own job, then you are the boss yourself. You do what you want.

Edit:

Also, military and policing require men to be clean shaven as well.


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## Luchesi (Mar 15, 2013)

elgars ghost said:


> Head hair helps keep the skull warm in winter and can protect it from the sun in summer, whereas facial hair is just a bloody annoyance. I used to 'beard up' for the winter but I was never really comfortable with it - it felt a little unhygienic when in full bloom and was as itchy as hell when it was in its early stages.


In our distant past, thick beards helped when scrambling through thickets after food. Also, beards slowed down the biting insects. Also, like bald heads, beards in an emergency could quickly give prominence to the leaders of a clan. Where they were and what they were doing. Lives were saved, for example, during a leopard attack, no time to discuss..


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

It's just fashion and/or convention, I suppose.

Only Beatniks had beards when I was young - then the Hippy Movement promoted the idea that hairy is good.

Why keep head hair? It keeps you warm, covers parts of your face that might be bitten by insects, and generally frames the face in a pleasing fashion.

Why shave the face? You don't have to - my husband has a beard. 
But beards are all sorts and sizes and aren't necessarily neat. For any milieu in which neatness matters, it's easiest to have the uniform appearance of a clean-shaven face.

But it is just what people think looks good at the time. Victorian policemen usually had beards.










I've always thought moustaches were a silly idea. You still have the faff of shaving and the walrus type gets in your soup. But in Edwardian times, most men wore moustaches. My grandfather, born in 1895, wore a Charlie Chaplin toothbrush style which he kept throughout life, the Lord knows why.


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## Dan Ante (May 4, 2016)

Why is facial hair shaven while head-hair is kept? 

Hygiene would be one reason for keeping clean shaven, as we have evolved we have lost a lot of body hair and IMO look more civilized for it, also I do prefer my women with just head hair. Sorry if that offends any Lady members.


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## atsizat (Sep 14, 2015)

Dan Ante said:


> Why is facial hair shaven while head-hair is kept?
> 
> Hygiene would be one reason for keeping clean shaven, as we have evolved we have lost a lot of body hair and IMO look more civilized for it, also I do prefer my women with just head hair. Sorry if that offends any Lady members.


My father was in military so he is way very against the beard. If I decide to move to him, he wouldn't accept me with a long beard.

Currently I started looking like a little of a homeless alcoholic with long beard. My beard is 67 day old now. I shave upper cheek part in the face because not shaving that part makes me look worse.

I and my father don't talk because of my alcohol problem. I live alone in a different city which is about 400 km away.


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## progmatist (Apr 3, 2021)

Mother Nature is doing the work of shaving my head for me.



Ingélou said:


> But it is just what people think looks good at the time. Victorian policemen usually had beards.


Before the invention of the safety razor, most men had beards, including US Presidents from that era.. Most didn't know how to use a straight razor. Only the wealthy could afford to go to the barber every day, or every other day for a shave.


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## atsizat (Sep 14, 2015)

progmatist said:


> Mother Nature is doing the work of shaving my head for me.
> 
> Before the invention of the safety razor, most men had beards, including US Presidents from that era.. Most didn't know how to use a straight razor. Only the wealthy could afford to go to the barber every day, or every other day for a shave.


Clean shaving became necessary for the face, not for the head.


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## Pat Fairlea (Dec 9, 2015)

CnC Bartok said:


> Why on Earth did you wait until retirement?! :lol:


Good question! As a university lecturer, I suspect I was trying to avoid looking too stereotyped. Similarly, I never wore jeans to work, kept my hair fairly tidy. One of my colleagues (shaggy haired and bearded) used to turn up to work in a T-shirt that read 'Success is not having to wear a suit'. Nice!


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## atsizat (Sep 14, 2015)

Pat Fairlea said:


> Good question! As a university lecturer, I suspect I was trying to avoid looking too stereotyped. Similarly, I never wore jeans to work, kept my hair fairly tidy. One of my colleagues (shaggy haired and bearded) used to turn up to work in a T-shirt that read 'Success is not having to wear a suit'. Nice!


You are a university lecturer? So you are a doctor like Indiana Jones? 

Without finishing the doctorate, one can't become a university lecturer. That makes you a doctor.

Many used the word doctor for people who are medicine doctors only, which is wrong. That was my point.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

I read somewhere that beards regained popularity in the UK as a result of soldiers in the Crimean War growing them to help combat the harsh winters. Prior to that, only sideburns and moustaches were anything like luxuriant. It's most likely that the three Coldstream Guardsmen in the picture below were beardless before their first Crimean winter.


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## Malx (Jun 18, 2017)

elgars ghost said:


> I read somewhere that beards regained popularity in the UK as a result of soldiers in the Crimean War growing them to help combat the harsh winters. Prior to that, only sideburns and moustaches were anything like luxuriant. It's most likely that the three Coldstream Guardsmen in the picture below were beardless before their first Crimean winter.


The one in the middle needs a haircut never mind a shave.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

Malx said:


> The one in the middle needs a haircut never mind a shave.


I don't think I'd be the one bold enough to suggest that to him.


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## atsizat (Sep 14, 2015)

Malx said:


> The one in the middle needs a haircut never mind a shave.


Isn't it a hat?


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

atsizat said:


> Isn't it a hat?


No, he's just been buying a good deal of hair growth elixir, that a salesman had as Special Offer.


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## progmatist (Apr 3, 2021)

joen_cph said:


> No, he's just been buying a good deal of hair growth elixir, that a salesman had as Special Offer.


Either that, or he OD'd on Propecia.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

Made from real bear - nice and warm in winter but wearing this hat must have been an ordeal during the summer months.


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## atsizat (Sep 14, 2015)

People say I look homeless with the beard.

But I had shaved the upper part of the cheek. Upper hairs in the face was actually shaven in the photo. If not, it would actually look worse than this.


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