Will you ever look at beards in the same way again?

"Sheyit, I see something that looks exactly like that every night when I take a bath."
  -- my former mother-in-law, who shall remain nameless here, when addressing a beard-wearing friend of her son's back in their Texas youth

Once was a time when I loved beards, especially on rangy-thin brunette guys. In fact, the one now worn by Johnny Depp looks most excellent because he's rangy-thin and dark......and because his beard consists of a well-shaped mustache, a trim lining of a beard around his amazing jawline, and a sexy soul patch. Combined, they make a dashing presentation.

Remembering the 60s fondly as I do, I still think that a medium-long beard with long hair looks much more balanced than medium beards with short hair. In fact, this look that I found at Playoff Beard is appealing because it hearkens back to a free-flowing time.

My ex-husband wore a mustache only, which is no doubt why the quote above was vented on a friend and not on him. After we divorced I dated one guy with a full, long beard that I found fetching because it completed his intellectual flair. But I'd hate the thing today. Later still, when I met my husband Michael, he was clean-shaven although he had worn a mustache in his past. After we married he grew back the mustache and I liked it (still do), and for about a bit less than a year he also had a full beard. I liked it at first but was anxious for it to be gone by the time he was ready to shave it off. Michael had last week off from work and he didn't shave those days. The stubble of growth is nice on him and it's exciting to see it for one or two weeks a year while he's on vacation. He worked for some years with a man who wore no mustache but had a silver beard covering only his chin, a la Abe Lincoln-style, so when he talked he looked like a billy goat. The beard-without-mustache is about the ugliest look I have seen, quite frankly.

But there is a style of beard that, while not quite as ugly as the beard-without-mustache, is infuriating me with its ubiquitous presence on so many men these days, and worn most prevalently by evangelical men it seems. Whenever I see one of these beards I think immediately of my former mother-in-law's unrestrained retort, not that I could ever forget the quote!

I couldn't stand it anymore and delved into the world of beards online for information about this particular beard style, and I found that it is called a Circle-Beard. The following explanations are from ShavingStuff.com:

• circle-beards: a chin-whiskers-mustache combination; if chin-whiskers and a mustache meet, the resultant style falls in this category; if they do not meet, they do not form a circle and fall instead into the next category

• chin-whiskers-mustache Combination: if a mustache and chin-whiskers together are considered a single style, but the two components do not meet, they fall into this category {I guess this would describe Johnny Depp's handsome beard}

The cartoon at the top of this post sports "one of the most popular beard styles" as described by beards.org:

The goatee and mustache combination is one of the most popular beard styles. It is a good choice for those with good growth in the mustache and chin areas but with weak growth on the cheeks. Also known as:

• Van Dyke
• candado (in Spanish) or padlock
• circle beard

The Los Angeles Times, in a report dated February 22, 2009, about the red carpet looks at the 81st Academy Awards, went into more detail about the variables under this beard style:

One of the more interesting trends among the men on the red carpet at tonight's 81st Academy Awards was the mix of upper lip/chin hair commonly described -- often incorrectly -- as a "goatee." Nominees Mickey Rourke, Josh Brolin, Brad Pitt and Peter Gabriel were all showcasing variations of facial hair that fell short of a full beard but were more than a simple mustache. And, just now, Will Smith took to the stage as a presenter sporting similar whiskers.

Rourke's style -- a mustache paired with a separate chin beard (think Col. Sanders) -- is known generally as a "Van Dyck" (or "Van Dyke"), after 17th-century Flemish painter Anthony van Dyck, though some might argue that the thin, narrow nature of Rourke's mustache and diamond-shape beard actually qualifies it as a sub-style of the Van Dyke called a "musketeer."

Such a chin beard -- sans 'stache -- would be a goatee, said to be named for its resemblance to the tuft of hair on a goat's chin.

The style worn by Brolin, Pitt, Gabriel (as well as presenter Will Smith and Sir Ben Kingsley) -- where the mustache frames the mouth and connects to the beard in a rough approximation of a circle -- is more accurately known as a "circle beard," and referred to in various corners of the beard-growing universe as a "door-knocker," "moutee," and, in Spanish, the "barba candado" (padlock beard). . .

All that, yes, but were others noticing the crop of these beards on the faces of evangelical preachers on TV while flipping through the channels, and in pictures of praise band musicians and congregation members of these churches? As a matter of fact, absolutely. There are numerous articles on the web addressing and analyzing this trend. The best one I read is Icons of the New Evangelicalism: Why All the Little Beards? Here's a portion of the discussion in the article:

The inauguration of Barack Obama brought another icon into the spotlight—the face of Rick Warren. A rising juggernaut in the evangelical scene in recent years, Warren exemplifies the new generation taking over from the old patriarchs of evangelicalism. Slowly but noticeably, it is displacing leaders from the old guard such as James Dobson (Focus on the Family), Chuck Colson (Prison Fellowship Ministries), Pat Robertson (The 700 Club), and the late Jerry Falwell (Moral Majority). What can we learn from these surface-level changes? How is the emerging evangelicalism likely to differ from the old?

One difference stands out at first glance. Picture Warren alongside several other emerging leaders, such as Brian McLaren (bestselling theologian), Mark Driscoll (Seattle-based megachurch pastor), Doug Pagitt (author and pastor), Jay Bakker (star of One Punk Under God), or Shane Claiborne (author of The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical). They share a clear mark of distinction from the old guard: a patch of facial hair around their chin. As French literary critic Roland Barthes once remarked, “Among priests, it is not due to chance whether one is bearded or not.” Warren’s choice not to shave, then, suggests a pointed attempt to remake the evangelical iconography.

But what is the intended significance of this makeover? Why change the visual representation of America’s most influential religious tradition in this subtle, stubbly way? . . .

Might as well end this post with another quote, applicable ....... and maybe funnier than the first one:

"If the beard were all, goats could preach."

- Danish Proverb

Also see this.

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