Manscaping 101 Men\’s Grooming Tips from head to toe for looking and smelling great

Manscaping: Growing the Web 2.0 Goatee

by Tris Hussey on April 28th, 2008

Ever noticed how many of us Web 2.0 folks have goatees?  Don’t believe me?  Check out pics from my SXSW, DEMO08, Gnomedex, Web Community Forum, and Office 2.0 sets.  Oh I have lots more examples, but you get a good range there.

While the Derm blog gives some good tips–How to Grow a Beard in 10 Easy Steps | The Derm Blog–it’s pretty simple.  One step.

Don’t shave.

Funny guy, I know.

Pretty much, as the 10 steps will give you, it takes a while for a decent beard to come in.  Mine took about a month, both times.  Yes, it’s been off and on a couple times.  Consensus is that it should stay now, so that ends those experiments.

Anyway, after about a week you should have a pretty good idea of how’s going, by two-three weeks you will know if it’s a keeper or not.

The first time I grew my face fur I let my whole face grow out for about a week.  I needed that amount of time to see where the bare patches were (which is why I don’t have, and can’t grow, a traditional goatee) and be able to shave off what I didn’t want.

After the first month is when I should have started trimming.  I didn’t.

I waited a tad too long and everything got a little more Grizzly Adams than I would have liked.

For trimming I needed simple.  Dead simple.

I went for a Philips trimmer with guide settings so I could decide okay, set to four and trim.

This reduces the number of “oops” moments.  I did have one when I had the guide set to like 2 for my soul patch and forgot … yeah, rather short ’stache for a while after that.

Look for a trimmer that also has other trimming heads, just for convenience really.  The traditional “trimmer” is good for “edging” (what else do you call it?) and such.

Yes, this model at the left is pretty much what I have, with the bonus ear and nose trimmer (yeah well) and hair trimmer (don’t bother).  I don’t have the razor attachment.  No matter really.

One of the things I’ve learned about growing this stuff, is be willing to try to shape a little now and then.  For me a little “over trimming” just means I have to wait about a week for things to get back to close to normal.

Have trouble keeping the sides even?  Me too.  It isn’t easy but I’ve learned a good trick: your fingers.

Put you fingers on either side of your beard for example and you should have enough of a guide for your eyes to see if you’re close.  Our eyes are pretty good doing it this way.  Freehand?  Not so much.

Oh and for those of you like me who are getting closer to 40 than 30 … you might notice more gray on your face than your head.

Yeah, fun.

I’ve been teased that some of the hairs are white because I’ve rubbed the colour off them (I stroke my chin and mustache as a thinking thing … isn’t that what you’re supposed to do when you have them!).

In any case, have any good stories about growing face fur?  Like the “are you growing a mustache?” but it’s been two months …

Go ahead we’ve all had them.

Photo from Amazon.

Share This

Related Stories

Manscaping tips: The nose, knows. Yeah you have to trim the nose hair spidersGreat hair comes from the inside—eat your veggies!Check out this great handlebar mustache–think you could do this?

POSTED IN: Men's Grooming Tips, Shaving tips for men