Beard Care

I confess that my own preference has always been for the clean-shaven face, but I am not so foolish as to mistake a preference for a principle.

There are those who will tell you that I am a snob on the subject, and they are not entirely wrong, for I was trained in a household where the master shaved every morning without exception, and where a man’s jaw was expected to be as clean as his collar. But I have lived long enough, and observed carefully enough, to recognise that a well-maintained beard can be a thing of genuine distinction, that it suits certain faces in a way that nothing else does, and that the man who wears one with care and intention is no less a gentleman than the man who does not. The beard is not the issue. The neglect of the beard is the issue, and neglect, in this as in all matters of personal appearance, is what separates the gentleman from the merely male.

Your era has developed a considerable enthusiasm for beard oils, and the market for these preparations has grown to proportions that I suspect would have astonished the Victorian barbers who managed perfectly well without them. I do not dismiss them entirely; a man with coarse or dry hair, or one whose skin is prone to irritation beneath the growth, may find genuine benefit in a modest application of a quality oil. But I would observe that many men are purchasing solutions to problems they do not possess, and that the ritual of oiling has become, for some, a substitute for the rather more fundamental discipline of keeping the thing clean, trimmed, and properly shaped. If your skin is not dry and your beard is not coarse, soap and water and a good comb will do more for you than any oil, however pleasantly it may be scented, and you will have saved yourself the small indignity of owning more grooming products than your grandmother.

On the matter of length, I will be direct. A beard should be a deliberate choice maintained at a deliberate length, not the gradual accumulation of growth by a man who has simply stopped bothering. The distance between a beard and mere shagginess is measured in attention, and the world can tell the difference at a glance.

I am aware that there exists a body of opinion, much discussed in your popular press and in the surveys that your era is so fond of conducting, which holds that women prefer stubble. I have no doubt that the surveys say what they say, and I have no interest whatsoever in arguing with them, but I will observe that stubble, as a permanent condition, is a product of the modern age and of the particular modern habit of treating indecision as a style. Stubble is what happens between shaving and growing a beard; it is the middle of a sentence, not a sentence in itself, and the man who maintains it deliberately is, in effect, maintaining the appearance of not having quite got round to something. It can be acceptable. I will grant that much. On certain faces, at certain ages, it carries a ruggedness that is not unattractive. But it is almost always better to commit: either shave properly or grow a short, well-defined beard that demonstrates intention rather than deferral.

And women, if I may say so without giving offence, are fickle in their stated preferences and always have been, and the man who adjusts his grooming to the results of a survey conducted among strangers has already surrendered a form of self-possession that no amount of carefully calibrated stubble will restore. A gentleman grooms himself to a standard he has chosen for himself, informed by good taste and the conventions of his time but not dictated by the fluctuating enthusiasms of others. This was true in my day and it is true in yours, and it is one of the very few things about which I have no reservations at all.

Keep it trimmed. Keep it clean. Keep it shaped. If you are growing a beard, grow it on purpose and maintain it as you would any other element of your appearance, which is to say with consistency, with attention, and without the expectation of applause.