November has come and gone and you probably heard about a lot of men doing the Movember thing…it’s where they grow a mustache in an effort to bring awareness to prostate cancer. I think it is sort of the equivalent of everything turning pink during breast cancer awareness month, only not as widely advertised. If you want to know more about Movember, check out the Movember Foundation. Apparently the “rules” say it should be a mustache, but I think it should be expanded to all facial hair, but what do I know?

Anyway, that brings me to my experiment. I don’t do mustaches…I have grown out the facial hair in past and shaved all but the mustache and I just couldn’t walk out of the bathroom with that look on my face. I mean, my ugly mug doesn’t need any more help in disrupting traffic and scaring small children. So, why punish people with a mustache hovering between my nose and upper lip?

I, therefore, have taken it upon myself to expand Movember to include all facial hair. Now, that being said, it isn’t all that unusual for me to allow the hair to grow a little during the winter months for short periods of time because I get lazy. I don’t really like shaving, so it is a good excuse to just let myself, I mean face, go. This year I had a purpose, a goal, if you will. I wanted to try a look I had not done previously but I know my dad has a one time and, apparently, was rather popular in the past.

The photo above shows the four phases of the month. #4 is the standard beard and doesn’t take much upkeep. I have been known to wear this look for weeks, so it wasn’t all that much of a stretch for this little experiment. #3 is also an old reliable for me. I have also been known to wear this on my face for weeks at a time and, again, not much of a stretch.

That brings me to #2. I am talking about them in reverse order here because that is really the order I wore them on my noggin. I had never worn #2 in the past, but because it wasn’t much of a change from #3 I thought it was a relatively easy look to pull off. I have to say that it wasn’t much of a favorite among the family or co-workers. I didn’t really like it all that much either since my two-tone facial hair seemed to get highlighted by this particular iteration of cowboy style. Maybe if I had been living in the dusty southwest and had a cowboy hat on I could have made it work.

Finally, that brings me to #1. Oh, the Mutton Chops….yeah, I can see why these are no longer popular. The looks I got from strangers…perhaps they thought I had escaped from a mental institute. The looks I got from co-workers…well, that mostly falls into the camp of “So, when are you going to change that?” (I am not sure if they were talking about my facial hair or my face.) Last but not least, the looks I got from my family. To quote my sister, “It is slightly entertaining, but mostly just creepy.” Of course, my mom just puts both her hands on my cheeks and says, “When is this going to go away?” Ah, but my wife, but especially my wife…the look of horror on her face when I came out of the bathroom before heading off to work said it all! She actually stated, “I can’t believe you are going to leave the house like that.” Mind you, I only sported this look for FOUR DAYS, but she definitely expressed over that time the desire for it to never be repeated again.

I guess I’ll never do that again…or perhaps I will. It’s all in fun and, after all, it’s just hair and it, unfortunately, just grows back. So next year, how about I go with the Friendly Mutton Chops? (you can look that up if you like)

What do you think? Do you participate or know someone who does? What facial hair style to you like, either to try or like on men?