I am now well into my 2nd month of My Beard Journey, and the evidence is clear.  Table on Main is a cool dinner event that happens here in Georgetown where local business owners and other like-minded advocates of small business around our town square gather to enjoy a nice meal and music.  I was able to dress according to my beard for this, as you can see.  It is fun to dress up while you have a beard, because you sometimes get to experiment with attire that just presents itself different than if you were clean-shaven.  Some men decide to try wearing different styles of hats, and some try different kinds of suits.  It’s all part of the fun and the craft.

By the way, because I was going for an old-timey feel for tonight, I wore a beard oil by Brewtastic Soaps that has a woodsy scent called Tree Feller.  It felt most appropriate for me, and I know that other people who appreciated my style enjoyed the extra effect as well.  If you haven’t heard about beard oil yet or how it enhances your beard experience for both you and others, be sure to read my blog from Week 1.

The important thing is that you enjoy your craft, because it is all yours – no one else’s.  From how you style your hair to how you dress to how you stroke your beard all plays into everything.  In fact, if you want a longer beard quick, have you tried getting a haircut?  It sounds funny, but shortening the hair on top of your head can give the illusion to having more facial hair.  It draws attention to it.  The inverse is also true.  Adding something to your heard such as a hat can attribute or compliment the shape of your beard.  I wore most of the time while growing my first beard, and I’ve never been one to wear hats – not even baseball caps.  However, it worked better for me while wearing a beard.  Not just any hat will do, though.  You’ll have to experiment to find what suits you, and that is heavily determined by you beard’s stage of growth as well as the shape it takes, whether that is natural or styled by you.  You may also have to change hats as your beard grows longer and/or fuller.  You don’t want a hat that is smaller than the gate of your beard, and you don’t want a hat so large that it takes away from your beard, either.

In the same vein, I never would have worn suspenders before.  My attire seen here is extremely simple and doesn’t require spending a lot of money, but it still looks classy in a simple way.  And a little arm candy can complement it all as well.

Oh, and as your beard gets longer, you might want to be cautious of any clothing that leads a zipper upward to your neck.  I have heard many bearded horror stories of men having to euthanize their beards because they weren’t paying attention and lost half of it in a terrible zipper accident.  Yes men, that means we have to be careful of zippers in yet another region of our bodies.

However you decide to dress is completely up to you, but if you’re reading this far, it’s because you care about the art and craft of your beard.  So give it some actual thought and invest in your beard in a way that is heavily neglected by many.  Make your beard journey yours.  How do you like to dress?  I would love to hear and see in the comments below.

If you’ve made it to Week 4 with me, you deserve a pat on the back.  You have literally outgrown many of the men around you, most likely.  Out of the few men who try growing a beard in this day and age, even fewer make it this far without bending their knee to the cruel itch.  And for making it this far, your reward is no more itch.  Please, if you are still somehow experiencing itch, then I have to assume that you have neglected my advice of using beard oil.  And if you’ve made it this far with no more itch without beard oil, then kudos to you, too.  However, the health of your beard hair will suffer over the next few months with drying and split-ends.

You can clearly see in the photo that I have some extended growth from my mustache and chin.  The sideburns may also have annoying looking fly-aways.  You may start to notice your mustache hairs hitting sandwiches and other foods that you bring to your mouth.  You’ll get used to all of this soon enough, but the important thing to avoid is trimming any of these antennae.  Be sure to use beard oil so that the ends of these stray hairs don’t bother you much when they touch your lips or other bare skin.  The use of beard balm now may be possible, and you may want to start practicing using it especially if you have any specific shaping in mind, especially the mustache curl.  Think of those bamboo plants that they sell curled around a stick.  Do you think they let that bamboo stalk grow straight up and then tried to train it to curl around that stick?  No way…  The established linear shape would rebel against any training.  Either the trainer would have to spend months if not YEARS getting it to bend to his will, or the bamboo stick would snap and die in the effort.  The easiest and most logical way is to start training it from birth.  So the same is true for your beard hair.

When I grew my first beard last year, I started combing my mustache hairs downward, because it’s all I ever knew from pictures and people I knew.  It just seemed to make sense considering that the rest of my beard hair was doing fine growing downward.  But I suddenly realized that if I continued to do that, the hairs would eventually grow to cover my mouth, and no girl would want to kiss me.  And forget girls, what would eating food be like??  So it wasn’t until the end of the 2nd month that I started brushing my mustache hairs outward to the sides.  But my hairs rebelled, and it took the next 4 months (6 months of beard time) to finally start seeing obedience.  I’m hoping that this time around, I’ll do things right since I learned a lot from growing my last full beard. And now you will benefit from my mistakes and experience by continuing to read on…

My razor has been on a nice extended vacation by this point, and it’s an inland one since it hasn’t seen much water.  Two weeks has come and gone since I shaved for the last time in lieu of an upcoming beard competition in 6 months (well, 5 months and 2 weeks now, whoo!).  This is definitely the most unfun place to be in growing your beard.  As I told you in my last post during the 1st week, the first tactile evidence of your beard will be the itch and irritation of the hairs curling inward toward your face.  So week #2 is that same event…times 2.  But rest assured, slapping some premium quality beard oil on your face and hair will soothe and moisturize your skin to alleviate this.

Please always remember that everyone’s hair, including facial, grows at varying speeds depending on many factors.  Such factors include genes (the biggest one), health, and your determination to not shave or trim.  So as I write this blog, my beard’s “week #2” may not be aligned with yours.  You may already have half an inch…or you may still be as smooth as a baby’s butt.  And that’s okay.  In fact, it’s great.  Growing your beard out, no matter how long it takes, reveals more about yourself than you knew before.  It also teaches you character qualities like patience and caring for a craft that is all yours and if you want to keep it real clean the cut throat razor is the best in the market.

The main issue with week #2 (for me) is that I’m still in limbo.  I’m still at a point where someone wouldn’t necessarily identify me with having a beard.  That means my skin is also dealing with still remembering being smooth and free of obstruction while learning how to become jaded of my fresh beard hair.  It is usually weeks #2 and #3 that break a lot of men.  Many who want to grow a beard cave under the irritation and also peer-pressure they receive.  But don’t shave!  To the victor goes the spoils!  And the spoils are quite glorious…  But it’s not all horrible during these weeks.  Usually, the general public is perfectly accepting of this length of beard, and you may even have a few new ladies look your way.  It is a very fun time which can be your reward for enduring the annoying itch, especially if you have beard oil to make your forget.

You need to know that if you’ve never grown a full beard before, you are going to receive flack from friends and loved ones at some point.  It happened to me hardcore during the 3rd month last year when I grew mine for the first time .  But luckily I was prepared for this because a well-seasoned beardist warned me ahead of time.  So now it’s my turn to pass the buck.  To your parents and family, it will look like you’ve just let yourself go and don’t care about your appearance anymore.  My mother hounded me for a while even though I’m in my 30’s.  She and others couldn’t envision what I was aiming for, and you have to keep exactly that in mind:  They don’t know.  No one does until they ride their beard journey.  It’s your life, and your face has the amazing capability of growing a glorious beard.  Let it do its thing, and let no one stop you.  Not even yourself, especially if you made a commitment to yourself to grow it out – even if it was “just to see” how you look.  That’s a great reason, and you shouldn’t let irritation or negative words from others inhibit what you want.  But for now and the first month, you should be enjoying your new look, so I will get more in depth with how to deal with peer pressure and your beard farther down the road.  There’s not a lot more to say about week #2 because of how in-the-middle that it is.  Look forward to week 3 having more volume (both my blog and beard).  😉