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Comment by sverige | Hacker News Reader

A billion dollars for a razor company. What a marketing job they've done over the decades. I've never understood the shaving fetish. It irritates your skin, causes infections, and hides your beard.

Yes, I'm both a graybeard and a "neckbeard." (Never understood why the latter is pejorative, either. If you let your beard grow like it should, it will cover your neck.)

A question for all you young men who have grown your beards as part of the recent fashion trend and have gone back to shaving as the trend has faded, which was better? Lower maintenance? Less expensive? Yes, bearded, I'm sure. Stop following trends and do what you like.

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There are those of us who can't grow beards in the first place, with any sad attempt at it looking like a miserable display of masculinity. And I'm sure there are millions of us out there. So we prefer to shave it to save us from our friends and girlfriends having to remind us to.

Well, yes, then shave. But if you can grow one at all, remember it grows in better as you age. I had holes in mine in my early 20s, but they were gone when I tried again in my early 30s.

In my mid-30s and still can't grow a beard. Better than in my 20s, but not by much. I really hate having to shave with a razor everyday.

The neckbeard pejorative comes from the trend where young men who are not just nerdy, but obnoxiously so, and who happen to also be overweight, are frequently seen growing a thin, scruffy beards only on their necks for the purpose of making their neck fat less obvious. It's a common enough correlation that a scruffy neck-only beard has become synonymous with being obnoxious. http://m.imgur.com/9xHMHMX?r

Thanks for the explanation. I am a graybeard only then.

Also because they tend to have low testosterone, so the beard itself won't grow any higher than the jawline.

With time it improves - I had a similar beard in my 20s but now in my 40s it's all the way up.

I think that shaving is a symptom of a weird mental illness: why would I want to remove the marks of adulthood & maturity from my body and look like a little boy instead of what I am, a man?

It's weird to me that shaving isn't seen by society as something restricted to a few deviants; rather, it's almost universal among adult males.

Remove any signs of masculinity, cut your hair short, and wear a symbolic noose around your neck every day for your hourly commute. These are the marks of a real free man.

What if I like following trends?

Then do it! With gusto!

Beards itch, I prefer clean shaven.

> Beards itch

With curly hair, I find that my beard only itches when the hairs are long enough to curl in. For me, there's a stage about two weeks in and a stage about two months in where it itches terribly, but after that it's fine.

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