Fashion | Beards are pop again – Three bearded men tell the story of their beards

Just now the trendiest beard is neatly trimmed and shaped. This is what the barber owner of Beard Park, located on the edge of Karhupuisto in Kallio, says Kardo Farhad and a barber Frida Pelkonen.

“It has tight, knife-shaped borders, whether the beard is short or long. Another trend is to leave the jawline natural,” says Pelkonen.

The beard has a history. Throughout history, its existence has been threatened by religious and moral conflicts, violent confrontations, coercive means of dominance and, above all, changing fashion whims, which may have turned the status of the beard upside down in just one generation.

Now beards are fashionable for all ages.

Kauppalehti journalist-writer writing about style Tommi Aitio summarizes the popularity of the beard in a cultural, aesthetic and pragmatic perspective.

“It’s culturally allowed again for a man in a high position to have a beard,” he says.

“After the 70s, there was a long clean-shaven period, but in the last ten years, beards have been accepted for almost all walks of life, with the possible exception of directors of listed companies.”

A beard is also an aesthetic choice. It covers scars and shapes the face.

The third dimension of the beard is practicality.

“I got tired of driving it, NBA basketball player with a bushy beard James Harden answered when he was asked if there was any deep thought behind growing a beard”, says Aitio.

Beard fashion influenced by social media, culture and era. Turku Museum Center researcher Ninna Pullin according to beards have always communicated social status and stood out.

“A beard tells more about a person than what kind of style a person likes. In addition to fashion, beard styles have been guided by moral and health concepts. The external essence has been believed to communicate what we are like as people,” says Pulli.

There are six basic beard models, from which you can grow your own beard. They are a stubble beard, a short beard, a goatee consisting of a mustache and beard hairs in the chin area, a beardstache accentuating the upper lip, a full beard and a long beard.

“The beard reflects a person’s identity the most. A beard can be really neutral or showy,” says Pelkonen.

“Beards are nice to shape because they are as different from each other as hair.”

In addition to hair fashion, celebrities influence beard fashion. The customer may have a photo of a public figure’s beard.

“Many would like to By Ali Jahangir type long beard or Christiano Ronaldo like a shorter beard model,” says Fardad.

What comes to length, according to Farhad, shorter beards are now more popular.

“Often we start with zero sideburns from the top, and the beard is left slightly longer in the front.”

Seven years ago, when Beard Park was founded, hipster beards were all the rage.

“We don’t talk about hipster beards anymore. In recent years, beards left in their natural state have given way to sharp models.”

Kalle Hurme: “After I grew a beard, I got company from my own age”

“As a teenager, I belonged to the beardless sect. One classmate already had such a bushy beard at the age of sixteen that he looked ten years older than his age. I tried my own smelly plants and thought that they will probably never grow anything.

At that time I was living in Virri. I dressed like a rocker and looked feminine. The aunties started arguing with me, and on the train, a little boy told his mother after hearing my voice that “that aunt is really an uncle”. Through Kuopio, I first moved to Turku and from there to Helsinki.

At the age of 28, I still looked so young that I was asked for papers, and when the dating relationship with a woman of the same age ended, barely any girls of legal age were interested in me.

After growing a beard, I got company from my peers. I hadn’t tried to make myself the master of a submarine, but I didn’t look so exposed and vulnerable anymore.

My hair has lost its redness over time, but my beard has kept its color. I haven’t been to a barber since I was a teenager, because I haven’t recognized myself from the barber’s handprint.

I don’t shape the beard, I keep it in its natural state. I don’t use shampoo on my hair and I don’t use it on my beard either. I massage my scalp in the shower, wash my beard and brush it. That’s all.

I work as a salesperson in Alko and quite often people, especially tourists, compliment my beard. Not long ago, Estonian women asked for one beard hair as a lucky charm.

Nowadays you can see really nice beards. Bearded people may compliment each other’s beards or look at each other approvingly, as if as a sign of brotherhood.”

Lasse Suominen: “Long hair makes my face look swollen”

“I started growing a beard as soon as it started growing. I was 18 years old, and the beard was some kind of measure of masculinity, because others didn’t grow it at that age.

I’ve cut off my beard a couple of times, but I’ve grown it back quite quickly, because without facial hair I look like a 15-year-old. Once, even mother said never to cut it again.

My beard has never been very bushy, so I’ve kept it pretty short. A few times I’ve let it grow a little longer, but the long hair makes my face look puffy, like I’ve been docked for a week.

I don’t envy other people’s bushy beards, because everyone’s beard is a little different. A small straw is fine for me. Before I leave for the city, I drive it for three and a half miles. I’ve also started practicing fades, but I’m a beginner with them.

The beard is trendy, but there are other opinions. In one story it was said that a shaved face brings trust and credibility.”

Teemu Laajasalo: “I’m not a beard fan”

“Before 2012, I didn’t have a beard and I also shaved off the bed.

The either-or situation came up on the YleLeaks television show. Some of the characters were being tested for the show, and I had a fake moustache, really uncontrollable bangs. I laughed when I looked at myself in the mirror because I looked like the energy minister of some Eastern European country. I sat in the makeup chair and thought I had to test how I look with a beard.

The beard grew amazingly fast. At the same pace as the growth, speed blindness struck. One morning I realized that I had a seven-inch halocutter’s beard.

I tested beards of different sizes when I was vicar of Kallio for five years, just when hipster beards were fashionable. A beard and a suit are a tricky combination.

It’s hard to say whether the longer beard affected people, because I personally took a meta-ironic view of it. A long beard was a certain kind of playfulness, but a short beard was allowed to stay.

Now it would seem crazy to be completely beardless. For the past seven years, it has been five to seven millimeters long. The beard balances the short hair. If I were to spin completely, it might create a baby effect.

Throughout the ages, Christianity has had a diverse approach to beards. There are quite a lot of passages related to beards in the Old Testament of the Bible. There are instructions on how a beard should or should not be shaved, but also references to the manhood, wisdom and holiness that a beard brings. On the other hand, cutting off the beard by force has been used as a means of desecration.

My beard does not have a religious vibe and in our Lutheran church the beard has not had the same meaning as, for example, the scalded beards of our Orthodox friends. There, the beard tends to grow with increasing status. In the Catholic Church, you rarely see a priest with a beard.

I go to the barber quite often and in addition to that I cut my beard myself. I’m not a beard fan, but I like to keep beard care as simple as possible.”