The beard is back

No male face can truly be considered stylish this season without a smattering of hair around the jawline. But which celebrity beard is right for you? Right this second you are a nobody in LA if you don't have a beard. At the post-Oscars bash the Governor's Ball, the beard's dominance was plain for all to see.

The Hollywood beard
JeffBridges (63K) There was Jeff Bridges (left) flaunting his winning silver goatee, while the Hurt Locker table was home to all manner of beards. Sandra Bullock's husband, Jesse James, has one, as does Mo'Nique's husband, Sidney Hicks. James Cameron must be kicking himself – if he'd only grown some stubble at least, the academy might have been kinder to him. This particular Hollywood beard is meant to convey status and career security. It isn't very cool – it's a bit wrong even but it doesn't matter because it says that one's work counts more than a clean shave. The real-life parallel is thus: a company director can sport one, but the humble postroom boy cannot.
Jeff Bridges Jeff Bridges's Hollywood beard.
Photograph: EMPICS Entertainment

The off-season beard
JonHamm (37K)Such is the cult status of Jon Hamm's beard that New York magazine honoured it with its very own obituary when he shaved it off in late January. Hamm's beard is rumoured to appear the split second he stops being Don Draper – he reportedly has to shave twice a day on the Mad Men set. Yes, he's that manly. Not to be outdone, the rest of the cast followed suit and grew beards between filming different seasons. The off-season beard isn't restricted to Equity members – it's there on the cheeks of the city worker who has been made redundant, and the fortysomething who is taking a sabbatical. Even a two-week summer holiday is enough to bring on an off-season beard.
Jon Hamm Jon Hamm's off-season beard. Photograph: Matt Baron/BEI/Rex Features

The crisis beard

JudeLaw (46K) AKA the scandal beard. You're an actor or a sportsman, you've had an affair, you go into hiding, you grow a beard. It's the male facial equivalent of the pashmina – it literally wraps your chin in a protective manner. Jude Law is the past master of this, and recently Ashley Cole's mum was rumoured to have become increasingly worried about her son's emotional state because of the beard he grew in Biarritz. It says: "I'm in pieces; too shattered mentally and physically even to lift a razor." If a friend grows a straggly beard, give him a hug and ask what's worrying him.

Jude Law Jude Law's scandal beard. Photograph: Humberto Carreno/Rex Features

The charity beard

BradPitt (41K)If you're committed to a cause, you have to grow a beard. The Hope for Haiti Now charity telethon underlined this unspoken decree. Leonardo DiCaprio, Justin Timberlake, Chris Martin and of course Brad Pitt – all of them felt that they couldn't ask for a donation without sporting at least some facial hair. Beards are earnest, you see; they suggest that you are too interested in the plight of humanity to give any thought to shaving. In Pitt's case, his commitment to the straggly Ho Chi Minh model (and sometime plaiting of it) has been to the detriment of his sex-symbol status; meanwhile, speculation that the beard was the root cause of the ongoing Brangelina saga is rife. If someone you know grows one, be generous to their Just Giving website and hope the worthiness passes.
Brad Pitt Brad Pitt's charity beard. Photograph: Chris Graythen/Getty Images

The mid-life crisis beard

RonanKeating (47K)In Ronan Keating's world, nothing underlines his journey from boy-band pop star to authentic thirtysomething muso better than his carefully tended beard. But a quick scan of his topless cover shoot for Attitude magazine this month suggests there is another impetus to Keating's facial-hair growth. At just 33 Keating is entering an early mid-life crisis phase. How else to explain his over buffed up body and his desire to show it off? The beard is doubtless part of this. If your partner buys a beard trimmer and starts working out, it's time to start worrying.
Ronan Keating Ronan Keating's mid-life crisis beard. Photograph: Richard Saker/Rex Features

The testosterone beard


RusselBrand (38K)As exemplified by Russell Brand. The fact that the Ancient Greeks regarded a beard as a sign of virility won't be unknown to Brand, who is clearly desperate to convey his masculinity. Now that he's engaged to Katy Perry there is no way he could shave it off because it would be tantamount to saying that monogamy means less sex for him. Plus it would reveal his baby face. In civilian life, the testosterone beard can often be spotted on a man who is balding or who doesn't have much chest hair. Its purpose is clear – it says simply: "I am a red-blooded man."
Russell Brand Russell Brand's testosterone beard.

Photograph: Brian Rasic/Rex Features
Imogen Fox | guardian.co.uk | Source

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A tribute to all the men who've kept their beards.

Think about it!
Why is hair so rapidly replaced, cut after cut?
And why is it so difficult to keep it from growing?
Hair contributes more to your well-being than you realize.

Today, whether a man has a beard can spark controversy. Witness the case of Maher "Mike" Hawash, an Intel contract engineer, and a Muslim, who has pleaded not guilty to charges related to waging war against the United States. In some pictures he's clean shaven, and in others he has a beard. The underlying issue has been, what kind of message does a man's beard send about innocence, guilt, stereotypes and political correctness?

Here's a quick look at what six religious faiths believe about beards and letting one's hair grow.

Sikhism: Devout Sikhs, both men and women, let their hair grow, wrap their hair in a turban,* and the men allow their beards to grow. These are some basic requirements of the Khalsa, a fellowship of those who "belong to the divine." The practice affirms their belief that God made men and women perfectly, with no changes necessary. When the Khalsa arose in 1699, their unshorn hair set Sikhs apart and encouraged them to stand up against oppression, tyranny and injustice.

hsSikhprofile (11K)
To a Sikh, the hair is a reminder of the One Who put it there.

But human hair also has physiological and psychological aspects. To the Sikhs, it is an important component in the equation of man's physical and electromagnetic health and harmony. And in the human male, facial hair acts as an important buffer to the solar and lunar energies. Thus, human hair has its obvious or exoteric, as well as yogic or esoteric aspects. In a psychological sense, our cutting of body hair is an indication of a conflicted attitude, since it is within the physical nature of our body to grow the hair, and it is an attitude within our psyche to cut the hair. Conversely, letting the hair grow expresses an inner harmony with nature. In a biological sense, it would appear that hair is important to our physical well being since the body repeatedly replaces hair quickly, whenever it is cut. And in a spiritual sense, it can be said that there is an important message to be had from the One Creator, as to the necessity for hair, e.g., when a man's facial hair is shaved, it rapidly reappears, time after time. See video If your dad doesn't have a beard.

What's With The Turban   I  Sikh Style Turbans  I  Why Keep Your Hair And Beard

Judaism: Orthodox and Hasidic Jews wear beards and, sometimes, long side-curls, called payot. Leviticus 19:27 forbids them to round off the corners of their temples or "mar" the edges of their beards. The latter is equated with shaving, but some Jews believe that scissors and scissor-action shavers may be used. In some circles, a beard is a sign of mourning, either for a loved one lost or grown from Passover to Pentecost on behalf of the Jewish people.

Christianity: God is often depicted as having a flowing white beard, and Jesus, most often, has a darker one. No eternal, blanket understanding about facial hair arose, but smaller groups, such as the Orthodox churches, developed traditions about men keeping beards. In the modern world, men may or may not adhere to them. Some groups ascribe particular meaning to beards. Amish men, for example, may grow beards as a sign of being married. Just a beard, though, -- a mustache is seen as frivolous or militaristic.

Islam: The Prophet Muhammad himself had a beard and prescribed them for his male followers. Different styles of beards are allowed, and some reflect cultural differences. Muslims may disagree on whether it's permissible to trim a beard, but Muhammad said that a moustache should be trimmed so that it didn't get wet when a man took a drink of water. Cutting hair is a different story. Muhammad himself had long and short hair at different times of his life.

Buddhism: A goal is to dissociate from the material world and its distractions, and hair is often a subject of pride or vanity. Buddhist monks and nuns may shave their heads, as an outward sign of renouncing the world. Shaven heads and faces are associated with cleanliness. Some Western teachers avoid shaved heads because they can create discomfort in the general population.

Rastafarianism: Their characteristic dreadlocks express their pride in African hair and are allowed to grow free-form, uncombed and untreated after washing. They are in keeping with a Hebrew Bible, or Old Testament law for Nazarites, a group of people who are consecrated or set apart. Numbers 6:5 says "no razor shall come upon the head ... they shall be holy; they shall let the locks of the head grow long." http://www.sikhnet.com/news/value-your-hair

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"Each part of the body has highly sensitive work to perform
for the survival and well being of the body as a whole.
The body has a reason for every part of itself."
C. Young

hscheckthisout2 (3K)
hsnotforpublicrelease (18K)

This data has been hidden from the public since the Vietnam War.

Our culture leads people to believe that hair style is a matter of personal preference, that hair style is a matter of fashion and-or convenience, and that how people wear their hair is simply a cosmetic issue. Back in the Vietnam war however, an entirely different picture emerged, one that has been carefully covered up and hidden from public view.

In the early nineties, Sally (name changed to protect privacy) was married to a licensed psychologist who worked at a VA Medical hospital. He worked with combat veterans with PTSD, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Most of them had served in Vietnam.

Sally said, "I remember clearly an evening when my husband came back to our apartment on Doctor’s Circle carrying a thick official looking folder in his hands. Inside were hundreds of pages of certain studies commissioned by the government. He was in shock from the contents. What he read in those documents completely changed his life. From that moment on my conservative middle of the road husband grew his hair and beard and never cut them again. What is more, the VA Medical center let him do it, and other very conservative men in the staff followed his example. As I read the documents, I learned why. It seems that during the Vietnam War, special forces in the war department had sent undercover experts to comb American Indian Reservations looking for talented scouts, for tough young men trained to move stealthily through rough terrain. They were especially looking for men with outstanding, almost supernatural, tracking abilities. Before being approached, these carefully selected men were extensively documented as experts in tracking and survival.

With the usual enticements, the well proven smooth phrases used to enroll new recruits, some of these, Native American trackers, were then enlisted. Once enlisted, an amazing thing happened. Whatever talents and skills they had possessed on the reservation seemed to mysteriously disappear, as recruit after recruit failed to perform as expected in the field.

Serious casualties and failures of performance led the government to contract expensive testing of these recruits, and this is what was found.

When questioned about their failure to perform as expected, the older recruits replied consistently that when they received their required military haircuts, they could no longer 'sense' the enemy, they could no longer access a 'sixth sense', their 'intuition' no longer was reliable, they couldn't 'read' subtle signs as well or access subtle extrasensory information.

So the testing institute recruited more Native American trackers, let them keep their long hair, and tested them in multiple areas. Then they would pair two men together who had received the same scores on all the tests. They would let one man in the pair keep his hair long, and gave the other man a military haircut. Then the two men retook the tests.

Time after time the man with long hair kept making high scores. Time after time, the man with the short hair failed the tests in which he had previously scored high scores.

Here is a typical test: The recruit is sleeping out in the woods. An armed 'enemy' approaches the sleeping man. The long haired man is awakened out of his sleep by a strong sense of danger and gets away long before the enemy is close, long before any sounds from the approaching enemy are audible.

In another version of this test the long haired man senses an approach and somehow intuits that the enemy will perform a physical attack. He follows his 'sixth sense' and stays still, pretending to be sleeping, but quickly grabs the attacker and 'kills' him as the attacker reaches down to strangle him.

This same man, after having passed these and other tests, then received a military haircut and consistently failed these tests, and many other tests that he had previously passed.

So the document recommended that all Indian trackers be exempt from military haircuts. In fact, it required that trackers keep their hair long." --  Source

hsthebrain (10K)hsnativeamericanicon (1K) The mammalian body has evolved over millions of years. Survival skills of humans and animals at times seem almost supernatural. Science is constantly coming up with more discoveries about the amazing abilities of man and animals to survive. Each part of the body has highly sensitive work to perform for the survival and well being of the body as a whole. The body has a reason for every part of itself. (Sikhs consider body hair to be a special gift from the Creator.)

hsnativeamericanicon (1K) Hair is an extension of the nervous system, it can be correctly seen as exteriorized nerves, a type of highly evolved 'feelers' or 'antennae' that transmit vast amounts of important information to the brainstem, the limbic system, and the neo cortex.

hsnativeamericanicon (1K) Not only does hair in people, including facial hair in men, provide an information highway reaching the brain, hair also emits energy, the electromagnetic energy emitted by the brain into the outer environment. This has been seen in Kirlian photography when a person is photographed with long hair and then re photographed after the hair is cut.

hsnativeamericanicon (1K) When hair is cut, receiving and sending transmissions to and from the environment are greatly hampered. This results in a numbing-out.

hsnativeamericanicon (1K) Cutting the hair is a contributing factor to the unawareness of environmental distress in local ecosystems. It is also a contributing factor to insensitivity in relationships of all kinds. It contributes to sexual frustration.

hsnativeamericanicon (1K) In searching for solutions for the distress in our world, it's time for us to consider that many of our most basic assumptions about reality are in error. It may be that a major part of the solution is looking at us in the face each morning when we see ourselves in the mirror.

NativeAmericans (95K)
Native Americans respected their hair.

"Some native tribes even scalped their live enemies. It appears this practice held much more significance than just a bunch of 'savages' committing acts of barbarism." H. S. Khalsa

The story of Sampson and Delilah in the Bible has a lot of encoded truth to tell us. When Delilah cut Sampson’s hair, the once undefeatable Sampson was defeated. More About Your Hair. See also Concerning The Tradition of Long Hair and Beards.

"I will tell you about yoga in very simple terms.
The human mind is potentially Infinite and Creative.
But in practical reality it is limited. So a technical
know-how is required through which one can expand
his mind to bring about the equilibrium that enables him to
control his physical structure and experience his Infinite Self."

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Related Article:
http://www.sikhnet.com/news/why-does-god-love-beards

http://www.sikhnet.com/news/value-your-hair

 

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