The Beard Coach

I just received this email from a Beard Coach visitor:

I was curious to why you shorten your beard during summer. I find that on a very hot Texas day, I can wet my beard and the wind carries away my latent heat of evaporation.

In response, I don’t always trim my beard in the summer.  I’ve spent happy summers past like our dear reader – with a wet, cool beard.  I’ve also spent summers, like this one, with a beard trimmed at my longest trimmer setting.  I don’t think I trim it because of the weather, per se.  I think it’s really more that I get tired of seeing my reflection in the mirror look the same day in and day out.  To keep things interesting, I usually trim my beard back every four to six months.  That lets it get a bit of length on it for part of the year.

I also grow my hair out a bit and shave it off occasionally.  It’s an ebb and flow – like the rhythmic tides – long beard, short beard, long beard, short beard.

Short Beard - Short Hair

Longer Beard - Short Hair

Longer Beard - Longer Hair

Maybe someday I’ll decide to go for it and keep growing my beard forever.  Maybe I’ll continue my fickle ways.  All I know is digging up those pics with my longer beard just convinced me to head into a long phase again.