Did Gary Lineker kill the beard?
Three years after the first reports of Peak Beard emerged online, it seems the trend for facial hair is finally ready for the chop.
According to a new survey, men are spending more money and time on grooming than ever – almost £3 per week and 5 and a half minutes per day on their facial hair. And a quarter of the 2,000 men survey said they'd start the New Year clean shaven – the most represented group, followed in second place by those who intend to wear stubble.
In comparison, only 5pc of men said they would go for a full, bushy beard in 2018; and 4pc said they would go for a goatee, the chin-hugging hair style worn by Match of the Day presenter Gary Lineker.
The news comes after Prince Harry was criticised for not shaving ahead of his appearance at a Remembrance Sunday service. "Prince Harry is letting us all down," a serving member of the military told the Mail. "There's no place for beards in the Queen's cavalry. He should have shaved it off for such an important day."
The news of the beard's demise may come as a surprise to some. Today's biggest male style icons – think David Beckham, Tom Hardy or Leonardo DiCaprio – regularly sport significant whiskers. Cynics might also suggest that the survey is articulating the hopes of its commissioner, Bic, which is launching a new subscription service for non-disposable razors.
However, according to Marcus Jaye, better known as men's style blogger the Chic Geek, the results reflect a trend that he's seeing in everyday life. "I just feel like the beard is a bit done, and when something's become a bit done you want to distance yourself away from it", says Jaye. "The biggest difference from a beard would be clean shaven."
"Like everything you get bored of a certain thing. It's almost like the way you discovered beards, it's the reverse, you just discover you actually quite like the feeling of being clean shaven", says Jaye.
Jaye believes the beard reached its peak coolness around 2015. "Everything went with the beard. The fade haircut with the side parting. The sleeve tattoo. The jeans tucked into the boots.
"The thought of it now is horrendous. That whole 'I'm going to open up a barbershop and start making gin' look. It's almost become a cliche. I think Gary Lineker may have killed it when he grew that goatee."
While men are spending more on grooming, and the clean-shaven look is on the rise, this doesn't signal the complete death of facial hair, says Jaye. Instead, he believes that the new generation of technical razors will allow men to be more intricate with their designs, further consigning the bushy hipster beard to history. With this in mind, he's imagined a selection of new facial hair styles that could set the trend for the new year.
"The Monkey Tail was a bit of fun", he says, referencing a lopsided handle-bar moustache design (see left in picture above) "but it just shows you that, since we've had Movember, it opened the door to guys playing around with their facial hair. You've got to have the confidence, and you can always shave it off tomorrow."
In the future Jaye believes there will be facial recognition apps allowing men to pick the right facial hair just by photographing their face. "Or we'll have mini drones shaving our faces for us", he jokes. "Technology will allow you to be very specific on what you want."
