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GAF... why can't I grow a full beard?

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Has anyone did research about the genetics of beards? I've been wondering why I've only seen white folks with long ass santa claus beards that you can braid and throw over your shoulder.

I see black people with semi-long beards, but not nearly as long as the ones I see on white dudes. I was wondering if full beards is a dominant trait and perhaps why you tend to see black folks with fuller beards in the US vs Africa is because of the genes that were passed on to the slaves by their white owners.

I don't see Asians with long beards either or even semi-long, except for old martial arts movies. I don't really see them on indigenous latinos either.

I did try to research this one time, but couldn't find much.

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I could have had my beards like these. I cut it when it was getting too long though.
 
I took a week vacation and had a full beard by the next Monday. Wore it for 3 weeks and it got real thick. Some people have it, some don't. It's kind of bad at times. Shaving almost two times a day.
 
My facial hair around my mouth naturally has a space on the side so it naturally grows like Errol Flynn robin hood facial hair
 
whats the advantage of having a full beard?

i can grow a a full beard but it doesnt do anything special, and young women and probly rough majority of women dont care for beards much anyway so i dont get the disappointment
 
26 and still can't get past patchy cheeks. Meanwhile this guy I work with is 22 and looks like the guy in that old-timey photo with his dukes up ready to go. At least I look better than my older brother who rocks a pedo stache if left unshaven.
 
23 as well OP, can grow a gross goatee but that's about it. My dad has great facial hair though.

This thread gives me hope.
 
whats the advantage of having a full beard?

i can grow a a full beard but it doesnt do anything special, and young women and probly rough majority of women dont care for beards much anyway so i dont get the disappointment

Depends. Beards can either hurt or improve your features. Do you have a manly chiseled jaw with good looks anyway? Probably going to hurt yourself by h aving an overly thick beard. Are you slightly pudgy? Having a full beard can actually make your jaw appear more defined and increase your attractiveness significantly. Also, men respect men with beards. It gives off a much stronger impression of "manliness"
 
Every girl I've dated hates when my facial hair gets too long. Sorry, Beard-GAF, but I'd rather get laid.

I have a very annoying patch of no hair between my head hair and my beard hair on one side. I don't grow sideburns for that reason.
 
My beard grows too damn fast. I was cursed with a manly beard when I was only 12. Everybody my age thought I was like 3-5 years older and stayed back many years. Now I have a thick goatee. I shave once a month (I don't shave my goatee, only ever trim it, if its messy). My face hair is naturally multicolored too.

You sound like my friend in junior high. In between 5th and 6th grades he returned to school with a full man-beard. Everyone was terrified of him after that and he started hanging out with the older kids. I actually felt a little bad for him but I'm sure he's getting plenty of use out of that beard now.
 
My beard isn't that thick but it starts to curl when it gets past a certain length which makes it look thicker.

My beard also grows in red and looks more red the longer it gets, even though my hair is naturally blond.
 
27 here, and I can't grow a beard to save my life, but I can rock a nice mustache.

And by nice I mean horrible.

At least I got nice hair in the rest of my body (specially in my head)
 
I could have had my beards like these. I cut it when it was getting too long though.

Those are the semi-long ones I'm talking about. They don't get much longer than that. I was talking about equivalents to this?

http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lrpcw02E5x1qm3uo6o1_500.jpg


I don't really even see the semi-long ones in Africa. I wonder if it's because milder climate in Europe that people get longer beards. It was an adaptation to the colder environment?
 
Can't really grow a beard either OP. I have two patches on the same area on both sides of my face. My sideburns tend to grow a bit but never really gets thick to make it look like some continuation of my hair, it just looks like my beard is still in the process of growing when it's been like three months since my last shave. I have a friend who's two years younger than me who has one of the old testament pastor bible beards.

In summary, it depends on your genetics. It's not due to a lack of testosterone but from how receptive your body is to it, and by your body I mean specifically your face in the case of growing a beard. It's kind of like how some dudes don't have hairy chests but have hairy legs.
 
Those are the semi-long ones I'm talking about. They don't get much longer than that. I was talking about equivalents to this?

http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lrpcw02E5x1qm3uo6o1_500.jpg


I don't really even see the semi-long ones in Africa. I wonder if it's because milder climate in Europe that people get longer beards. It was an adaptation to the colder environment?

Yeah adaptation and natural selection. Potentially entirely arbitrary to adaption maybe.

It might just be the hair texture, because it doesn't seem like the semi-long beards you're talking about are limited because of dying hair follicles. Seems more like a limit based on split ends.
 
Although the genetics thing plays a large part in the look, you also have to be committed and treat yourself right. Hair can grow out very fine and if you're shaving it before it ever gets colour, thickness and glory, then of course you'll look patchy - you have to be prepared to weather the scruffy phase.

Also, hair is keratin so you want to be getting protein and plenty of rest. B vitamins are good too
 
Genetics mostly. Shave a lot and it might speed up the process of getting a thicker fuller beard down the road. But, if you have spots missing, then they will stay that way most likely.
This is a complete old wives tale. Shaving does not stimulate hair growth.
 
Yeah its odd like that sometimes. I could grow full sideburns and a goatee but it was all patch in-between in my 20's. 33 now and I finally have the ability to grow a beard.

I'm 23 and I can do sideburns, goatee, and mustache. I could maybe get a pencil line going from goatee to sideburn but that look too douchey.

Currently I'm rocking the mustache plus goatee goatee but it connects thicker on one side than the other lol. Hopeless.

You give me hope though, that one day I too will be able to be a man.

My main issue is that the patches aren't enough to grow a beard, but they're enough to look bad. So I do need to shave. That's annoying.
 
My current beard was born out of apathy, but fostered with love. First time I tried to grow one out in a few years, pleasantly surprised with the results.
 
I'm 36 OP and can't grow shit but a nasty teen-stache and even that takes like 3 weeks.

I go through about 6-8 disposable razors per year, I really only shave like once or twice a week and usually that's only just wetting my face with warm water and using a disposable.

And to top it off my entire heritage is Scandinavian. I deserve an epic Viking beard but nope. My dad is the same way, can't grow nothin'
 
I love when athletes grow playoff beards because you see some really shitty ones; makes me feel better about my facial hair situation

I can't grow a full beard, I can come close to having perma stubble but it's still patchy in some places. I'm 25 so I'm running out of time but I think it's possible that I could end up with facial hair like this:

 
My facial hair kinda sucks. Some people say I look better with a few days of growth and others say I look better shaven, but I've given up on growing it out more than a week or so. It grows more than enough on the sides of my face and up my cheeks, but it's always been pretty weak around my mouth in the 'goatee area'. Up until I was 28 I grew nothing but peach fuzz in that area; I finally started growing hair with actual pigment above my mouth in my late 20s. It's improved since then but my mustache still isn't full enough to warrant growing it out past a few millimeters or so. I've got probably no more than 10 hairs directly under my lower lip.
 
I could grow a pretty good full beard by 18 but I also started getting back hair so I guess im just a hairy mutha fucker.
 
I'm one of the hairiest men I know, but the only place where hair doesn't grow is, like, right at the corner of my mouth where the mustache and goatee/beard would normally connect. I can compensate by growing my mustache kind of long, but it always looks awful if I shave a little too close to the edge. Not a problem in the colder months when I grow a full beard and stop shaving almost entirely, but during the summer I just keep a goatee, so I accidentally expose that area at least a few times.

Sucks.
 
I'm 29 and can't grow a beard. I can grow solid chop sideburns and have had a goatee since 2003 (can't connect a mustache to the goatee either) but connecting the two doesn't work since it's a patchy mess.
 
I could grow a full beard by the time I was 18. Now if I don't shave for 3 days I'll have what most people would consider a decent beard. I gave up years ago though and now wear my beard with pride.
 
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