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Thanks for sharing your experience Yves. I guess I'm going to respond from my personal experience and perhaps others will chime in with their own experiences as well. I decided to stop cutting my hairs and stop shaving when I was about 20 years old. One day I looked in the mirror and saw how my hairs grew and I realized the absurdity of having to shave them off every day and keep cutting my hairs and I thought, "well, they are supposed to be there or they wouldn't be growing like that." I mean, it's not as if your hairs just keep getting longer and longer forever; no, they grow to their proper length (just like your nose or your toes) and then they stop all by themselves. After a while I experimented with wearing my hair up in a joora (rishi knot) and with wearing a head covering. All of this was natural experimentation to see what if felt like. After a while I decided that I liked wearing my hair up because it stayed out of the way and felt really good energetically. Now, after many years I understand what my hairs do and how they work and I am grateful for them just as much as any other part of my body. Now on to your questions ;-)

In terms of grooming, yeah, I use more napkins than a clean shaven guy when I'm at the table and, in fact, I carry a couple of wet wipes in foil packets in my pocket just in case. Keeping clean is no problem. I really don't even think about it any more than I think about brushing my teeth. It's just part of what happens every day. So, in practice, the grooming part is no biggie for me at all. As for the social side, I think a lot of this has to do with self-confidence. People make assumptions about other people all the time. One can't live in fear of being mistaken for a terrorist. In fact, I'd rather just be myself and let people know that this bearded man is happy, non-threatening and ready and willing to help you out any time. If you let your flag fly, do it with a smile. Yeah, I do seem to scare the occasional baby every now and then, but they have to learn about beards sometime, so why not now?

Thanks for sharing your experience Yves. I guess I'm going to respond from my personal experience and perhaps others will chime in with their own experiences as well. I decided to stop cutting my hairs and stop shaving when I was about 20 years old. One day I looked in the mirror and saw how my hairs grew and I realized the absurdity of having to shave them off every day and keep cutting my hairs and I thought, "well, they are supposed to be there or they wouldn't be growing like that." I mean, it's not as if your hairs just keep getting longer and longer forever; no, they grow to their proper length (just like your nose or your toes) and then they stop all by themselves. After a while I experimented with wearing my hair up in a joora (rishi knot) and with wearing a head covering. All of this was natural experimentation to see what if felt like. After a while I decided that I liked wearing my hair up because it stayed out of the way and felt really good energetically. Now, after many years I understand what my hairs do and how they work and I am grateful for them just as much as any other part of my body. Now on to your questions ;-)

In terms of grooming, yeah, I use more napkins than a clean shaven guy when I'm at the table and, in fact, I carry a couple of wet wipes in foil packets in my pocket just in case. Keeping clean is no problem. I really don't even think about it any more than I think about brushing my teeth. It's just part of what happens every day. So, in practice, the grooming part is no biggie for me at all. As for the social side, I think a lot of this has to do with self-confidence. People make assumptions about other people all the time. One can't live in fear of being mistaken for a terrorist. In fact, I'd rather just be myself and let people know that this bearded man is happy, non-threatening and ready and willing to help you out any time. If you let your flag fly, do it with a smile. Yeah, I do seem to scare the occasional baby every now and then, but they have to learn about beards sometime, so why not now?