Insecure hipsters with BEARD ENVY spur facial hair transplant craze

Do you want to look like a hipster hobo but don't have enough fertile facial follicles to grow a Jesus beard? Help is at hand, as long as you're willing to shell out more than $8,000 and travel to New York. Cosmetic surgeons in the Big Apple have claimed the trend for biblical beards is driving a boom in facial hair …

[hplasm]

Heheh.

'Merkins face merkins.

[Ole Juul]

I can't keep up

I thought hipsters were short pants. Short at the top - that is. Now you tell me it's people with short beards. Next you'll tell me they're shaving their asses like baboons.

[Code Monkey]

Re: I can't keep up

I was shaving my ass like baboons before it was cool.

[Ted Treen]

Re: I can't keep up

Since when did baboons shave their asses?

Is there anything else they're up to that I don't know about?

[Eddy Ito]

Re: I can't keep up

How did we get from baby-faced angst of hipsters to the rectal hygiene of baboons so fas.. oh, hang on, it makes sense now.

[Tachikoma]

For those of us gifted the other way around, can we have all our beard hair transplanted to our shining pate?

[Anonymous Coward]

Talk for yourself - I like it this way.

[ukgnome]

You sir get an upvote.

Although I am getting my hobo look sorted today - bring back the goatee!

[Anonymous Custard]

Hang on, you mean I've gone overnight from being a lazy and scruffy sod to being hip? Although somehow I suspect the amount of mine that's now gone grey (which the rest of my scruffily long locks are following, but not quite as quickly) might just spoil the effect somewhat.

It must be Friday...

[Mike Smith]

I ain't a hipster then

Because I'm about to start wasting my money on getting rid of mine permanently. Do they pay for donated face fungus?

[Alister]

Re: I ain't a hipster then

Just to clarify...

Are you getting rid of your face fungus, your follicles or your hipsters??

And if the first, why are you paying!!

[Mike Smith]

Re: I ain't a hipster then

Oh the follicles. Definitely the follicles.

Hipsters should be disposed of by pushing them under a train.

[dogged]

Re: I ain't a hipster then

You can have your beard removed permanently?

I like that idea. It would save me shaving time and razor money and remove the necessity to wave sharp bits of metal around at not-awake-yet o'clock in the morning.

Please tell me more.

[Mike Smith]

Re: I ain't a hipster then

Electrolysis.

You get a needle stuck into each follicle and an electric current is applied. Has to be done for each individual hair.

And yep, it can hurt like hell.

[Evil Auditor]

Re: I ain't a hipster then

"You get a needle stuck into each follicle and an electric current is applied. Has to be done for each individual hair."

Mike Smith, and why would you do that? Are you a ginger?

Wouldn't it be more efficient to mount an electrode to each side of the face and apply a suitably large voltage? Oh, there's brain in between. Never mind.

[James 51]

Re: I ain't a hipster then

Downvote if only for the lazy ginger reference.

[Trokair 1]

Re: I ain't a hipster then

@dogged

I know it is starting to become trendy but I actually find that I enjoy shaving now since trying out old school DE Saftey razor shaving with a mug+brush+shaving soap combination. It went from something that I had to do every day to look presentable to something I look forward to.

[James 51]

Re: I ain't a hipster then

Not soap, that's one thing that has definitely improved regards shaving over the years.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: I ain't a hipster then

"Permanent facial hair removal actually compares favourably with a lifetime's supply of razor blades and shaving cream."

£50 on a decent pro-grade Wahl hairdresser clipper a decade ago. Just run it round your face and head when you get to the mad tramp stage (or more often if you have a public-facing job/give a shit) and it's job done. Best money I ever spent.

[A J Stiles]

Re: I ain't a hipster then

Permanent facial hair removal actually compares favourably with a lifetime's supply of razor blades and shaving cream.

[Allan George Dyer]

Born in the wrong decade

So the beard I had in the 80's at Uni would be cool now? Damn!

But I suspect that I'd still find a way to be uncool.

[Anonymous Coward]

I am sure I saw a hipster appear on the side of my taco

[Anonymous Coward]

What a muppet, I bet he uses an iphone and the false stubble is aimed at placating the Jobs idol in his basement cum shrine (that sounds so wrong).

[dogged]

Upvoted for "basement cum shrine" which is presumably an extremely elaborate sock.

[Haku]

Just when you thought you couldn't hate hipsters enough...

[Piro]

People making money from these mugs don't hate them, though

I am indifferent. Taking money from idiots doesn't seem like a bad thing.

As for beards, I thought all you had to do was not shave for a while, then, boom, beard. That's how it works for me..

[Nuke]

@Piro - Re: People making money from these mugs don't hate them, though

Piro wrote :- "As for beards, I thought all you had to do was not shave for a while"

Not if they have dodgy hormones ...

From FTFA :- " they may work in the visual arts or performing arts."

... which is not uncommon among that type of person. Seriously.

[ukgnome]

I think that.....

El Reg should have a beard competition!

[I ain't Spartacus]

Re: I think that.....

I unilaterally declare this guy the 'winner': link

For a given value of 'win'...

[Flakey]

Its Official

I am now officially cool, even though (facially) I look like a cross between a tramp and a founding member of the ZZ Top Appreciation Society.

[John Smith 19]

Time to start the chant.

"Ra Ra Rasputin "

Of course the funny really starts when some of the more deeply tanned members of this group go through US customs.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Time to start the chant.

"Of course the funny really starts when some of the more deeply tanned members of this group go through US customs."

On the positive side, there are worse people to mistakenly send to Guantanamo Bay.

[Anonymous Coward]

Me, Bill Bailey and my Italian mate could keep this craze in "hair" supplies for months, and that's just off the back!

Went for a medical once and the lady assistant said to me when I took my shirt off, "Ooh darling you look like a wonderful cuddly teddy bear!". Yeah, my wife doesn't think so when she finally gets fed up with me every few months and starts stropping the Wilkinson!

[Evil Auditor]

"...my wife doesn't think so..."

Maybe you should have gone for the assistant.

[Anonymous Coward 101]

As one of the comments on the AFP article puts it:

"Come on guys...you have hair transplanted for your beard? Oh yeah doesn't get any manlier than that! Tell me what do you see when you look in the mirror??"

[Chozo]

Such modesty

"The process works a bit like hair transplants, where follicles are removed from a hairy part (like your head, cheeky) and then put on a less hairy part."

El Reg introduced us to the 'Electric Cannon' anal orgasmo-probe yet gets all shy over pube transplants?

[Mike Brown]

cosmetic dr's and surgeons terrify me

They are always so calm about inserting metal/plastic into places that it dont belong, for spurious reasons. What happend to do no harm?

[Flip]

Re: cosmetic dr's and surgeons terrify me

For some docs it has been superseded by “Make more money”.

[I ain't Spartacus]

So what happens when beards go out of fashion and you've spent thousands of pounds on sticking hairs to your face, as well as permanent scars from the process?

Easy answer. You've now got a convenient source of hair folicles ready to move back topside, to counter the ravages of impending baldness.

[clarknova]

All hail the mighty beard

Get a Unix admin job, no need for a transplant.

[Mike Moyle]

"Epstein said: 'Thirty to 35 per cent are those guys aged 26 to 40...' "

Jeeze -- my BEARD is older than 90 percent of these guys!

What most of these guys don't realize is that -- unless you have a lot of quite dark hair -- a beard generally looks like crap for the first month or two. If you're a blonde going for the permanent 5-o'clock shadow look, then it sucks to be you, but if you want an actual beard, then patience solves a lot of problems.

I was in my early twenties and a very pale blonde when I decided to try growing a beard one summer between semesters at college. It took, quite literally, almost the entire three months before it curled back on itself enough to become noticeable. Two months and three weeks -- nathin' shakin'. That last week however, it just figuratively went "FOOMPH!" and became the magnificent bit of follicleage that it remains to this day. (And, yes; I have a couple of places where the hair isn't as thick as others, but if the hair's all long enough, it covers the problem nicely)

[IT Drone]

Hoxton fashion

Forget New York. What is the current state of play with the Hoxton hipsters? Facial hair waxes and wanes in Hoxton. It is still being catered for though - check out this hispter barbers: http://www.murdocklondon.com/

[Stevie]

Bah!

We life-long facial hair wearers know a secret the face-scrapers apparently don't - that *all* beards start off patchy and stupid-looking, growing like mad in one place and almost not at all in others.

When I shave I take two weeks of jokes and then - people forget and complain they can't grow beards like "some people can".

I'm currently sporting Nigel Green-inspired Mutton Chops, because it goes with my pith helmet. When I run out of razor blades I'll go back to my usual full beard and diving helmet.

[skeptical i]

"Never walk away from a fool and his money"

Although given the centuries' worth of money women have spent (and continue to spend) on similarly stupid "enhancements" (facial this, tummy that, boob other things, the whole cosmetics industry) at least there is comfort that foolishness seems to be an equal opportunity employer. Can't blame the hair-planters for getting an oar into that cash-flow, sounds like tedious but otherwise fairly easy money.

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you reckon there's a market for neckbeard follicles? I could live without them and I bet I'm not the only one here who could coin it in.

[Maty]

shaving

Ah yes, I vaguely remember shaving. Something that happened between puberty and leaving school. Then I grew a beard and have kept it ever since.

I'm often bewildered by why men shave. Is it to attract women by looking more like them? It can't be because they enjoy spending time and money removing facial hair. And why do some men religiously remove the hair from their faces, but panic when it goes from the top of their heads?

Being bald with a neat(ish) grey beard, in the morning I run a wet flannel over the top of my head, and a brush through the beard, and I'm groomed for the day. Simples.

[Cliff]

Re: shaving

I'm not a beard fan. Neither were the ancient Romans. Fashions and preferences change over time.

To me, beards frequently look untidy and unclean.

[Nuke]

@Maty - Re: shaving

Wrote :- "I'm often bewildered by why men shave. .. Being bald with a neat(ish) grey beard,"

I understand that "neat(ish)" beards do require regular trimming, and that you end up looking like RMS otherwise.

[Stevie]

Re: I'm often bewildered by why men shave

Well firemen do it so their respirators will seal, and I imagine mountaineers, professional paint sprayers & hazmat workers do so for the same reasons.

Clowns do it so the makeup doesn't get stuck in their beards and look idiotic when they are off-duty and in mufti.

Arctic and Antarctic explorers do it to avoid ice forming in their beards - though opinion on the value of this differs.

Servicemen do it because their officers make them.

Natives of the Amazonian rain forest do it to help prevent parasitic infestation of their heads by insects (though technically they "wax" using latex).

I'm sure I could think up more reasons if I switched my brain on.

[Imsimil Berati-Lahn]

Just a quick question?

Are hipster women also suffering from beard envy?

[Halfmad]

They can have some of hair off my back, what's the going rate?

[Lamont Cranston]

As someone who has grown out his beard, in spite of it being somewhat patchy,

I'd just like to voice my approval of the tone of this article.