A Quest for Facial Identity

Here I attempt to find the ideal facial hair combination for my face, by emulating an iconic poster photo for the Lord of the Rings.




an epic adventure in facial hair...


I'd been growing out my facial hair for a couple weeks, after a weekend where I was out of town and too busy to do it. It's always those first few days where people can't tell if you're lazy or trying to grow something that kill me, and since I was past them I decided to roll with it.

Whenever I have facial hair I have a cycle which I typically follow. I can go days between steps in the cycle depending on how much I hate myself. If a lot, it takes longer.

First I shave my lower neck, because neck hair is gross and the idea that it may someday link to my chest hair makes me want to throw-up. Figuratively.

Second I shave my cheeks, because the hair is so sparse there that it's really just clean-up.

Third I shave the front of my chin, or 'soul-patch' area. Just because it is called a "soul-patch". That is ridiculous.

At this point I am left with a definite moustache and a chin-strap beard, and here is the crossroads. If I'm going for comedy, I'll shave the beard and just rock the moustache. I will then appear in hundreds of photos with my friends in which I look like someone's creepy uncle.



More likely though, if I'm comfortable having SOME facial hair for a while, I'll lose the stache and go with a chinstrap beard which I'll slowly whittle away at while shaving in the shower each morning until it is so thin and sickly that I lose it all completely. Then I usually shave like mad for a few months until I forget how itchy and gross facial hair can be, or until I want a moustache for a special occassion like for Super-Mario-impersonation or the birth of a child.

The first thing you wished you saw when you were born.

But, I'm not totally sure why I grow it, because shaving isn't really much of a hassle. I usually say it is an experiment to see how it looks and if I'll ever get a nice full beard that makes me look like a lumberjack or Will Riker post 1st-season.
SOOOOO.....

I wanted to see if anyone thought there was a particular facial hair style that SUITED me. I have plenty of photos of myself with all sorts of facial hair combinations, but they are all affected by the lighting, the angle, my hairstyle, what I'm wearing, and what kindof face I'm making in he picture. So, I have taken a series of photographs using the same camera set-up and lighting to attempt to properly document what facial hair works best on my face.

In order to get my face to make the same expression each time, I have tried to recreate the haunting visage of Frodo Baggins from the promotional posters for the Lord of the Rings films.


Pretty much identical.





Bearded.





Moustache.

There's are very obvious reasons that Frodo is not depicted with a moustache.



Chaplin.





Chin-Strap.





CleanShaven.




Though I do not know the way.

Ultimately, I prefer Frodo au natural, by which I mean unnaturally shaven.




...


BONUS!
Here are some behind the scenes shots of Frodo hanging out in the bathroom...


chillin.





showercurtain





Chaplinizing the old fashioned way.





Harder to do the longer you delay...





Frodo in a boy-band.


I've never been a fan of the "donut beard", the one where it looks like you dipped your mouth/chin in a vat of pudding, so it is not pictured. My disapproval may be sour-grapes since my moustache-thing and beardish-thing don't connect. Whatever, the case, I've posted a poll so you can vote for which one you like. It won't be up long, so vote while you can!

Closing thought: I have never been able to figure out why I keep growing facial hair every once in a while, even though I don't so much "like it".