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It’s Terminal (Beard Length) – Let’s Talk

June 7, 2016 By //  by The Beardsgaards

While we believe beards of all shapes and sizes are awesome, length is the end all be all goal for a lot of dudes. When it comes to potential beard length, there are two schools of belief:

Terminal Beard Length Gallery

  1. Your beard just keeps growing, and with enough time and patience, any man who can fill in a decent beard can get competition-big.
  2. Beards at some point will reach a terminal length and stop growing.

So which is it? Not to burst any bubbles, but it’s not the first one. And the second one comes with a slew of caveats. Let’s talk terminal. And science.

Keep reading for our barberly secret to a bigger beard…


What is Terminal Length?

“Terminal length” is a scary term, but what does it actually mean? Is it the length where your beard stops growing? Short answer: sort of? Here’s the longer answer.

Your Hair’s Circle of Life

There are three types of hair: vellus/languo hair is the downy monkey fuzz that covers humans in their entirety, except our palms, soles, lips and eyelids. Primary Terminal Hair (look, it’s that word again) applies to eyebrows and eyelashes.

Secondary Terminal Hair is all the other stuff-chest, back, legs, arms, scalp, beard, and…other places. But our focus is not on those fun bits today, we are looking squarely at your beard, sir. Let’s take a look at your beard’s circle of life.

The Anagen Phase

This is the go time phase where those stem cells of yours are cranking out keratinized cells in the hair follicle. These cells keep at it anywhere from several weeks (for mustaches and the like) to 10 years (for some lucky scalps). This cycle in scalp hair averages 3-5 years, beards seem to average, and let us put a heavy emphasis on average, about two years. This is what 90% of your hair is doing at any one time.

The Catagen Phase

After all that exertion, your cells need to chill for a minute. During this transition phase the follicle shrinks, the hair bulb disappears, and the shrunken root end forms a round club-like thing. Weeks, this part takes, not months, and less than 1% of your hair is doing it at any one time.

The Telogen Phase

This is the death part. During this final resting phase, your hair sheds, or is sometimes held in place for a bit, but it’s coming out at some point.

What the Hell Does that Mean?

Okay, that’s a bunch of technical jumblies there. Here’s how that translates to your day to day life with your beard. Your beard grows, hibernates then sheds. Depending on your beard’s rate of cycling through these phases, your hair has a certain time frame to get as long as it can before things shut down.

The most important thing to remember in your beardventure is that every beard is indeed a special snowflake. Every face grows differently, in different amounts and annoyingly, in different amounts over different parts of the face.

Don’t be surprised if you have to trim different parts more, and more often than others. What you generally don’t want to do is allow those overachiever bits to be your guide to length. Trim to the lowest common denominator, lest you end up looking like a goat.

Just remember that growing your beard is a journey, not a destination. It will go through phases where it doesn’t seem to be making much progress, then growth picks up again, but it is a law of diminishing returns. Eventually you’ll go terminal.

The Secret to a Bigger Beard

While there are plenty of products out there that promise you the beard of your dreams, there is no quick fix. Keeping it occasionally trimmed, well-moisturized and well-cared for won’t necessarily help it grow more, but it can definitely help prevent length lost to damage.

The best trick is one no one likes to hear: be healthier.

Hair, skin and nail condition are all drastically affected by overall health. So drink your water, eat your dark leafy greens, drink less alcohol, stop smoking, work out…you know, all those things you were planning on doing anyway, right?

But if those don’t sound like things that are going to happen, just keep your face creature well-tended, bring your patience shoes, and have a good time on the journey.


Have some beard woes and need some barberly advice? Tell us all about it in the comments.

Filed Under: Beards & Facial Hair, Blog, From the Chair Tagged With: Ask Your Barber, Beards, Evergreen Terrace, Grooming, How To, Mustaches, Pillar

About The Beardsgaards

The Beardsgaards are a pair of mom-and-pop barber nerds with a shared obsession with perfection. We built this old school barbershop to feel like home to everyone who enters beneath the Elvish script above our door. If we and the Gaardian army can give you a better handle on your grooming routine, all the better.

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We built this place for you, to bring you everything you ever dreamed you could find in your friendly neighborhood barbershop, and a stupid amount more. Beardsmith and Blademaiden, the mom and pop founders, invite you to explore the realm.

Our Little Slice of Valhalla

In historic downtown Batavia on Route 31 between 1st and Main

117 S Batavia Ave, Batavia, IL 60510

PHONE: ( 630 ) 454 - 4820

EMAIL: shop@beardsgaardbarbers.com

Appointment & Walk-Ins Both!

Parking

On the general 2020 theme, there is currently no parking out front due to construction, and no front shop entrance either! Enter the back parking lot by First Street and come on in the back door with the beard on it (like a restaurant, wait at the sign inside for the Shopkeep to greet you)

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Family owned & operated since 2014. There be nerds here. And dragons.
💈Classic Haircuts • Epic Beards • Razor Shaves💈
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Beardsgaard Barbers
We were deeply saddened by the news of Christopher We were deeply saddened by the news of Christopher Tolkien passing a year ago, and still are to this day. Our love of his father and Lord of the Rings is ever present here at Beardsgaard. So tonight we, and hopefully the rest of you, will take a moment to remember one of the greatest authors of all time, his son, and the impact the Tolkien family has had on our lives. 
“The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.”
-J.R.R. Tolkien
While we appreciate all the self sufficient kids t While we appreciate all the self sufficient kids that come into the shop, we still need an adult with them to sign our liability waiver. We know it’s a bit of a pain but it’s really to appease Phydeoux the shop dragon. He has a hunger for children and waivers, and we’d rather feed him waivers.
You don’t have to wear it after your cut, but do You don’t have to wear it after your cut, but don’t forget your hat. It’s cold outside.
The product goblin (and the rest of us) think @soa The product goblin (and the rest of us) think @soapdistillery body oils smell good enough to drink. We promise the oils will make you feel much better if you put them on your outside instead of your inside though.
Well hello to those with wild beards who heard whi Well hello to those with wild beards who heard whispers of moving out of Tier 3 Mitigation! Please pause, we're not there yet. 

This does not apply to the entire state of Illinois, only certain regions. As of now, we are still in Tier 3. We will announce when we have moved to Tier 2 on all of our social media channels as well as our email list, so sit tight until then!

Because knowledge is power, you also can go to http://dph.illinois.gov/regionmetrics?regionID=8 at any time and look at Region 8, which contains Kane County. As of this posting, we are not meeting the metric on hospital bed availability. 

We promise, we want to get everything under your mask looking and feeling great, but we cannot do that until it's safe. Thank you for understanding, and please keep an eye out here, on Instagram or sign up for our email list at the bottom of www.beardsgaardbarbers.com to get updates.
And you? Do you like the barber shop? We like you. And you? Do you like the barber shop? We like you.
We may specialize in short, traditionally masculin We may specialize in short, traditionally masculine haircuts, but Beardsgaard has always been a place for everyone; girls, guys, gays, theys - all identities and orientations find acceptance and a barbershop home here. If, however, you are looking for the luscious salon locks that are far less in our barberly skill set, we are the lucky next door neighbors of the incredible @coasthairsalon
Between the two of us, we have heads of every sort covered in spectacular hair, and positive vibes.
While we would love to see more than half of your While we would love to see more than half of your faces, until Illinois is out of Tier 3 we are just not allowed to do any face services. That means all beard trims and face shaves are not a thing for the foreseeable future. We know that’s a bummer for most of you but think of how epic and wizardry your beards will be once we can do trims!
For beard updates we will be posting across social media and sending an email out to those of you that are on the email list as soon as we know anything. Hang tight Gaardians, your face gardens will be pruned again some day.
When this year started, we eternal optimists could When this year started, we eternal optimists couldn’t have imagined what dragons were coming. With the support of this amazing community, this little barbershop made it through lockdown, occupancy restrictions, six flipping months of construction including losing our whole front entrance for months, are still in the middle of not being able to perform our signature services, but we’re all starting to see light on the other side. We don’t know what this next year will hold, but we believe this shop and this community will keep on adapting and end up stronger for it. We just hope, so hard, that the dogs will be able to return in 2021. In the meantime, we have the dragon. And all of you.
Over the years here, no one has held quite as many Over the years here, no one has held quite as many positions at Beardsgaard as Joey. As (at the time girlfriend, now wife) Amanda worked here, Joey was keen to fill in on desk when a shopkeep got sick, and he didn’t even work here yet. Nor did he yet when he let us tie him to a tree during the making of a dumb movie. 

Eventually, he came to be a Shopkeep at Beardsgaard before, like Tyler, following his wife into the blade game and going to barber school, turning out to be really good at it. He progressed from intern to apprentice to a knighting to staff barber of Beardsgaard to beard model for our sibling shop’s most popular product, Deepwell. 

And now, as if the fondest wish for any Gaardian, business ownership, taking over for Amanda as the head chair of Fox & Stone Barbers in St Charles while she is off wrangling puppies for a living in the vet world. 

We wish him endless luck and happiness in his next steps, but we won’t miss him too much. As the dad of our dearly departed Mia, and the wiggly love sausage Mabel, he has agreed that Mabel should still work at Beardsgaard once we can have shop dogs again because she is so good at her job and misses all of you. So we’ll see him then! Huzzah!

Today is his last day, be sure to give him your love/hardcore trolling, whatever your relationship with him is. As you know, he’s a barber who can do both.
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Our Little Slice of Valhalla

In historic downtown Batavia on Route 31 between 1st and Main

117 S Batavia Ave, Batavia, IL 60510

PHONE: ( 630 ) 454 - 4820

EMAIL: shop@beardsgaardbarbers.com

Appointment & Walk-Ins Both!

Parking

On the general 2020 theme, there is currently no parking out front due to construction, and no front shop entrance either! Enter the back parking lot by First Street and come on in the back door with the beard on it (like a restaurant, wait at the sign inside for the Shopkeep to greet you)

Current Hours

Closed for Shop Lunch 2-3 pm weekdays, 1-2 pm Saturdays

• Monday - Friday 9 / 8 • Saturday 9 / 5

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(Closed Sundays & Mondays. Call or book online )
For the safety of our staff and clients, we must refuse service to anyone with cold or flu-like symptoms.
Actually there’s a whole list of questions we’re gonna ask you at the door, brace yourself.
Shop closes for lunch weekdays 2-3 PM and Saturdays 1-2 PM
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While you’re here, peruse our sibling shop right next door or in the Webs of Inter, River Peak Apothecary!