In Beardo Flagrante

In recent years I've noticed more of my guy friends sporting beards. They aren't hipsters and they don't belong to a motorcycle gang. They are lawyers and hedge fund managers, venture capitalists and executives, fathers who cart their kids off to the playground on Sunday mornings and bachelors in trendy bars on a Thursday night.

Here's an excerpt from the article: 

Previously a hallmark of certain kinds of lifestyles — say, lumberjack, biker or hipster — beards have moved past their countercultural roots and into the mainstream, showing up on Hollywood red carpets (Ben Affleck, Brad Pitt and Ryan Gosling have all been photographed with them) and, now, in cubicles across the country.

It turns out that one of the reasons beards have become more mainstream is that companies are no longer asking men who have beards to shave them off.

Yet even more conservative industries have become “more permissive” of facial hair, said Howard Telford, a research analyst who tracks sales of men’s grooming products in the United States — up 3 percent from the previous year to $5.4 billion in 2011 — for Euromonitor International, a market research firm. 

Moira Kaniewski, a co-founder of Bluebeards Original, said, “Normally, men would grow a beard on vacation and have to shave it off when they got back to the office environment.” She attributes the change in part to “men taking better care of their beards.” (That is, George Clooney versus ZZ Top.) 

Here's the link to the article:

 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/31/fashion/taming-of-the-beard.html?_r=0

 And here's a little man candy to brighten your day...