Name: Improbable facial hair trends.
Age: As long as there has been facial hair, there has been improbable facial hair.
Appearance: Improbable.
Oh, here we go. Time to judge some people for their personal taste again. That sounds like an unfair assumption.
But that’s what you’re going to do, isn’t it? Mock people for having weird beards. It’s cruel. OK, yes, in most instances it is cruel. But I swear this time is different. Can you do something for me?
I want no part of this. Please, for me? All you have to do is Google the phrase “circle beard”.
Well, fine, but I don’t really see what … oh my God. Right?
What the hell am I looking at? You are looking at a circle beard, the latest facial hair trend to sweep the world.
But … but … what is it? It’s a beard that runs in a thin line from the neck to the ears, before looping up and over the top of the owner’s bald head. Imagine Saturn, but the planet is a human face and the rings are made of hair. That’s a circle beard.
What does it remind me of? I don’t know. A hairy horse collar? The miserable result of an experiment where someone is forced to fall asleep face-down on a toilet seat that’s been covered with Pritt and beard trimmings?
But why? And how? And why? The circle beard has been attributed to men experimenting during lockdown. That said, people were tweeting photos of them as far back as 2014.
Why are they so popular now? OK, the truth is they aren’t actually very popular. For the most part, Twitter just keeps sharing the same six pictures over and over again, which doesn’t exactly constitute a trend. You will almost certainly never see one in the wild, unless you happen to live in a particularly ironic part of the country, like south-east London.
Oh, phew. No more improbable facial hair. Don’t be so hasty. Remember the monkey tail beard from earlier this year, where bearded men shaved an inch from the side of their mouth to make it curl around their mouth. That’s still a thing.
Yuck. Or remember the double moustache, where people grew an exact duplicate of their moustache under their mouths? You can still see those around.
This makes me long for the days of the soul patch. You know what? All facial hair is terrible. Let’s nationalise Gillette as a matter of urgency.
Do say: “The circle beard is the future of facial hair.”
Don’t say: “Is it wrong to wish for a plague of head lice?”
