Going bush … the writer's husband, Pete. Photo: Prabhat Shetty

The first time I spotted one of the thick, wiry hairs lying across my pillow, I screamed. The noise brought my panic-stricken husband running from the kitchen.

I looked from him to the pillow and back again. "We need to talk," I said.

My husband had decided to grow a beard, you see - a bushy, unkempt, free-roaming facial explosion that necessitated the laying down of some ground rules. And over the past 18 months, as I've busied myself with the enforcing of these rules (mandatory shampooing at least twice a week, upper lip area to be kept trimmed), I've become aware that I'm not the only one navigating the pitfalls of living with a bearded man.

Musician Angus Stone.

The full beard is having a renaissance. I first noticed it at the Oscars in February. There they were - George Clooney and Ben Affleck, Paul Rudd and Bradley Cooper - Hollywood's leading men rocking some serious chin blankets. Then I noticed it on the AFL field, where ZZ Top-style beards on the likes of Kade Simpson, Rhyce Shaw and Will Schofield seemed to be rapidly replacing tattoo sleeves as the accessory du jour. A quick stocktake of the growing number of friends and acquaintances whose facial fluff is entering Mr Twit territory confirmed it: things were getting hairy.


What's behind this outbreak of hirsuteness is hard to say. A response to the ebbing tide of metrosexuality or an ironic hipster fashion statement? Or are men simply becoming men again? Throughout history, a sense of authority, masculinity and leadership has accompanied bearded men. Abraham Lincoln, Karl Marx, Ned Kelly and, well, God spring to mind. So is it just a coincidence that the full beard is on the rise as Western economies founder in the aftermath of the GFC and the position of once-powerful men is under threat?

"New masculinity is certainly in," says Suzanne Boccalatte, academic and co-editor of the book, Hair. "At a time where recession looms, we're getting back to simple, traditional, time-honoured values, behaviours and pursuits." She suggests that the beard trend "could also simply be a way for hipsters, generally Gen-Y hipsters, to look older than the baby boomers, thus giving them a chance to step through the glass ceiling and be seen as serious and wise".

For the bristled man in my life, the reasons for letting his facial sprouting go rogue were far less complex. One minute there was a forgotten razor on our six-week honeymoon to Africa; the next, I was sleeping next to Gandalf. His beard just kind of ... happened. He liked the way it looked and, since not all men are able to grow beards, he liked that it made him feel like a "real" man. The longer he kept it, the more attached he became to the sense of identity and character it gave him. He liked being "that guy with the beard".

Although he'd deny it, I know my husband has become a little addicted to the attention it attracts. Don't think I didn't notice the happy crinkle of his eyes the time he got offered free drinks all night just because the bartender thought he had an "epic beard, man"; when a young woman approached him on the street asking to touch his beard and expressing a desire to "curl up inside it"; or when a waitress had to stop serving our table because the beard was making her - inexplicably - blush.

His beard has become his most powerful tool of self-expression, one that he uses to his full advantage - plaiting it, threatening to dip-dye it hot pink and, God forbid, weave flowers into it for special occasions.

"You don't ... like it, do you?" many an aghast woman has asked me on witnessing the fleecy chaos of my husband's face. Well, my feelings about the beard are complicated. First, there's the sleeping situation. A beard, while providing a lovely, furry pillow to cuddle into at night, can quickly morph into a drool-soaked, wiry mess that does a stellar job of holding the smell of morning breath until it's been thoroughly shampooed. And the aforementioned pubic-looking hairs that coat our pillows and clog our sinks have led to many an evil fantasy of hacking it off while he's asleep.

But then, I guess I find the bushranger look sexy - especially when combined with a three-piece suit, a look that even my mother-in-law has come to approve of. Beards are rugged and manly, there's an air of the nonchalant and the artistic that follows a bearded man (it certainly did for Ernest Hemingway and Che Guevara), and I like that I live with a man who doesn't look like everyone else.

And I'm not the only one. "I love his beard," says a friend of her newly blanketed partner. "I think he feels more of a man with it and, frankly, I think he looks like more of one."

Another female friend whose husband, brother, brother-in-law and several close friends are all heavyweight beard-bearers says, "If women can colour, cut, extend and play around with their hair, I think men should be able to do the same with facial hair." It's a talking point, she says, and an instant divider: people either love the beard or hate it.

"Other men are far more impressed with it than me," says another friend of her husband's thick, Father Christmas-style thatch. "I insisted he remove it for our wedding a year ago and that was the last time I saw his face."

I know how she feels. I miss my husband's face, too - his dimples, his mouth, the presence of his neck. But when it comes down to it, I know that if I asked nicely enough, he'd take to his face mane with a Gillette and happily slot back into hairless anonymity. Which is the reason why now, when I spot those thick, wiry hairs on my pillow, I don't scream; I smile.