More men are swapping razors for lasers to remove their beards. Some find it convenient. Others regret it.
Elijah, 25, has always preferred to be clean shaven. "I only liked the way my face looked for the first three hours a day because I didn't like my five o'clock shadow," he says. Every morning, he shaved. But the idea of waking up ready to go, without razor burn or a nicked chin, seemed freeing. So he booked an appointment for professional laser hair removal.
At first, it was liberating. Each session thinned the stubble and the regrowth slowed. But after the fourth visit, Elijah (who, like others in this story, asked to use just his first name to protect his privacy) caught his reflection in the mirror and felt a bit "freaked out," he said, "There is a big difference between stubble and literally being like, oh my gosh, this is like a baby face."
As men's skincare culture blows up on social media, the old stigma around men getting cosmetic treatments is fading, says Ravya Khanna, MD, dermatology resident physician at Georgetown University. One of those treatments is laser hair removal. AJ Marcellino, MD, aesthetic medicine physician and medical director at a North Carolina-based medical spa, estimates that 20 percent of laser clients at many clinics are men.
Most guys aren't trying to look like they just stepped out of a K-drama. The typical request is a light "clean-up." Chris Bustamante, DPN, aesthetic nurse practitioner and founder of NYC-based Lushful Aesthetics says most of his clients just want to zap the scraggly stuff on the cheeks or below the jawline to make their beards look sharper. But a smaller, more dedicated bunch go all in, lasering until their faces are as smooth as they were in middle school.
That full-clearance approach is common among some trans and nonbinary people as part of gender-affirming care, and for men whose jobs demand a permanent shave (airplane pilots, for example) -- or just people who simply want a razor-free life.
For most, the appeal is simple: convenience. Not everyone can grow a beard they like the look of. "When guys are so far removed from being able to grow a proper scruffy beard, then a lot of times they opt for this," Bustamante says.
That was the case for Christian, 25, who says he has a "pretty boy" look that lends itself to a clean shave. He felt his beard lived forever in the awkward in-between stage. "I dealt with the five o'clock shadow and ingrown hairs without the benefit of having an actual good beard," he says.