Over the weekend, I attended the annual Come and Shave It beard and mustache competition put on by the Austin Facial Hair Club. Honestly, it is my favorite competition of the year. Great host club, great people show up en masse, and great vibe all the way around. I’ve attended 9 of them and have not been disappointed once.
As I was making my weekend plans, I realized that I have been in the competitive bearding community for over 9 years, and not once have I just been a spectator. I’m either competing, working, emceeing, or judging. So I decided this year, I’d just kick back and observe, socialize without the pressure of competing, and watch my friends on stage. I didn’t want to worry about hairspray, maintaining my beard design all day, or worry about stage nerves. (Yup! After all this time, I still get stage nerves for about a full hour before my category, and a full hour afterwards).
It was great to be able to just hang out, watch the competition, and cheer my friends on, whether competitor, judge, or Austin club member running the show.
Does that mean I’ve retired from competing? HELL NO! I’ll be back up on that stage soon. Because despite the desire to relax and just hang out without any pressure, and the gnarly stage nerves, I did miss competing. When I saw the 2 categories on stage I’m usually assigned to, either partial beard natural or freestyle partial beard, all I could think is “those guys are so cool up there, and I wish I was right next to them!”.
Since I was able to just kick back, I was able to actually take some photos this time around. Click below to see some of the hairy faces I saw!
