A new trend ... Joaquin Phoenix sporting a rough beard. A new trend ... Joaquin Phoenix sporting a rough beard. Photo: AP
Having recently shed a decent amount of weight, my husband has turned to insulation of an altogether different kind. The Beard arrived not with a bang but with a whisker. Even at the halfway point, I knew there was little point appealing for reason.
Not even my mother's cool eastern European candour could melt his resolve. ''Oh darling,'' she intoned upon seeing her once clean-shaven son-in-law beatifically channelling Chewbacca. ''What have you done?''
The act of growing an unruly beard was clearly on par in her mind with such social no-nos as urinating in public. But Mum might have to eat her words.
A facial hair invasion has taken over the streets of our inner cities, and at a recent charity football game, coming across the 10,000-plus crowd was like wading into a moving shagpile. Bearded men came second only to newborn babies in number.
We have the Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, Joaquin Phoenix and Whisker Wars (''the fascinating and hair-raising world of competitive facial hair-growing'') to remind us that not all beards are equal, nothing denotes ''unapologetic manliness'' in 2011 quite like a ''full, honest, old-fashioned beard'' - on the right man - according to a recent entry in the ''underrated'' column of a Fairfax Sunday magazine.
It doesn't hurt that Johnny Depp, Brad Pitt, George Clooney and Jon Hamm have swapped chiselled for mutton-chopped. It is somehow comforting to know that these Hollywood trailblazers aren't immune to a little peer pressure, and there's some welcome devil-may-care attitude at work in their joint statement: what better way to distance yourself from the image-makers than to blur the jawline?
Even committed metrosexuals aren't impervious. As Kate Allen, from pampering salon Man What a Fuss, tells me, over the past year there's been ''a definite spike in men choosing clipped facial hair over a close shave''. There always was something disquieting about blokes not just getting in touch with but touching up their feminine side, wasn't there? But if men's skincare campaigns such as L'Oreal's, featuring a hirsute Hugh Laurie, are anything to go by, it now looks like the ''retrosexual'' is here to stay.
It would be no real surprise to find that this trend has its roots in the present economic downturn: the physical manifestation of battening down the hatches, and an elementary response to the rising costs of exfoliates, fake tan and moisturisers. According to a British sales report released last week, the once-lucrative and growing male grooming market has taken a significant hit in the past year, with sales of styling products and razors and blades down almost 15 per cent and 7 per cent respectively.
Back in our bathroom and the shaving cream remains similarly undisturbed, there are telltale signs of rust on the Schick and the hair trimmer hasn't left the cabinet for months. Life goes on and yet a profound shift has taken place. ''If your dad doesn't have a beard,'' our four-year-old chirps merrily and disturbingly on rote, ''you've got two mums''*.
In the past I'd not had much cause to challenge the belief that men with big bushy beards had something to hide, and I'm not just talking about crumbs from last night's dinner. Having one so close to home, however, has forced something of a rethink. On one hand, my partner's latest endeavour is as primal as the need for warmth. Winters can get pretty cold. But there's something else at play too - a desire to see how far, thick and bushy he could go. A flash of youthful defiance. Not what you'd expect, really, from an old silver fox, but even in face of resistance, The Beard doesn't back down.
I won't deny that in the right light his fulsome, grey-flecked visage reminds me of Daniel Day-Lewis. It could also be the double-takes from passers-by as we walk down the street, the welcome absence of stubble in the basin or simply because I know (and love) what lies beneath, but I have to admit, The Beard has, well, grown on me, too.
*A song by the Adelaide folk outfit The Beards.
Jen Vuk is a freelance writer.