A man’s beard is his most prized facial possession. Without that hair covering his skin, he feels naked. But what happens when a trimming mishap leaves a face in ruins?

We’ve all been there. You’re meticulously trimming your beard or mustache and it happens—you slip, you sneeze, or you get distracted and shave off more than you bargained for. To a man, it’s devastating. To a wife or child who is forced to be seen with him, it’s humiliating. To a co-worker or friend, your disgraced face is the butt of everyone’s jokes. How on earth can you hide your beard trimming mishap until the hair has a chance to grow back?

Rob’s Embarrassing Beard Blunder Was a Tough Lesson Learned

It was a Monday morning, and Rob was about to head to the airport for a big business trip to Ottawa. As he leaned into the mirror with his beard trimmer to get the last beard hair clipped just right, his toddler daughter La’Shaunqua snuck up behind him and bashed him in the back of his knees with a plastic baseball bat. “Motherfu—!” screamed a startled Rob, as his body heaved backwards. His hand flung upwards, and the beard trimmer buzzed a big strip of mustache hair off his lip.

Rob looked in the mirror. He couldn’t believe how stupid he looked. “Oh, no. Oh no no no no no!” he cried, leaning in to further examine. A giggling La’Shaunqua struck him again in the legs as he banged his forehead into the mirror, crying out with more profanities.

He looked pretty dumb. Leaving things as-is wasn’t really an option. His facial hair grows fast, but best-case scenario it would be a week before this chunk of hair grows back in. He needs it back now. What are his options?

Ways to React After a Beard Trimming Mistake

• Coloring in fake hair with a marker, Mascara, or pen could be good enough to fool people from a distance, but up-close it would be really obviously drawn-in.
• If Rob’s beard hair is long enough, maybe he could comb nearby facial hair over the mistake. The best way to hide a balding head, after all, is with a comb-over!
• Gluing hair from another part of his body in the bare spot could conceivably work, but getting it to blend in just right would be borderline impossible. Hair from any nether-region could be shaved and trimmed to be the right length, but gluing it on uniformly is extremely difficult.
• A great temporary fix is to simply put a Band-Aid over the bare spot and claim he was cut. It also looks dumb, but less dumb than what it’s covering.
• Making the mistake appear intentional is possible. That likely involves trimming the opposite side of the face in the identical manner.
• Putting it out of mind and owning up to the mistake are a better possibility for some than others, particularly those not about to attend an important business meeting in Ottawa.
• Beard wigs are a thing. Some are more realistic than others, but, hey, it all depends how desperate Rob is.
• The most no-brainer answer to the question is shaving the rest of the facial hair to match, though it undoubtedly is a man’s last option after all else fails. Men who have had their beards for a long period of time will feel uncomfortable, and to those used to seeing him, will tend to look like 15-year-olds.
• Short of shaving all the facial hair off, it is possible Rob could shave only some of it off and roll with a chin goatee or other different facial hair-do.
• Accelerating the growth of the hair by using a facial scrub to remove dead skin cells from the surface of the skin. Again, if time is of the essence, this one’s a no-go.

My Hot Take

I frequently screw up trimming the beard. Recently I cut the mustache too short and it looked kinda weird. I thought about filling in the space with a marker, but honestly just forgot about it and a week later it had grown back. I guess most of the time that’s my course of action.