Facial hair

Australia's national airline announced on June 9 that it will scrap its gender-based uniform guidelines, allowing male cabin crew to wear make-up and giving women the option to ditch high heels.

Qantas said it had overhauled its guidelines to better reflect modern expectations, and to make uniforms more comfortable for staff from "diverse cultural backgrounds."

When it comes to hairiness, you may have noticed that some men are considerably hairier than others. Of course, there are some men that get rid of their body and facial hair and some that actively encourage hair growth, so this makes a difference. However, there are also other reasons why some men are much hairier than others.

A lawmaker of Turkey’s main opposition party, Aytuğ Atıcı, had his long beard shaved off as he had promised after the two-year-long state of emergency was lifted on July 19.

For men of all faiths in the holy city, a beard can be an important statement of religious devotion, connecting past generations to God through the tangled strands of history

A Turkish Islamic scholar who said men who shave off their beards can look like women has received backlash for his comments from social media users.

The hipster beard has been the trendy look for men for some while now. Watch the priceless reaction of this little girl when she discovers her bearded daddy has clean shaven his beard. She bursts out into tears unable to recognise the strange man whose lap she is sitting on and lunges towards her mom’s safe arms, who is recording the whole the scared girl!

Montenegro's Defence Ministry is planning to tighten up the dress code for serving soldiers, worried by the lax appearance of the military.

Under the new military code, which BIRN has seen, soldiers will no longer be allowed to smoke in public places, use umbrellas and "carry bags or other items" while in uniform.

Tajik police forcibly shaved the beards off nearly 13,000 random men as part of a government campaign to tackle radicalization. The bearded men were stopped in the street, taken to police stations for questioning and then urged  to shave. The unusual beard-shaving tactics are part of a broader campaign against the adoption of Islamic practices that could lead to extremism.

There was a time when men would grow a beard to show their rugged manhood. Now big bushy beards are no longer grown for men to display their masculinity but so that men can have something to decorate. And what better time than Christmas to get out the tinsel and decorate your goatee…

Here’s how it’s done! Are you listening Stathis?

Just one question… How do you eat?

The International World Beard and Moustache Championships are underway in the little village of Leogang in Austria. More than 350 contestants from 20 countries are there to vy for an international placing.

For over a year, and more in some cases, the contestants have groomed and pruned their spectacular beards and moustaches as though they were works of art.