The Internet’s Best Resources on Men’s Grooming
The internet, as a whole, is a great virtual place to learn and communicate in. Because of this, the original idea of our forum, BarbershopForums.com, was (and continues to be) to bring you a useful online resource for your male-grooming needs. Our forum, which covers anything and everything from shaving to long hair, has come to be one of the top resources online for men’s grooming over the years and we strive to preserve our identity and ideals so that the internet can benefit from our very-same resource.
With the above said and considering that our forum has grown through a plethora of topics and discussions, it is hence that we would like to direct you to some of the most important discussions thus far that we’ve had in our forum. Likewise, we are keen to mention in this page that there are, indeed, other great male-grooming resources out there on the internet and which we’re happy to also direct you to. As such, this page that you’re reading will be dedicated to acting as a hub for your knowledge quest on everything to do with men’s grooming, and we sincerely hope that you find our recommended resources (both ours and of others) of good use to you.
Recommended BarbershopForums.com discussions
Here’s a list of linked discussions from our own forum that are essential reading material. We do still advice that you browse the forum fully and clicking through to all of forum’s discussions that spark your interest since you will find many hidden gems as far as male-grooming advice goes!
Men’s Hairstyles and Haircuts
Our men’s hairstyles guide is among the most popular online guides on hairstyles and haircuts. It lists all men’s hairstyles in a concise manner and straight to the point, so keep this guide of ours handy for a quick look anytime that you’re looking to spice up your hair’s aesthetics.
Men’s Hair Products
It’s not easy finding the right hair products for men, which is why we actively encourage discussions of male hair products on our forum. When it comes to hair-styling products, you will find that there are many products that do many things and serve many different purposes. Thus, we highly recommend that you read this hair products guide tailored exclusively to men’s hair and which goes through all styling products that one can use on his proud mane!
Curly Hair
Up until not that long ago, curly-haired males were limited in their hair-styling choices; this was mainly due to the lack of information online that covered their unique hair-styling needs. Times have changed and our forum does too include a guide on curly hairstyles for men with pictures for each hairstyle and further discussion on the subject. Check it out and ask any questions.
Men’s Hair Care
If there’s one thing that’s commonly left out from the male-hair conundrum, then that would easily be the looking after and caring of male hair. Why? Because the vast majority of men have been brainwashed into thinking that all they need is an expensive hair-styling product to have lustrous tresses. Nothing could be further from the truth, and it’s very important for men to pay special attention to the daily maintenance of their hair. As an example, dandruff, which affects one in two males, is a very misunderstood subject for most males despite the fact that we’ve discussed the causes and treatments for dandruff in this forum and one need not resort to expensive zombie-dust products to successfully tackle and treat dandruff.
Men’s Long Hair
Long hair for men can be divided into two distinctive areas: growing hair long and then grooming it. For those of you who still have short hair, you will need to become familiarized with the process of growing your hair long, which we’ve discussed in our forum. Moreover, those of you, who already have long hair or are close to having long hair, will need to read up on all regarding the grooming, caring and styling of your long tresses.
While you can find all of the above in multiple forum threads, we’d like to invite you to read the following interesting thread on what long hair is. And, remember, the established minimal length for long hair is 6 inches of length or 15 centimeters.
Facial Hair, Beard Styles and Care
Facial hair has been on the rise again since the early 2010s. Prior to this rising trend of growing one’s facial hair, the trend in the 2000s was quite the opposite: a clean shave. The latter was back when the main male fashion/lifestyle trend was that of the metrosexual. Starting in the early 2010s, however, the trend changed to that of having a long beard and bushy unkempt facial hair; ergo, the lumbersexual trend was born, with hipsters worldwide having a lot to do with it.
We’ve got plenty of forum threads that cover the topics of growing a beard, looking after facial hair and styling a mustache or beard. Put some time aside to browse our forum and, especially, the Beards and Mustaches section. If you fathom growing an epic lumbersexual beard, then go and read the following discussion on full beard styles!
Shaving
Of course, not all men worldwide have opted to religiously follow the referenced full-beard trend. Many men do still keep their faces clean shaven, and we’re fully aware; hence, you will find in our forum a good amount of discussions pertaining to the topic of shaving and of keeping a sharply-cleaned hair-free face.
The topic of hair trimmers and electric shavers is one that also interests many folks, and our excellent discussion on hair clippers, hair trimmers and electric shavers has become so popular that it is one of the internet’s most referenced resources on these type of trimming devices. Whether you use an electric shaver, trimmer, a safety razor or a straight razor, you’re in the right place to ask your questions on.
Skin Care and Manscaping
So these two topics aren’t exactly popular topics among males, even in this day and age. Slowly but surely, however, more men are starting to take their skin care more seriously and are also delving into the world of body-hair trimming (i.e. manscaping). For more on these two interesting topics, check out our Male Grooming section and, specifically, this list of great facial cleansers (yes, facial cleansers work for male skin too).
Male Hair Loss
Male-pattern baldness (MPB) affects over two thirds of males by the time that they get to 60 years of age. Also known as androgenetic hair loss, MPB can start as soon as in the late teens and there’s no cure for it yet. However, there are products out there that can slow down the progression of this type of male-specific baldness; the barbers in our forum are knowledgeable on what works and what doesn’t. See our story on Rafa Nadal’s hair loss for an example of how male pattern baldness doesn’t differentiate between wealth or age (Nadal has been balding since his mid-20s).
Other recommended online resources
This section deals with the best websites acting as online resources in our industry and stemming our industry’s many topics. The list of recommended websites below has been compiled by our panel of forum barbers who have all agreed on the following websites being among the top resources that consumers can use for their reference and informational needs.
Men’s Hairstyles and Haircuts: Men’s Hair Blog
For all on men’s hairstyles and haircuts, there is no better website than MensHairBlog.com as it is owned by none other than Rogelio Samson, a legendary figure within the male-grooming industry. See the website’s section on hairstyles and haircuts which has the most detailed guides on these two topics online. Do also see the site’s Disconnected Haircuts guide for an exemplary resource of how useful a men’s hair-styling guide can be to the general public.
Hairstyles like the brush-up hairstyle, the metro mullet or the hanging-locks hairstyle are a few of the hair-styling innovations created by Rogelio Samson over the last few years. And, for the benefit of the internet, he has published much of his knowledge on this website.
Curly Hair: Manly Curls
Another excellent resource from Rogelio Samson: ManlyCurls.com is the one of the biggest resources on men’s hair and, in particular, on men’s curly hair. The Manly Curls website has been featured on plenty of publications and has been referenced by industry experts time and time again. The idea of starting a website that featured curly men’s hair as one of its main topics came from Rogelio Samson’s own experience with his curly hair.
As with his other website, Rogelio Samson created ManlyCurls.com so as to become the most-authoritative resource for the many issues involving curly hair for men. Bearing in mind that you could spend a whole day browsing the website, we’d like to point you towards Rogelio Samson’s fade haircut guide and also to his kinky curly hair guide which features specific tips and advice for black men with afro textured hair.
Men’s Hair Care: Manly Curls and Rogelio Samson’s books
One of Rogelio Samson’s areas of male-grooming expertise revolves around proper hair care for men. Rogelio has pioneered many methods on hair-styling and hair-care for men’s hair. His Manly Curls website has an impressive array of guides on men’s hair-care alone, all of which are very much worth your time to read through and study if you’re looking to seriously learn everything about your hair.
Manly Curls is a very big website, so use the site’s search function and menu to navigate the site and find the many editorial gems from Rogelio Samson. Furthermore, you can learn so much more about men’s hair, hair care and curly hair (among many other topics) from Rogelio Samson’s books: ‘The Men’s Hair Book‘ and ‘The Curly Hair Book‘. We absolutely recommend that you own at least one of Rogelio Samson’s books as you will be blown away with how your hair transforms by following any of the books’ advice. Especially with ‘The Men’s Hair Book’, look no further, gentlemen. You want to have the best hair possible? Then get this book. You want to learn a heck of a lot more about men’s hair even as a fellow barber? Then get this book too. That simple.
Men’s Hair Products: Men’s Hair Forum
At BarbershopForums.com we’re big believers in sharing ideas via a community of experts, so it’s only normal that we would go ahead and mention another (competing) forum in our list of recommended male-grooming resources. Such a forum is MensHairForum.com which is the biggest website on men’s hair existing nowadays. The forum per se is older than ours, and we know some of the expert barbers that post in the Men’s Hair Forum. Therefore, we can recommend, without hesitation, this peculiar forum website for all topics on male grooming. Moreover, we recommend the Men’s Hair Forum for their incredible collection of expertise regarding men’s hair products.
Since MensHairForum.com is a community with a large percentage of professional barbers as forum members, there is a constant flow of expert in-depth discussions on men’s hair products appearing on the forums. By far, their men’s hair products guide is the best resource online on hair products for men and the guide includes an incredibly-knowledgeable discussion of hair products throughout the years. Bookmark it.
Like in our forum, MensHairForum.com does also include many discussions on hair-styling tools like hair clippers, beard trimmers, hair dryers and hair straighteners. Their most popular discussion concerning hair-styling tools and products for men is their expert discussion on some of the best hair clippers for men that can be purchased by consumers and barbers alike. This discussion is nearing 300,000 views and it is the most-trusted discussion of hair clippers that a consumer and/or a barber could find on the internet. Worth bookmarking too.
Men’s Long Hair: Long Hair Guys
Finding good advice online on male long hair can become a tedious task, but LongHairGuys.net as the internet’s best website on long hair for men truly makes it all an easy and entertaining ordeal.
The trend of long men’s hair may be drilling holes in barbers’ wallets across the United States and Europe (as consumers don’t get as many haircuts so as to grow their hair long) but we can say with absolute certainty that long hair has been a very-welcomed trend by American and European males in the age bracket of 16-40 years of age.
Long hair for males isn’t anything new and the LongHairGuys.net website makes it clear that long hair is more than just a male-fashion trend; we could not agree more. What many people don’t know is that long hair has become an established trend in the 2010s thanks to the rise in popularity of long hairstyles like the man bun hairstyle and the slicked back undercut hairstyle. Long hair has gone from being a simple ‘vehicle’ to long hairstyles to instead being akin to a lifestyle, regardless of trends. With regards to the Long Hair Guys website, they have created the internet’s biggest long hair guide for men who want to grow their hair long or who already have long hair. This aforementioned guide is the most professional guide on long hairstyles that you will find online, and we believe that this guide will help you tremendously if you’re looking forward to rocking a good head of long tresses.
Shaving and Facial Hair Products: Men’s Hair Forum
The Men’s Hair Forum website comes up again in our list of recommended resources. This is because, aside from us, the Men’s Hair Forum has the most amount of shaving discussions and facial-hair trimming discussions on the internet. Basically, if you’re looking for advice on every facial-hair tidbit that you could think of, you’re most likely going to find it there. Out of all their shaving discussions, their Wet Shaving guide is a must-read, while their extensive forum section on beard trimmers and electric shavers offers you a comprehensive range of expert opinions on the many facial-hair-related appliances available to consumers.
Manscaping: Men’s Hair Forum
Let’s keep it simple with this topic: see this discussion on whether women prefer shaved chests or hairy chests. Literally, go read it and you may come out with a different opinion on manscaping!
Male Hair Loss: FTM Guide
Men’s hair loss is, in itself, a whole other industry aside from male grooming, even though men’s hair and hair loss go in tandem as far as cross-referenced topics go. However, seeing how hair loss is so prevalent in men (two-thirds of men are bald by age 65), a new and exotic industry has evolved around the topic of losing hair and trying to gain it back. The problem is that men’s hair loss cannot be cured nor stopped (at least not permanently), which means that any male who starts losing his scalp hair will eventually lose it all.
Now, whenever there’s a problem that appeals to emotions and ego, there will always be scammers trying to make a cent from people’s suffering. Indeed, the hair-loss industry is littered with scams and snake-oil products, and most balding men who turn to products to try to stop their hair loss find that not only have they not stopped their hair loss but that their wallets are also lighter in weight (i.e. wasted money). The harsh reality is that it is very difficult to find genuine scientifically-backed information on men’s hair loss and the proven treatments available to slow down hair loss. As barbers, this is something that really annoys us as we have seen countless examples of balding males who have wasted thousands and thousands of dollars on snake-oil products with the only result being that they have less money and their self-esteem is shot.
An excellent resource is this hair loss guide by the website FTMGuide.org which covers the cause and rationale behind hair loss and what treatments are available. If you look around this website, you will notice that it is a resource for transgender males (Female-To-Male). Nonetheless, the FTMguide.org website is just as useful for males as it is for FTM individuals, so rest assured that the excellent advice in this website will serve you very well.
Keeping it all updated
Think of this page as a continuum of what’s going online in our industry. Who knows what other great resources may appear on the radar in five or ten years as the internet expands with information and ideas, and our industry benefits from said expansion. What we do know is that, so far, all of the above referenced resources are currently some of the best (if not ‘the best’) places online for the many male-grooming topics that may interest you.
Public comments are open and you are welcome to suggest further resources.
Published by: Mark Sullivan – Professional Barber (California) & BarbershopForums.com Moderator
Edited by: David Strauss (BarbershopForums.com Administrator)
Contributors: Ed Marcus (BarbershopForums.com Moderator) and Patrick Padilla (BarbershopForums.com Moderator)