The line between lumberjack and high schooler's first beard lies somewhere near your Adam's apple. Some tips on where to mark your beard line.

Many years ago, growing a beard was easy. You just stopped shaving. Where your beard ended -- chin, neck, or somewhere after your chest hair began -- was nobody's concern, least of all yours. Now things are different. People tend to have jobs and fewer diseases, and beards require more tailoring. It helps to think of your face as a map, your beard an invading army. If you don't control the front line, there's really no reason to stay in the fight. Stopped too close to the jawbone (line a), a beard makes you look uptight. Like it's more the result of an appliqué than testosterone. Left to wander down your neck (line c), however, a beard invites comparisons to feral creatures or iconic communist firebrands. (If you have a job that involves neither timber nor rousing the proletariat, this is not a good thing.) The safest bet is the one-inch band just above your Adam's apple (line b). Here you manage to have both a legitimate beard and something of a neck. You have just as good a grip on machismo and gravitas as you do on an employable future.