Facial hair aficionados aim to break world record with their 46-metre 'beard chain'

Forming the world's longest beard chain is harder than it looks, says Aaron Johnston.

Johnson was one of 74 men who gathered in the Gaslight Social bar in Casper, Wyo., on Friday in an attempt to beat the unusual Guinness World Record.

The furry-faced men lined up side-by-side, parted their long, glorious beards in the middle, and connected them on each end to form a beard chain that measured 150 feet, or 45.7 metres — more than double the current record of 19.05 metres set in Germany in 2007.

"It was definitely a roller coaster of emotions throughout the night," Johnston, co-host of the Talking Beards podcast, told As It Happens host Nil Köksal. "It was a very long process." 

Guinness has yet to confirm the record. The record-keeping organization says that once the group submits their application, it could take between 12 to 15 weeks to review the evidence and making ruling. 

Wrangling hairy men into formation

The participants were in town for the National Beard and Moustache Championships, and decided they had enough facial hair between them to easily beat the German record.

Johnson — a former champion in the goatee category whose own beard measures almost 51 centimetres from the chin down — says it was no picnic.

"It's a lot harder just to stand still linked to some of your buddies than you would really think," he said. "There was some hectic-ness and, you know, some anxiety."

The whole thing took about an hour to set up, he said. First they had to ensure that everyone's beard was at least eight inches, or 20.3 centimetres, long, to qualify.

Once they'd measured and tallied everyone's individual beards, it was time to line up. The men stood side-by-side, parted their beards down the centre, and attached them using hair clips. 

Then they stood still and measured the chain. Each participant held up the measuring tape to their nose with their finger, and held still for a full 30 seconds, all captured on video.

"Everybody was super excited once it was over, and everybody hugged," Johnson said.

Johnson's wife, Natali Johnson, was on hand to wrangle the men into formation — something she says was no easy feat in a crowded, noisy bar, with a bunch of people who had already spent the day pitting their whiskers against each other in a national competition.

"That was actually my job: to make sure they were listening," she said. "It's very precise. Guinness has strict rules that you have to follow. And if anything was not followed to a tee, we would not be getting verified in the book."

She says she's proud of her role in helping to set what appears to be a new world record.

"I know that I'm not personally a part of the chain with my own hair, but I got to be a part of the process. And that's really exciting," she said. 

Natali also participated alongside Aaron in the National Beard and Moustache Championships. She doesn't have much in the way of facial hair herself, but she competed in the "craft" category with a fake moustache made out of quilting paper.

Aaron is a marketing director with the beard oil company Honest Amish, one of the event's sponsors. He and Natali are active members in the competitive facial hair community.

"We go to a beard competition almost every weekend, somewhere in the country, usually, but we've been to Canada this year and we've been to England this year. So we get around," Aaron said. "It's really fun doing these types of crazy things together."