9.11.12

The Union is looking for the finest facial hair on campus, in support of Movember.

The popular annual event invites every man to grow a moustache for the month. Students will join men around the world dedicating their November to the growth and grooming of a moustache in order to raise awareness of prostate and testicular cancer.

This year, moustachioed men can battle it out for the title of finest face fluff, with the organisation of a competition between halls of residence. Prizes will be presented at the end of November to the ‘Mo Bros’ with the “bushiest, the best design, and the most outrageous”” ‘tache.

The competition aims to raise money for the Movember UK’s men’s health partners, Prostate Cancer UK and the Institute of Cancer Research, by collecting £2 from all who take part.

After registering on the Movember website, each Mo Bro must begin with a clean shaven face on November 1 and resist the urge to shave his moustache until the end of the month. The end result should be a vast number of moustaches – each individual in their shape, size and colour, uniting for one cause.

The University’s current Mo Bro fundraising champ, Neil Boyle, praised his fellow “brave men of the Leeds Psychology Department in the growing of a moustache.”  Despite the noble aims of Movember, Mr Boyle admitted that some of the stigma attached to prominent lip-based follicles would be hard to ignore, saying, “The level of creepiness around [the department] is set to rise over the coming weeks.”

The Movember website states strict rules of ‘tache growth-  “There is to be no joining of the mo to the sideburns (that’s considered a beard), there’s to be no joining of the handlebars to the chin (that’s considered a goatee)”.

Since its foundation in 2003, Movember has grown in size over each successive year, with the international total number of Mo Bros for 2012 currently at nearly 900,000.
Words: Gabriella Holmes