UrbanUpdate

Sam Smith has the beautiful eyes of a porcelain doll and recently got into great shape (he lost some 50 pounds!), so it makes sense that the 23-year-old might change things up with a new haircut, too. Plus, we'd imagine styling his previous ’do—an edgy pompadour that was quite distinctive—was probably rather high-maintenance, so maybe he just needed a change. But while we’re all for the buzz cut, there’s something a little bit off about Smith’s current grooming situation, and we’re pretty sure it’s the fact that his beard is about the same length.

We’ve talked about beard-to-hair ratio in the past, but to recap, you want to avoid a perfectly matched top and bottom. When everything is short it can be a little too George Michael circa 1989, and when everything is long it can be a little too Rick Rubin (only he can pull that reclusive-producer thing off). But can we just say, while Smith can grow an impressively patch-free beard (like, damn, kid), we’re kind of partial to seeing him with some length on top. And this is the longest we’ve seen Smith’s beard in a while—maybe he’s in the process of growing it out. If that’s the case, this could just be a blip on the grooming radar before the ratio assumes a more natural balance. So we'll hold off on passing official judgment until we see his next grooming phase (at the Oscars in a few weeks)—but we'd be lying if we said we weren't worried.

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