Joel Strasser from Idaho, US has set a new record by hanging 710 Christmas ornaments from his beard. According to the Guinness World Records, his beard resembled a Christmas tree.
However, he broke his own record. "December of 2019 was the first time I stuck an ornament in my beard and the first time I broke the record," said Joel. "Ever since then I've re-broken my own record every Christmas as I've improved my beard bauble technique. My technique has evolved and gotten a lot more specialised over the years that I've been breaking the record," he added.
The multicoloured adornment took two and a half hours to attach. And it took over an hour to remove them from the beard. He told the Guinness Book of World Records that the process is laborious and demands a lot of patience.
"I stuck them in a lot more haphazardly at first and that's why those first beard bauble record numbers were so low. I found that if I take my time and really focus on the individual strands of beard hair and small groups of hair, I can manage to fit so many more in there," said the peculiar record holder.
Stasser's 2019 record had 302 baubles. He beat it in 2020 with 542 baubles. Then again broke it in 2021 with 686 baubles. The tacky holiday trend of colourful, clip-on facial hair accessories gained popularity after getting featured on Shark Tank.
While he loves the tiny ornaments, he will not be using them to decorate his house or a Christmas tree. "I have a large shoebox full of baubles and I think they’ll stay there until I decide to attempt the record again. It’s tedious enough sticking over 700 of them in my beard. I don’t want to take the time to stick them all in the tree and remove them later!."
Guinness World Records are also not new for Strasser as he holds 10 other records from objects he put in his beard including most paper straws in a beard (534), most straws in a beard (312), most chopsticks in a beard (520), most golf tees in a beard (607), most forks in a beard (126), most toothpicks in a beard (3,500), most clothespins on a beard (359), and most chopsticks put into a beard in one minute (86).