When did face shaving and beard shaving take off?

The answer is: In China, it started during the Manchurian Qing occupation of China.

Chinese tradition is that the body's hair and skin should not go anywhere.

But the custom in Manchuria was to shave off a lot of hair, including the beard on the chin and sideburns. The mustache on the lips is left only in two strokes, like a rat's.

The Manchurian Qing dynasty, when forcing the Chinese to shave their hair and change their clothes, did not spare their beards, and there has been shaving ever since.