Just now I noticed that the definition for 刮胡子 gua1 hu2zi is "shave one's face; scold or criticize"

I thought this was a little strange as I'd never heard that use before so I asked my girlfriend (North Eastern Chinese who has lived in Shanghai for the last 11 years) and she said she'd never heard this phrase used to "scold or criticize".

I checked nciku and they have it as the same:　＂1. To shave one's beard or moustache with a shaver; used as a metaphor to refer to scolding or criticizing.＂

My girlfriend then did a search online in Chinese to see if this was a common usage that she was unaware of and it doesn't seem that it comes up on any search.

Is this a Taiwan thing? Or from another region? Anybody know?

My wife who is Taiwanese, said the scold or criticize meaning, is pretty much only for Taiwan. She has never heard a person from China, use it in that way, just Taiwanese.

I hope that answers your question.

It does! Thank you so much for shedding some light on this for me!

This isn’t a Taiwanese usage only. www.zdic.net gives this explanation, 剃胡须。喻批评人。 余开选 《狮子》：“小组的同志都很生气，说情况都不了解就乱反映，就刮胡子。” 沙汀 《欧幺爸》：“刮胡子算什么？我就是给人家刮惯了的！”

Since the first example sentence use phases like 同志, 反映. It’s definitely a mainland thing. 《欧幺爸》is also published in the mainland.