“Which beard style suits me best?”:
AN HD BEARD MASTERCLASS
“Which beard style suits me best?”: AN HD BEARD MASTERCLASS
There’s nothing worse than this sinking feeling:
You want a powerful beard. So you commit weeks and months to growing some decent length. You push through the itch phase and now it’s time for a trim. You’ve got a rough idea of what beard style you want, I mean, how hard can it be? Eyeing yourself up in the mirror you grab the scissors and – not being a professional barber – start chopping away.
You trim off too much on one side, then as panic sets in, you desperately try to match it on the other side. This is not going well.
The style you were dreaming of begins to cascade through your fingers, one hair at a time.
And it’s back to square one. All those weeks and months of patient growth, wasted.
Absolute bloody nightmare!
Well, here’s the good news. HD Beard can help you break this cycle.
You’re about to learn how to avoid all the stress and uncertainty of cultivating your ideal beard style, as well as figuring out what beard style will suit you best.
It’s time to take back control.
Face shape
Beard shaping is about sculpting and accentuating your features, while achieving a balanced look.
Experience tells us that the most balanced looks are the most appealing looks, and your goal should be to give your face the most balanced appearance possible.
First off, you need to know what face-shape you have. This will only takes a minute.
Grab:
- A flexible tape measure
- A mirror
- Pen and paper
- About 59 seconds
Take these measurements:
- Forehead: the peak of one eyebrow to the other
- Cheekbones: the peak of each cheekbone (just below the corner of the eye) to the other
- Jawline: the distance across the chin/mouth, from one corner of the jaw (just below the ear) to the other
- Face-Length: lowest point of hairline (centre of forehead) to tip of the chin
Which shape are you?
Oval: Face-length larger than the width of the Cheekbones. Forehead larger than Jawline. Jawline casts rounded shadow.
- Round: Face-length and Cheekbones similar to one another and larger than Forehead and Jawline, which are also similar to one another. Jawline casts soft shadow.
- Oblong: Face-length largest. Forehead, Cheekbones and Jawline all similar.
- Diamond: Face-length largest, followed by cheekbones, then forehead, then jawline. Chin is pointed.
- Triangular: Face-length any. Jawline bigger than Cheekbones, Cheekbones bigger than Forehead.
- Square: All measurements similar. Sharp angled jawline.
OK, what now?
You’re a unique individual, of course, and just because you have a certain face shape, that doesn’t mean you need to grow your beard exactly like everyone else.
However, as His Holiness The Dalai Lama puts it:
“Learn the rules well, so you can break them effectively.”
The “Rules”
Here’s a guide to finding the beard style that suits you best, accentuating your natural features for a strong, balanced look.
Keep things shorter on the sides and longer at the chin, pulling focus away from soft jawlines.
Round Faces are most susceptible to Hamster Cheek Syndrome, especially during the growing out process. Don’t be afraid to keep side-burns and cheeks trimmed – they can always catch up later.
You want to avoid styles that lengthen the appearance of your face or add definition to your chin. Shorter, balanced styles tend to work well. So do moustache-heavy looks.
If you’ve got the personality for it, mutton chops are ideally suited to Oblong faces.
Being widest at the cheekbones and narrower across the forehead and jaw with a pointed chin, your goal should be to accentuate your jawline.
Keep full beards a bit longer on the chin and moustache short. This will help round off your pointed chin.
. Triangular Face
With your prominent jawline and pointed chin, the goal here is to conceal with a full beard to elongate your entire face, or draw attention up by keeping your moustache longest.
Properly trimmed Corporate Beard or a Power Beard with a Walrus moustache are excellent options. As is the BeardStache – a style we’ll explore fully in another post, but which is essentially a full moustache with short cropped beard.
A bit like Desperate Dan, you are blessed with an angular and manly face. The key thing here is to keep a sense of balance.
It’s very easy to overload a Square Face with mid-long beard styles, especially with short hair. The expert advice is to keep it simple and focus on keeping your moustache thick in order to add a counter balance to the strong shadow from your jawline.
The oval face is the easiest to work with, and you are blessed with the largest margin for error. You lucky thing.
The natural balance of your features affords you the luxury of being a bit more spontaneous with your plans. Ever dreamed of rocking a stand-alone moustache, big sideburns, full beard or literally any style of facial hair at all? With an oval face, you can just go for it.
Seriously, the world is your oyster.
Style Deep-Dive
Now you’ve got an idea of what look you’re after, here’s a deep-dive into some popular styles, to give you some pointers for setting your beard goals.
5 o’clock Shadow / Designer Stubble
For generations, it was the norm to clean shave every morning, kiss your cookie-baking wife on the cheek, patt your kids on the head, scoop up your leather briefcase, and head off to your 9-5.
By 5pm, the faint shadow of your beard and moustache would start to grow back. Hence the term; 5’o’clock shadow. It was seen as a symbol of tiredness and not desirable at all, until recently.
These days, short cropped facial hair is a style choice that can work wonders for your sex appeal, especially when the rest of your look is tidy, moisturised and well groomed. Executed properly, designer stubble hits the balance between natural and relaxed, while still appearing smart and in control.
Most flattering for men with dark hair and lighter complexions, designer stubble creates contrast, helping to define the contours of the face – adding sculptural clarity to the jawline, cheekbones and lip line.
Pro-Tips: For the look to work best, your skin has got to be healthy and moisturised, as well as free of razor burn and shaving rash. Check out Man Shave and Man Balm.
Optimal for: Oval, Square, Oblong + dark hair colour, thick beard
Risky for: Round, Diamond, Triangular + light hair colour / patchy beard
Elegant Scruff
The Millennial version of designer stubble – a couple of weeks of managed growth.
The ultimate versatile beard style for modern times. Elegant Scruff usually takes between 2 – 4 weeks to grow-in and only needs maintenance every 2 weeks once perfected.
It doesn’t matter if your beard is patchy, thick, straight, unruly, light or dark. The important thing is to keep your skin and beard healthy while you let your scruff grow-in.
For first time beard growers, the Elegant Scruff look can be itchy at first, particularly without help from a good cleansing and moisturising routine. We recommend the holy trinity HD Beard Trio to wash away impurities, hydrate the skin, nourish your beard follicles and keep the itches at bay for good.
After 2 to 4 weeks, depending on your growth-rate, it will be necessary to trim back the area around your Adam’s Apple, otherwise you risk sliding into neck-beard territory.
Pro tips: when trimming back neckbeard, never create a hard line, as this can create an awkward looking false jawline that clashes with the laid back nature of the Elegant Scruff. Instead, always trim just one or two trimmer lengths down from the rest of the beard for a more naturally flattering shape.
Optimal for: All Face-Shapes + all colours and thicknesses
Riskiest for: Guys who want to stand out from the crowd
Corporate Beard
A more exacting relative of the Elegant Scruff, the Corporate Beard is usually kept trimmed to between 2 and 3 inches.
The key feature of the Corporate Beard is sharply defined edges, for a strong, clean and commanding appearance. The lines along the cheekbones are shaved to a defined line, but kept as high as possible, in keeping with the natural contour of the cheekbones, helping them stand out. The longest part of the beard should be around the front of the chin, with a slight taper up into the sideburns. Trim your neck up to the underside of your jawline, but no higher, to accentuate the shadow cast by your chin.
Man Shave should be your go to for keeping those edges sharp.
This look is all about uniformity while emitting a groomed and healthy appearance, so it’s essential to keep the skin under your beard hydrated and the beard itself nourished and lustrous. Once established, apply Beard Oil or Beard Butter in addition to your regular cleansing and moisturising routine to give you that extra edge over the competition.
Optimal for: Oval, Oblong, Triangular (with medium-long hair), Diamond, Square.
Riskiest for: Round, Triangular (with short hair)
Pro-tip: Corporate Beards are difficult to master for guys with patchy or thin growth. If your beard comes through nice and thick at 2 – 3 inches, this could be the one for you.
Power Beard with Moustache Variations: Natural / Walrus / Trimmed
This is where it starts to get serious.
When we say Power Beard, we’re talking 4 inches plus, which for most men is between 4-6 months of well managed growth.
Unless you want to look like Tom Hanks in Castaway, at 4 inches and longer, maintenance becomes essential.
As beard hairs get longer, they naturally become more prone to dryness and split ends. HD Beard Peppermint and Lemon Beard Shampoo provides your beard with the ideal nourishment and hydration to keep these problems to a minimum.
The next phase is to think about styling, while always keeping an eye on nourishing your beard and keeping it soft and manageable. This is where HD Beard Bergamot and Mandarin Beard Butter comes in.
Ask yourself;
Do I want a rugged look?
a vintage look?
or a professional look?
Decide this as early as possible to make the most of growing-in time, as it dictates how and when you trim your moustache.
Moustache Variations
Natural is when you leave the moustache to grow at the same rate as the full beard. It’s easy to let this look get scruffy, so healthy, moisturised skin, hairstyle and facial hair is a key for overall balance.
Walrus is when you give the moustache a head start, leaving it to grow for 2-3 months, then trimming back the beard, leaving the moustache long. Perfect for guys with a taste for the unique, the characterful, the vintage. Be warned though; Walrus can clash with a modern wardrobe.
Trimmed is when the cheekbone line is kept trimmed neatly, with the moustache regularly cropped to keep your top lip visible. This look works best for professionals as well as guys with very dense growth that can easily get scruffy.
Whichever Power Beard you’re going for, HD Beard Bergamot with Mandarin Beard Butter is the ideal styling product, giving you control over fly-away hairs, nourishing and moisturising your beard and helping you smell amazing all at the same time.
Optimal for: Round, Diamond, Oval
Riskiest for: Oblong, Triangle
Pro-tip; When cleansing a Power Beard with Hd Beard Peppermint and Lemon Beard Shampoo, always wash, rinse and repeat. The first wash cleans away impurities, while the second wash prepares your beard fibres for the natural nourishing ingredients in Bergamot with Mandarin Beard Butter or Tabacco, Oud and Vanilla Beard Oil once you’re out of the shower.
Wear It Proud
Phew! That’s a lot of info. It’s taken HDBeard over 20 years to round up all that knowledge, so don’t expect to master it all at once.
Bookmark this post and come back over the weeks and months of grow-in time.
Whatever you do, wear your beard with pride and remember; look after your beard and your beard will look after you.
Big love,
HDBeard.
