If you have experience in trimming your own beard, you can take one step further. Beyond techniques of lining, fading and good beard-trimming tools, you can choose the best beard style for your face shape. Fortunately, there are a number of variations, which means you don't need to stick to one.
The best place to start before shaping a beard is picking your favourite. This will help with honing your skills so you look presentable without needing to go to the barber all the time. If you are interested in how to shape a beard that complements your face, look at these styles that have stuck through the years and still look fresh.
How To Shape A Beard For A Square Face
Square faces are characterised by a strong jawline that gives a somewhat distinguished look. This goes well with a long beard. However, that doesn't mean you cannot keep it short. Here are some of the shorter beard styles that will look great on you:
How To Shape A Circle (French) Beard
Start by trimming the neckline and cheeks. Remember to leave the moustache, chin and hair that connects them untouched.
- Use the trimmer to round up the sharp corners. Make sure you achieve a circular and symmetrical appearance to the best of your abilities.
- Next, perform a close shave of the cheeks by applying a clear shave gel to keep the circular shape.
- Finally, define the circle beard by tightening the lines. Do this by drawing precise, straight, outward lines with a single razor.
This process will ensure clean shaving lines.
Royal (e) Beard
Shaping a royale beard style is almost identical to trimming a circle beard. The only difference is that you will trim the hairline connecting your moustache and chin. This leaves a clean style that elongates your face. Be careful not to go too deep when shortening the connecting hairline. Use a small trimmer to shape this section.
How To Shape A Goatee
Goatee and petite goatee beards are perfect for gentlemen not wanting to cover the lips but still wanting to soften square jawlines. The first step is trimming your face. Just remember to avoid the area around your mouth. Be careful not to remove too much hair from the sides and don't forget to shave the moustache.
You will have to be precise with the goatee shape, especially on the neckline. This means you need to use a single razor or razor blade. A very small (petite) goatee elongates a square face even more.
Beards For Rectangular Face Shapes
If you want to showcase your prominent features, accentuate the sides of your face even more. You can do so by trimming one of the following beard styles:
- Mutton chops: long sideburns with a moustache.
- Gunslinger beard: horseshoe moustache connected to low sideburns.
- Chinstrap beard: take the edge of your angular jawline with a circle around the chin.
- Chin strip: a tiny hair strip stretched across the centre of your chin.
The main point of shaping a beard for a rectangular face is to keep the bottom short and the sides longer.
Beard Styling Hacks For The Round Face
Unlike sturdier facial shapes, a round face needs structure and elongation. To accomplish that, keep facial hair longer at the bottom. The trick is cutting an angular line around the cheekbones too.
You can create the illusion of a thinner face by fading the beard downwards or to the face edges. Here are the most fitting beard shapes for round faces:
Short Boxed Beard
Make sure your beard is freshly shaven to the length you want to keep. To box your face with a neat and short beard, wrap the jawline with a precise line by using a trimmer. Don't go too high when shaping the jawline, but don't go too low when shaping the cheekline. Otherwise, you'll end up with a chin strap that may broaden your face. Leave the hair strip that connects the moustache to the jawline.
Van Dyke Goatee
Recalling the fashion of the medieval era, this classic goatee style never goes out of style. To shape the Van Dyke beard with a pointed bottom, you need to first grow it.- Begin by clean shaving your cheeks. Plus, leave a longer and fuller moustache as well as chin hair. You will need a comb and pomade to help strands stay in place when hair is longer. Check out the brands Modern Pirate and Uppercut for quality pomades.
- Use small scissors to shape the moustache above the lip line and contour the triangular shape at the bottom.
- Keep everything neat with a small trimmer.
To provide fullness and depth to elegant goatees, you can colour your beard.
How To Shave A Balbo Beard
Shaping a Balbo beard (watch video) is a strong statement requiring some advanced trimming techniques.
However, you can still do this style at home and maintain the long, bristling goatee if you want to keep volume around your beard. Moreover, the Balbo beard is the perfect solution if you want a massive beard without going overboard with length.
To trim a Balbo beard:
- Keep the moustache and hair around the mouth as natural as possible by shaving off cheek hair.
- Leave more volume in the middle shin strap and clean both sides of the strip.
- Trim the bottom close to the neckline shorter.
- Clean shave the hair below the chin, maintaining a straight line that will connect to the sideburns.
- Remove hair from the cheeks until you shape a straight line that connects to the jawline.
- Trim below the moustache towards the chin but keep the moustache ends wide.
- Apply soothing beard oil to smooth out any rough edges.
The most challenging part will be to shape the middle strip. With a little practice, you'll master this badass beard style in no time.
How To Shape A Beard For The Oval Face
This face type is lucky because you can wear almost any beard style. You can shape it to meet beard trends or leave it scruffy and patchy, pulling off the au naturale look.
Although an oval face can give you the excuse to go messy, you still need to maintain a decent cleaning and grooming routine to look awesome. With today's choice of products, you won't need much. You can be done in under half-an-hour.
