If you're wondering how to shape your beard, the first thing you should know is that there's no single correct way. For starters, we’ve all been given different facial hair patterns: some patchy, some enormous, with most of us landing someplace between those two. And while the density and consistency of your scruff might provide certain limitations when it comes to styling, you are never without an entire menu of options. 

Your facial hair is as much a canvas for personal style as the hair atop your head, and we've got everything you need to know about how to shape a beard, plus a few facial hair styles to consider. 

How to Choose a Facial Hair Style1. Pay attention to what looks good

The other day, I was binging Emily in Paris (stick with me here…) and I fixated on the beautiful goatee, mustache, and soul patch sported by actor Kevin Dias. I noticed that he has shaved down the sides of his facial hair, too, pulling focus onto the lip and chin area. Whether he manicured the rest is neither here nor there: The point is, I was trying to decide whether or not I could emulate this for myself, since I had all the necessary parts to mimic the style. So, just as you might take a picture of a famous person’s haircut to the barber, pay attention to their facial hair, too. You’ll realize there are a lot of things you can mimic, and a simple detailing trimmer might be all that’s separating you from a new style.

Kevin Dias

Marc Piasecki2. Think about contrasts 

One of the easiest ways to freshen up your facial hair is to play with contrasts. A bushier chin paired with a short mustache. Or a big mustache paired with stubble, like Henry Cavill here. 

Axelle/Bauer-Griffin

Point being: You might not even need to do any perimeter management so long as you just play with different weights around the areas of your face. 

3. Consider facial hair dye—but only sometimes

A lot of us grow different colored facial hair than the hair on our heads. For example, I’ve got brown hair, but my mustache and chin whiskers grow about 3 shades lighter than the cheeks and my head hair. Many of them are just straight-up translucent. I like to keep some beard dye at the ready, for those moments I want to match the color. It not only looks natural, but it makes my mustache and chin look about five times fuller, too. 

These dyes are also good at covering up grays, but keep in mind that gray hair might also give you some natural contrasts: Perhaps it’s giving you the same effect as Murray Bartlett here, wherein his mustache remains a bit darker than his beard. Thank goodness he didn’t dye it, right?

Frazer Harrison/Getty Images4. Factor in face shape, too

The shape of your face—its roundness, squareness, length, and angles—plays a big factor in which beard styles flatter you most. For example, a long, narrow face will not benefit from a long, thin beard. You want to round out your length with a fuller, wider beard—it's geometry.

Read all about our guidelines for face shape and beard shaping.

How to Shape Your Beard

To get the shape you want, you've got to trim and shave. 

1. Start with a larger setting, and work backwards

Power up that beard trimmer, but don’t go for the shortest guard right away, especially if this is your first attempt at a new style. That’s because you can’t undo a too-short style. It’s going to take a trim or two for you to acquaint yourself with the most flattering length, and that’s going to be a lot easier if you gradually trim it off until you hit the sweet spot. 

2. Keep trimming even as it grows

It seems counterproductive to trim your hair as it grows, but it’s actually important to do so, for a couple reasons. First, because the ends get frayed and scratchy and need to be snipped, and secondly, it also helps coach the thing into its stylized place. We’ve got an entire article on how to trim your beard while it grows. 

3. Mind the borders

You need to know where to draw your beard boundaries, namely around the cheeks and neckline. Certain styles will also require significant outlines around the chin, mustache, and cheeks, too. It all boils down to preference and style. Regardless, you can use the trimmer on its lowest setting—sans guard—to trim all the way down to the skin. You can even use an electric razor or manual razor to get the cleanest effect. I find that the perimeter detailing is easier with a guardless trimmer, though, since it allows for more precision. Better yet, use one with a swappable detail head (and shaver) like Philips Norelco’s Multigroom.

Philips Norelco Multigroomer$60 $50

Amazon

The main areas of concern are the neckline and cheek lines.

Trimming the beard neckline

Unless you’re eliminating the hair underneath your chin, then the beard neckline should be locked in the same place for almost all guys: Imagine a “U” shape that starts behind each ear, (at the jawbone), and which sinks down to a point on your neck. This point can be designated by putting your pointer and middle fingers together, then placing them above your Adam’s apple. It should land about an inch and a half above the knob, which is where the base of the “U” lands. Shave or trim bare everything below and behind this U. That’s your beard neckline. 

Trimming the cheek lines 

Again, this comes down to preference, and will change based on where your natural cheek lines stop, the density of your whiskers, and the style you’ve elected. If you’re on the sparser side, just zap away the strays and embrace your natural lines. If you’re particularly bushy and blessed, you may need to use your beard trimmer to give a little taper. 

A Few Beard Styles to Try

Whether you're the type of guy who can grow a full bushy beard in a single week or who struggles to get your mustache to meet your chin hair, there's a way to make every facial hair situation out there look its best.

Dev Patel

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Books could be filled with how Dev maximizes his facial hair potential. Most guys would accept a patchy beard as some lifelong permastubble sentence. But not Patel. He grows his mustache full, but he can’t grow hair directly on either side of his narrow goatee. It’s really unique, almost like the beard version of a Van Dyke mustache. Assuming you can grow yours a bit thicker in the middle of the chin, just try trimming equal spaces beneath the outsides of the lips, and graduating it up towards the ears. You don’t need to connect the mustache to the cheek hairs. In fact, even though it works on patchier guys like Dev, it might be better on you to disconnect the mustache.

LeBron James

courtesy of Getty Images

It’s no surprise that LeBron is better at having a beard than everyone else. Look how styled it is. He’s doing exactly the thing we are advocating: He’s shaving parts of it, and playing with contrasts. His classic look disconnects the mustache from the beard, and kind of looks like a grown out chin strap that steadily graduates into the manicured side burns, while marooning a small soul patch under his lip. He’s worn his beard like this (at various lengths) for years, and it always looks sharp.

Jerry Garcia 

David Corio

The number-one rule of growing a beard is letting it grow. That's not to say you've got the DNA for a Jerry Garcia-tier beard, but if you do—why not see how it looks, at least once in your life? 

Adam Hurly has been covering men's grooming since 2013 (and for GQ since 2016). He is also a travel writer. In Fall 2024, Adam is launching Blue Print by Adam Hurly, a men's grooming platform. Adam resides in Lisbon (previously Berlin, NYC, and San Francisco). He is a Sioux Falls, SD, native... Read moreWriterInstagramRelated Stories for GQBeards