Beard Grooming 101 – Neck Line and Cheek Line
Jan 26th, 2010 by Coach Adam in Beard Education, Beard Video
One of the toughest things to figure out about your new beard is where the borders should lie on your face. If you set your neck line too high or your cheek line too low, you run the risk of turning your new look as a ruggedly handsome rennaissance man into that of someone who has no idea how a beard is shaped. Don’t look like an oaf. Follow my guidelines to get your beard in the ideal shape!
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Great video. I’m growing my first beard and found an explanation on another website, but not nearly as easy as this one!
One question, how long should I wait before defining my neckline. Another website suggested waiting a full month of not shaving anything, then to groom it at that point. Just wondering what you opinion was. I’m about 1 week into my beard journey, which is big for me because I’ve always thought about doing it and have never made it past 3 days. I decided to commit to at least 1 month to see what it turns out to be (I’m a personal fan of the hugh laurie and george clooney scruffy beard)
Anyway thanks again for this website,
Joe
Congrats on making it farther in your beard journey than ever before! In my opinion, I think you could define the edges of your beard after about three weeks. Maybe four or five days sooner if you get impatient. I think the reason people say to wait a month is because you’ll be tempted to shave the neckline incorrectly and then just give up and cut it all off. Now that you have a decent guideline to go by, I think there’s a lower risk of messing things up.
Bottom line, it’s your beard to trim when and how you like. So wait at least another week or so and trim when it feels right. Just don’t give up on your beard!
Good video, Adam! I had actually been a bit curious as to proper beardlines myself, and I now realize that I’ve been bringing it up maybe a fingerlength too high.
Thanks, Kyle… glad I could help. But remember, it’s just a guideline. You can tweak your beard borders to suit your personal style. Within reason, of course. I think we’d all agree that the pure neck beard is best left in the past.
Ahhh the thumb and two finger rule can be applied to so many things.
Shaun, old pal, thanks for bringing your patented dirty humor to my blog. You’re still the king of innuendo.
By the way, I hope everyone who reads this will go check out Shaun’s site right now. People, if you like original art with a demented bent to it, go check out Shaun’s stuff!
Nice Website Shaun, you’ve got a really great talent! Maybe some beard drawings to show off too?
Like the video, is a much more simple guide than others ive seen which is great!
Love the beard Adam, ive found myself constantly comparing facial hair and stubble among any faces that i see. Its interesting to see how each persons facial hair patterns change around their mouth.
Did you see Hugh Laurie with his beard? http://www.accidentalsexiness.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/hughross.jpg
love it!
Is there anyway to help even the growth of a beard? under my chin and around my moustache seem to grow really fast but my cheeks and jaw line are much slower.
Keep up the good work! love the site
Glad you liked the video, Tom!
I had not seen Hugh Laurie’s beard… he can grow a really good one! His mustache in particular is super thick, which always makes for a solid beard.
My advice for your particular growing situation is just to keep trimming the faster-growing parts back with an electric beard trimmer while the rest of the face catches up. I’ll occasionally use that technique if I want my chin area to gain a bit of length on my cheeks. Try it out!
Holy Crap! Thats a decent beard on old Hugh!
And Tom, I have the same problem with uneven growth. I do the same thing Adam recommended, just trim the fast bits and allow the slow ones to catch up. Easy!
Great Work Adam!
A Welcome addition to an already fantastic Website.
It really cleared up the mystery of beard maintenance. Although I found a little experimentation to be helpful too, I messed up my beard last month when I was trying something new and ended up looking like something furry had died on my face! So lesson learned, I shaved it all off and started again. One of the great things about a beard is that they grow back (even if you have to go through that itchy stage again, its worth it)
So thank you Adam for taking the time to help us already bearded foke and for enlightening those who are yet to be bearded.
Kind Regards,
Daniel Richard
Thanks for the kind words, Daniel. I’m really glad to hear that you dig the site!
I agree with you that a great part of being able to grow a beard is experimentation. Like you said, if you take a risk and lose, you’re just a few weeks away from being back where you started. And you’re right, the itchy stage is nothing! There aren’t many bigger rewards for putting up with a bit of discomfort than ending up with a beard you’re proud of.
Do you hear this, my smooth-cheeked friends? What are you waiting for?!