It’s true!  I’ve done quite a bit of observational study on this issue and have come to this conclusion: the longer your moustache, the fuller your beard will be perceived.  You can leave your beard the same length it has always been.  If you want people to really be impressed by the fullness of your beard, all you have to do is let that ’stache grow.

Let me speculate a bit as to the reason why.  I have to say that the robustness of a man’s beard is inversely proportional to the amount of his mouth left unobscured.  By that I mean, the less of your lips we can see, the bigger your beard seems.  The thing is, the hair on your chin has nothing to do with this!  Thus many people will look at your hidden mouth and think, “Dang, that’s a big beard!”  When in actuality the cheek and chin hairs may be barely longer than an electric trimmer guard.  I

Here’s how dedicated I am to your beard dedication.  I had a nice long moustache to compliment my beard just moments earlier. But to illustrate my point, I set my electric clippers to a 6 and knocked the ’stache back, taking “before” and “after” pictures for your comparison.  As you can see from the pics below, the effect is most pronounced when the beard is viewed in profile; although, this could just be an attribute of my own beard and not a universal truth.  Keep in mind that I did not touch my beard at all between photos (although I could probably use a little tidying around the edges.)

BEFORE

AFTER

What do you think?  Can you see a difference?

(Time to start growing that sweet ’stache back…)