The Art of Facial Hair and Grooming
Facial hair has been an important part of the male persona for thousands of years. And today, beards, mustaches and goatees are as popular as ever. However, today the purpose does not include determining social hierarchy. Instead, facial hair is used to balance facial features and correlate the proportions of the head, face and neck. Men are usually very particular about the design of the growth. And expert trimming remains a specialty of the your barber just as it was in days gone by.
The goal of any facial growth is to emphasize your great futures and minimize your those that are less desirable.
Proper trimming is really an art. Your barber must consider balance, proportion and an artful eye as no ones face is perfectly symmetrical. It is the barbers job to create the illusion that our faces are symmetrical. You can call you barber a magician!
Your barber starts with your natural hairline in the sideburn, cheek and mustache as a guide. There is also detail given to the area under the chin as this is where the direction of hair growth often changes. By analyzing these areas we can help determine design options.
During the first trimming, it is wise to leave the facial hair slightly longer than the desired end result. This helps to avoid cutting the hair too short and leaves it long enough to re-trimming toward the end of the beard design service.
Beard design and trimming is usually performed with a combination of the shears, comb, outliner and or clippers and razor. Creating the best straight lines with pencil sharp detail will be best accomplished with a straight razor.
Hear are some general guidelines your barber will follow:
- Coarse facial features: heavier looking mustache
- Prominent nose: medium to large mustache
- Long, narrow face: narrow to medium mustache
- Larger mouth: pyramid shaped mustache
- Smaller mouth: medium, short mustache
- Round face with regular features: semi-square mustache
- Square face with strong features: heavier, linear mustache with ends slightly curving downward
Your barber also offers additional services to enhance your mustache while shaping and trimming. They include but are not limited to waxing mustache ends, penciling with temporary color, camouflage color to reduce a little of the grey, and color to create color compatibility with your scalp hair color.
Excerpts from Milady’s Professional Barbering