The Handlebar Club Forum

Please share how you determine which hair goes into the mustache, and which stays in the beard, particularly if you trim either. Thanks.

Cheers,

Bob

Well, I currently have a beard – about 5 ½ months untrimmed, so it is getting pretty bushy. I started this beard to see if I could conceivably use some hair beyond the traditional confines to extend or support my moustache somehow. For a while I thought my chances looked good, but now I'm not so sure; my moustache seems to have very well defined natural boarders (not below the corners of my mouth and not beyond the creases formed in my cheeks when I smile). In order to make use of some beard hair to extend my moustache, I would have to style it lower than I like. Oh well, I think I may have picked up a few hairs to thicken up the tips we'll see...

In any case, I usually style my moustache so that it has a nice swoop to it but looks pretty natural. I use a very small amount of wax and style it as I would with no beard. When I get to the stage where I comb it out, I can separate out any hairs that I don't want included. But this is not really an issue when I wear my moustache as normal. If I style the tips sharp, I have to take more care. Then I push my tongue against the corner of my mouth to make my moustache stick out from my face more. That makes it easier to get moustache hair only.

I am planning to trim my beard down to a George V style in the spring. Then I'll (hopefully) have some good ideas about trimming the beard while leaving the moustache.

I'm still a newbie at this but I'm working on both. I use what seems to be the traditional ending points on the sides of the 'stache, I might be a bit wider but not substantially. When I trim the beard (which I do in order to keep the handlebar more visible) I keep it longer than my former tight trim. To manage the 'stache during this process I overload it with conditioner and then comb the handles back towards the bar, hold it in place with a finger and trim the area underneath it with clippers in the other hand. The conditioner seems to make the process easier, softens the whiskers and it's needed anyways.

I'm afraid I'm guilty of putting connector into my handlebar on occasion, it adds a little body to what would potentially be a whispy moustache.

What is "connector" or is that an unnoticed spell-checker replacement for conditioner?
David

At present for my 'adapted' Seasick Steve style (Steve has his moustache down - not out in a handlebar), I simply lift the best bunch of moustache hairs away from the rest of the cheek-beardy bit beyond the edge of my lip, apply hot air having on Schnauzer's recommendation applied heat protection serum, and pull/dry/set the moustache in the warm air.

I've then carefully cropped back the area of beard under the now-defined ends of my moustache growth to match the length of the side and cheek growth, consistent with my Seasick mentor's long-goatee-and-short-sides style.
David

"Connector" in this context describes the hairs along the sides of your mouth that connect your moustache to your chin hair.

Wouldn't "connector", if used for that, have been stated in the plural case?
D

Or you could consider that the word "hair" was an intentional stylistic elliptical omission on bearded bicycles' part; i.e. "connector hair".

Any other questions?

Haha, David I feel like I should reiterate; what I meant was "connector hair" as smedstad has already written. I really should have been more specific, but I'm on the west coast of the colonies and the Queen's English has become somewhat misused, as it were.

My experience is that the moustache is everything above the lip and within the smile lines. Quite difficult to do by yourself, but something a decent barber is good at!