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How to Trim a Anchor Beard

The origin of the name of the anchor beard is pretty clear—the beard looks like a nautical anchor! The moustache makes up the two arms of the stock, the soul patch is the shank, and the body of your beard makes up the two arms of the anchor’s base. Trimming this beard style however, is a bit more complicated than just pointing out the parts on an anchor.

 

Grab your beard trimmers, this beard style is neat and tidy, with minimal long, loose facial hairs. The anchor goatee style has no sideburns or mutton chops and no cheek hair. It sits on your chin and under your lower lip, and the moustache is kept short and contained. It’s similar to a Van Dyke or a Balbo beard (or even a ducktail beard), however those are bigger and thicker than the simple anchor beard.

 

The anchor beard style takes a bit of skill to perfect, so if you’re not 100% happy with it the first time, don’t worry, plenty before you have had the same experience. It does require beard care like most short beard styles, you need to keep your anchor beard trimmed and styled, keeping the hair shorter and neater than bigger beard styles.

Step 1: Trim your beard

The first step in shaping any beard (other than first spending some time growing your beard) is to give all your facial hair a nice, even trim. Use your beard trimmer to trim all your beard hair down to around 3-5mm in length.

Step 2: Precision shave
Use a precision trimmer to create a neat border for your beard. This includes where your neck meets your chin. The anchor beard doesn’t extend down the neck. (Some larger beards like the Van Dyke beard, Balbo beard, and more can extend all the way to your Adam’s apple, but never any further or you’re in neck beard territory.) Still using the precision trimmer, define the shape of your goatee beard. Remember the anchor shape here. If you don’t go in tight enough (if you still accidentally have a handlebar moustache), don’t worry we’ll walk you through how to clean it up with a clean shave in a little bit.

 

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What you need

Beardtrimmer series 5000

Beard trimmer

One pass even trim

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Step 3: Trim your moustache
You’d be forgiven for thinking the moustache in an anchor beard is big and prominent, but it’s actually quite a thin moustache. Not a pencil moustache by any means, but not one of your thicker moustache styles. Trim your moustache so that it extends just a little bit further out than the corners of your mouth. No more than 1cm on either side.

Step 4: Cleanly shave your face
The anchor beard shape is such an iconic shape that any stubble—even a 5 o’clock shadow—can be distracting from this beard, one of the most impressive facial hair styles you can create. Use a rotary shaver and gentle, circular motions or a safety razor and light, gentle strokes to get a clean -haven neck and cheeks.

Shaving is a hot bathroom or during the heat of the day can make razor burn worse. Try shaving in the evening to give irritable skin a chance to recover overnight.
Step 5: Maintain your beard
Because of how intricate this beard can be, you need to put in the time and effort to maintain it. This isn’t an Amish beard you can just grow out, it’s not a chinstrap beard that doesn’t take a lot of effort, it’s a famous goatee style beard that is the stylish centrepiece on your face. Keep the rest of your face clean shaven—even use a straight razor if that’s your style. Use whatever shaving gels, shaving creams, or other shaving essentials are most comfortable for your skin.

An important part of any beard is taking care of your face and facial hair. It’s about more than style, hair growth can cause beard itch, so use cleansers on your face to keep it clean and happy and always moisturise after shaving to soothe the skin. 

 

If you’re worried about beard growth, use a beard brush—this will draw the natural beard oils down the hair, and it can excite the follicles to encourage beard growth—especially important if you’re worried about a patchy beard. To style it, you can use some moustache wax , maybe even experimenting with a handlebar moustache style. Always wash it out with a beard cleanser at the end of the day. All this will keep your skin purified and help maintain that anchor style.