Trimming a beard’s neckline is quite important. It is actually more important than the trimming of the whiskers that make up the beard. If your neckline is messy, you will look messed up in general. I will teach you the step to step way to outline the bottom of your beard to make it pop that you will command respect from others.
Do not start to trim your beard along the jawline
You see a lot of people that decide that they need to start to trim their beard right at their jawline. This is going to shorten the look of your face and it will make you look as if you have a giraffe neck. You need to balance things out by lowering the bottom part of your beard.
If you have very short stubble, you might be able to get away with it. However, with a beard that has weeks of length to it, it will be fuller than stubble and by having your complete neck exposed, the contrast will end up highlighting your neck area versus the beard that you care about.
If you are looking to create some contrast between a goatee and your neck, shaving just underneath the chin is fine. People will be zeroing in on your goatee and not your neck.
Nevertheless, if you have a beard instead of stubble, ensure that you do not start to trim at the jawline. You need to maintain a good foundation for your beard. Cutting just below the jaw will look strange, especially if you were to lift up your chin. It will look as if something is missing.
1. Start to Trim it Just Above the Adam’s Apple
In order to figure out where to start to trim the bottom border of your beard, you need to accurately measure where to start to trim. The best way is to start with your Adam’s apple. Place two fingers at the top of it horizontally and that is where you need to start to trim.
Trimming at this stage should be done with a beard trimmer. I have reviewed beard trimmers, click here to read about my picks. If you were to shave with a razor, the whiskers might be too long and you could end up cutting into the skin. Neck skin is highly elastic and you need to trim down the whiskers before shaving. Otherwise, a razor will pull on the whisker and the skin will be displaced. When the skin surface is not totally flat, the probability of digging into the surface of the skin with a razor is high.
Also, the cartilage that makes up the top of your Adam’s apple is creating ridges that a razor would have to deal with. I have noticed that my neck is the only place where I have had to add tiny pieces of toilet paper to soak up blood drops, especially close to my Adam’s apple.
Now you are ready to start to trim. Just hold the trimmer at this invisible line with the blades pointing downwards above your Adam’s apple, and pull the trimmer down to bottom of your neck. Do this a few times in this area with the blades pointing upwards so that you have trimmed as much as possible. Next, we will deal with how to determine the curvature of the rest of the beard line in the neck region.
2. Draw an Invisible Line Parallel to Jawline from the Point above Adam’s Apple
This next step involves drawing a line that follows the curve of your jawline. Make sure that you are keeping the same distance between this invisible line and the beard as you had used for above the Adam’s apple. This line should extend the end of where your beard grows. The area of growth will vary from person to person.
Do not worry if you feel as if the trimmed area is still too dark. We will deal with that darkness in another step. You just want to trim down as far as possible using the lowest setting on your beard trimmer. If your trimmer has a guard on it, make sure that you had removed it so that you be able to trim super short the next whiskers.
I have always wondered how far down I need to shave. My neck is full of whisker follicles and I need to trim the whole surface of the front of my neck. What I do personally, is I trim right down to the top of my clavicles. Even though the growth at the clavicle line is just hair growth, I still like to keep it smooth. Sometimes I wear t-shirts that expose this area and having tiny hairs crawling over the collar of my t-shirts just plain looks funny.
3. Trim in a Curved Motion around the Front of Your Ears
Now we are going to cover the area around the ears. I have noticed that some people just ignore this area. I feel that you need to create a neat line that curves around the front part of your ears. If not, it will look as if you have a series of spider legs reaching towards your ears which is a not a good look for anyone. A powerful male grooming tip is to keep hair and whiskers looking organized and well-structured. This principle also applies to fashion choices for men.
To make the gap between your beard and ears well-structured, you need to envision a slightly curved invisible line that contours your beard that is across from the front of your ears. The distance from the ears and the beard will vary slightly from person to person. Just make sure that it is wide enough so that you can clearly define your beard in this area.
If this space between your ear is narrow and you are afraid that using a trimmer will be a too squeeze for you, use beard scissors to trim this area. I recommend to the beard scissors by Condor 5 (link to Amazon). There is no need to push down on the edge of the beard to measure where to cut. Just hold a handheld mirror to your ear and trim along your invisible line.
What is great about this area on the face is that you probably will have zero whiskers or hair growth bordering the front of your ears. Even if you have a massive beard, this space is usually quite smooth.
4. Now Use a Razor on your Newly Trimmed Neck
Finally, we are at the point where we are going to create the smoothness on your neck. Make sure that you a fresh razor handy that has multiple blades. I like the Gillette type called the Fusion5 Gillette razor that comes with 4 blades (link to Amazon). If you were to use a razor with less than 3 blades, you would need to complete more passes to get the optimal smoothness in your neck region.
First of all, add some shaving gel to one of your hands, about the size of a quarter. Rub your hands together and apply the cream to your neck region. I find that it is best to apply shaving cream in small circular movements so that it will get into bottom portions of the whiskers. If you were to simply slap the cream onto your neck, there would be patches that are void of cream, making it harder to achieve the close shave that is required on the neck.
The best direction initially is to shave from the top to the bottom of your neck. Usually, the grain of growth on the neck is in this direction. When shaving your neck is also advisable to go with the direction of whisker growth with the first pass to avoid causing ingrown whiskers. Now, rinse off your neck with warm water and complete the second pass but against the grain. Splash warm water on your neck afterward and pat dry your neck with a clean towel.
Congratulations, you have now trimmed the neckline of your beard correctly.
Reasons For Defining The Bottom of a Beard
I will now explain different arguments as to why you may need to define well your beard neckline.
If you are Balding, Trim Lower on your Neck
If you are someone like myself that prefers to keep your head shaved, in order to balance out the look of your head and neck, you need have a beard neckline that is defined at a level slightly lower than two fingers from the top of your Adam’s apple.
Having the invisible line drawn at just one finger from the top of your Adam’s apple will be much better. Also, ensure that you allow your beard to be quite full. If you do so, the attention will be drawn away from the top of your head. It is better for people to focus in on your facial features instead of them being mesmerized by your shiny bald head.
Creating the Illusion of a Strong Jaw
If you have a smaller jaw and you would like to highlight your jaw area to make it more pronounced, you do so with having a beard style that is half stubble and half thicker beard.
- To create this strong jaw look, you will need to grow stubble on your beard that is above the jawline. Make sure that you have an even border on the top edge. Using a razor to create this line is a good plan.
- Now, for the rest of your beard that is below the jawline, let it grow slightly longer so that it darker and thicker than the stubbled section of your beard.
- This will highlight the line of your jaw. It will appear as if you had used a black marker on your jawline.
Add Balance to Your face
If you were to trim your beard just before your jawline, you would end up with a face that is not correctly balanced. It would appear as if your mouth was just an inch away from your jawline. Also, your neck would seem to be longer than a normal neck.
To have a balanced face, you need a jawline that has space between the jaw and the mouth. Also, a well-groomed beard will highlight the rest of your face correctly. You want people to notice your facial features since facial expressions can say a lot about us in a non-verbal way.
Makes You Look Thinner if You Are Overweight
Since your eyes are drawn to lighter spaces on the face, you need to have a beard neckline that is not going to highlight your neck region. If you were to trim your beard up too high on the neck, your neck will become super apparent. If you are overweight, usually your neck bulges out more than if you were slim. You need to have a beard that covers more of your neck so that your face will become the focal point of someone’s attention.
How Far to Trim to Create a Short Beard Neckline
I used to have a short beard a few years ago. I always had trouble deciding on how much to trim for the proper neckline. I did some research to find out what others are doing for a short beard. In general, it is quite easy to draw the imaginary line on the neck region for this length of beard.
The method is to lift up your head so that you can see where the angle begins from the top of your neck to the start of the bottom of your jawline. This is where is it best to trim for the neckline. For most men, the line will pass about an inch from the top of their Adam’s apple.
How To Trim a Beard Cheek Line
I have noticed that there is a style of beard where the uneven pattern of cheek whisker remains. Some people like the rugged look that this creates. Personally, I am OK with it, but this area does need to be tamed somewhat. If not, you may look as if you are starting phrase where a man turns into a werewolf on a whole moon. The whiskers seem to form jagged lines that look messy.
Here are some steps to follow to trim your beard cheek line:
- Draw an invisible line that creates an upper line in your beard is not patchy. The patchiness will be most apparent just below the cheeks.
- Hold a moist and warm towel against your cheeks for 30 seconds to loosen up your beard follicles.
- Add some shaving gel to one of your hands and then rub your hands together until foam forms.
- Add the shaving foam to your cheeks and shave down to the invisible line that creates an even line at the top of your beard.
- Rinse off the excess foam and pat dry with a dry towel, the wet areas.
How to Trim a Long Beard Neckline
When you have a long beard, you will not need to worry too much about the neckline. Your longer beard will hang down further which hides the upper neck region. Nevertheless, if you are like me, your beard line may extend to almost the bottom of your neck. If so, then follow the following steps to create a clean beard neckline:
- Raise your head up to see if you can see any unevenness in the neckline of your beard.
- Using a beard trimmer, cut off any stray whiskers that are hanging down in the neck area that are breaking up your beard line.
- If you notice that you do have some stray whiskers that further down, you will need to trim them down at the stage also.
- Now add some shaving foam to the neck region that had just trimmed.
- Using a razor that had multiple blades, shaving your neck section that is below the bottom of your beard.
- Splash some warm water on your neck to wash off any excess foam and pat down your neck using a clean hand towel.
Top Beard Neckline Styles
There are actually different neckline styles that create various beard looks. Here are a few that I had noticed:
- The neck beard style that Lebron James seems to like. It is easy to set-up. You just shave your beard down to your jawline and then allow your beard to grow underneath your chin and all the way down to your Adam’s apple. It seems to cause your jawline to look larger providing your face with a strong appearance.
- The Skater Boy Neckbeard style. I have noticed that some skateboarders like to shave their face completely (except for the sideburns) and then they allow their beard under their chin to grow out completely. Sometimes it is so long that they are able to style their neckbeards with holding gel to make come to a point. Also, they allow their sideburns to grow to the same length.
- Cotton Candy Gamer Neckline Beard. Some of the older gamers, the ones that can grow a full beard, shave their face completely and allow the region underneath their chins to sprout. I think that they use a beard comb to fluff it out since it tends to look like as if cotton candy is clinging to the bottom of their faces. The gamer style seems to dictate that long flowing hair is also a must.
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