There are plenty of beard-style charts online.
Most of them are either too vague to be useful, packed with made-up names, or they show a style without telling you how long it actually takes to get there.
This guide is meant to be different.
The graphic groups 30 beard and moustache styles into four families:
- Short & Everyday
- Full Beards
- Partial Beards & Goatees
- Moustaches
It also shows the face shapes each style tends to complement and a realistic estimate for how long it usually takes to achieve the illustrated look.
Styles marked with an asterisk are recognized World Beard & Moustache Championships competition categories. The Full Beardsman™ is ours.
Growth time means time to achieve the finished look shown.
It does not mean “how long until you technically have facial hair in that shape.” Density, curl, trimming, genetics, moustache training, terminal length and breakage all matter.
A guy with fast, straight growth and a dense beard is going to get there faster than someone with slower, curlier or more uneven growth.
Face Shape Matters — But It Is Not a Rulebook
The face-shape icons on the graphic are there as a guide, not a law.
Most faces fall broadly into one of these shapes:
Oval · Round · Square · Oblong · Heart · Diamond
The basic idea is balance.
A beard can add visual length, width, weight or structure to the face.
If your face is round, a longer beard can help create more vertical shape. If your face is long or oblong, adding more width through the sides can keep the beard from making the face look even longer.
Square faces can carry a lot of different beard shapes well, especially styles that either reinforce the jaw or soften it slightly. Heart and diamond-shaped faces often benefit from more weight through the chin and lower jaw. Oval faces are generally the most flexible.
None of that means you cannot wear a style that is not listed for your face shape.
Wear what you like.
Short & Everyday
Short beard styles are easier to maintain, but they are not maintenance-free. The shorter the beard, the more obvious uneven trimming, poor cheek lines and bad neckline placement become.
Stubble
Typical time: 2–5 days
Stubble is the shortest intentional facial-hair style. It works especially well on oval, round and square faces because it adds texture without dramatically changing the shape of the face.
Use a trimmer with a consistent guard and clean the neckline enough that the growth looks deliberate rather than accidental.
Heavy Stubble
Typical time: 7–14 days
Heavy stubble gives more definition than regular stubble and starts to add real shadow around the jaw. It still needs regular trimming because a few extra days can move it quickly from “heavy stubble” into an uneven short beard.
Short Boxed Beard
Typical time: 1–3 months
A short boxed beard follows the jaw closely and keeps the sides controlled. Keep the cheek line clean and the lower edge tight to the jaw. Do not cut the neckline too high.
Corporate Beard
Typical time: 2–4 months
The corporate beard is a little fuller than a short boxed beard but still disciplined. The shape should stay compact through the sides and clean through the neck.
Business Beard*
Typical time: 3–6 months
The WBMC Business Beard category is built around a beard that is full but still controlled and professional. This is a good choice for someone who wants a substantial beard without going into long-beard territory.
The Full Beardsman™
Typical time: 24–36+ months
The Full Beardsman™ is a long, full natural beard with visible length, weight and density.
It is not sculpted into a competition shape and it is not allowed to go completely wild either.
Grow it long. Keep it healthy. Keep the shape intentional.
A long beard like this takes years, not months. You get it by growing, maintaining, trimming carefully and not cutting off the progress every time the beard enters an awkward stage.
Full Beards
Full beards create the biggest visual change to the face. They also take the most patience. The longer the beard gets, the more important it becomes to manage shape, bulk and proportion.
Full Beard Natural*
Typical time: 6–12 months
A natural full beard keeps the beard largely in its natural growth pattern. That does not mean no grooming. It means the overall shape comes from the beard itself rather than aggressive sculpting.
Full Beard Styled Moustache*
Typical time: 8–14 months
This is a full beard paired with a deliberately styled moustache. The moustache becomes a visible feature of the overall look, so it requires more length and more training.
Full Beard Barber Style*
Typical time: 4–8 months
Barber-style full beards are more sculpted. The cheek line, neckline, side shape and transition into the moustache are usually more precise.
Verdi*
Typical time: 8–14 months
The Verdi combines a rounded full beard with a styled moustache. The beard usually stays relatively compact while the moustache carries more visual emphasis.
Garibaldi*
Typical time: 12–24 months
The Garibaldi is broad, full and rounded. It needs real beard mass, with the lower beard allowed to stay substantial rather than aggressively tapered.
Ducktail
Typical time: 5–9 months
The Ducktail keeps more width through the cheeks and sides, then tapers into a point through the chin. The trick is tapering the beard without making the point look artificial.
Hollywoodian
Typical time: 3–6 months
The Hollywoodian removes or minimizes the sideburn connection and keeps the beard concentrated around the moustache, jaw and chin.
Yeard
Typical time: 12 months
A yeard is exactly what it sounds like: one year of beard growth. Most people still do some cleanup during that year, but the defining idea is giving the beard a full year to develop before making major shape decisions.
Partial Beards & Goatees
Partial beard styles use facial hair to emphasize specific parts of the face. Because they remove large sections of beard growth, their shape matters more than their overall length.
Natural Goatee*
Typical time: 2–4 months
The natural goatee concentrates facial hair around the mouth and chin. Keep the boundaries clean without making the shape overly geometric.
Extended Goatee
Typical time: 2–4 months
The extended goatee takes the standard goatee and carries it farther along the jaw, giving more width and weight to the lower face.
Van Dyke
Typical time: 2–4 months
The Van Dyke combines a pointed chin beard with a separate moustache. The moustache and beard should remain visually distinct.
Balbo
Typical time: 2–4 months
The Balbo uses a moustache, chin beard and jawline beard without connecting them through the sideburns.
Anchor
Typical time: 2–4 months
The Anchor beard creates an anchor-like shape around the chin and jaw. It works best when the edges are deliberate and the chin section is clearly defined.
Musketeer*
Typical time: 4–8 months
The Musketeer combines a pointed beard with a more dramatic moustache. It needs enough moustache length to style and separate it from the beard.
Imperial Partial Beard*
Typical time: 4–8 months
The Imperial Partial Beard relies heavily on moustache styling and controlled facial-hair placement.
Alaskan Whaler*
Typical time: 6–12 months
The Alaskan Whaler emphasizes the lower face and side growth while leaving the upper lip comparatively bare. It needs enough density through the jaw and chin to look intentional.
Fu Manchu*
Typical time: 6–12 months
A true Fu Manchu depends on long moustache growth extending downward from the corners of the mouth. The hair has to grow long enough to hang and stay visually separate from the chin.
Mutton Chops
Typical time: 3–6 months
Mutton chops emphasize the sideburns and cheeks while removing the chin area. They work especially well on faces that benefit from added width.
Moustaches
Moustaches deserve their own category because they do not behave exactly like the rest of the beard.
They usually take longer than people expect. That is partly because moustache hair can grow differently from beard hair and partly because styled moustaches need training.
You are not just waiting for length. You are teaching the hair where to go.
Natural Moustache*
Typical time: 2–4 months
The natural moustache is allowed to grow with minimal shaping. Clean the bottom edge enough to stay comfortable, but let the density develop before deciding what it wants to become.
Dali Moustache*
Typical time: 6–12+ months plus training
The Dali requires significant length at the ends and consistent upward training. Wax helps shape it, but wax cannot replace length.
English Moustache*
Typical time: 6–12+ months plus training
The English moustache is long, narrow and trained outward. It usually takes several months before the ends have enough length to hold the shape properly.
Imperial Moustache*
Typical time: 6–12+ months plus training
The Imperial is fuller and more substantial than the English. It requires enough density and length to build a strong upward curl.
Hungarian Moustache*
Typical time: 8–18+ months plus training
A proper Hungarian moustache takes patience. It needs serious width, density and length through the ends. This is not a two-month moustache.
Chevron Moustache
Typical time: 2–4 months
The Chevron is thick, wide and straightforward. It does not require curling or elaborate training. The important part is letting enough density develop before trimming it into its final shape.
A Note on Competition Categories
Styles marked with an asterisk are recognized WBMC competition categories or established competition classifications.
Competition rules are more precise than a general grooming guide, and some categories include specific length limits or styling requirements. This guide simplifies those categories enough to make them useful outside a competition setting.
If you are entering an event, read the current official rules for that specific competition.
How to Choose a Beard Style
Start with three things:
Your natural growth pattern
Your face shape
How much maintenance you are actually willing to do
A style that fights your natural growth every morning is usually a bad long-term choice.
If your cheeks grow thin but your chin grows heavy, lean into a style that uses that. If your moustache grows well, give it room to become part of the look.
If you hate trimming every three days, do not choose a style that requires razor-sharp edges to look right.
And if you want a long beard, stop treating every awkward stage like a reason to cut it off.
How to Reference or Reproduce This Guide
Barbers, barber schools, educators, and editorial publishers may share or reproduce the original, unaltered Beardsman infographic with a visible credit to Beardsman Oil Co. and a link to the source guide. This permission applies to the Beardsman-created infographic, not to third-party material, and does not imply endorsement. Please do not crop out attribution, change labels or artwork, or present the illustration as official championship rules.
Suggested attribution: “Beard styling reference: Beardsman Oil Co., The Official Beardsman™ Beard Styling Guide (beardsmanoil.co).” Open the original infographic.
Sources, Classification and Growth Estimates
Beard and moustache competition classes differ by organization and event year. Asterisked names reflect recognized competition styles or related classifications, not a guarantee that every name is an exact current WBMC class title. For competition entries, consult the specific organizer's official rules rather than this general-use guide. Sources: 2025 World Beard and Moustache Championships results; 2027 championship category descriptions; U.S. National Beard and Moustache Championships categories.
The growth timelines shown are editorial estimates, not measured clinical averages. Starting length, genetics, terminal hair length, density, curl, trimming and styling requirements vary by individual. “The Full Beardsman™” is Beardsman's own named style, not an official competition class.
The Bottom Line
The best beard style is not necessarily the one a chart says fits your face.
It is the one your growth can support, your routine can maintain, and you actually like wearing.
Use the graphic as a starting point.
Then grow into it.
Beardsman™ Oil Co.
beardsmanoil.co
Competition category reference: World Beard & Moustache Championships — 2025 WBMC results.