Beards have always been a physical trait that portrays much about your individual style and personality. While many men are familiar with grooming and shaving their face by now, many still don’t realize the tremendous amount of variations in beard styles. Beards can be long or short, styled or unkempt, segmented or left whole.

Men who choose to grow out their beard tend to limit themselves, often, to a more rugged, less refined beard. While that is a completely acceptable option, men should also be familiar with other options and determine what’s the best fit for their personal style.

For this reason, we will provide you with a comprehensive list of long beard styles on the particular article.

When growing a long beard, remember, it takes quite a bit of patience. Beard hair typically grows at a rate of roughly ½ to 1 inch per month and it is nearly impossible to grow a solid beard in less than a month. When growing a beard, you should have your face also ways begin with the following steps:

  1. Clean shave your face, first. This may seem counterproductive to many men, but a clean shaven face allows hair to grow evenly and fuller.
  2. Do not trim or shape your beard for at least the first month. Depending on your beard growth, consider not shaping your facial hair during the second month as well. This promotes growth and allows you to understand how your hair grows, naturally, and allows you to see which beards you will be able to pull off based on your growth patterns.
  3. Take care of your skin. Hair is healthier if the underlying skin is cared for. We suggest that you always moisturize daily with a natural, nutrient, lightweight product in addition to daily cleansing products.
  4. Clean and condition the beard. At a point with most men, your skin will start to fight against your beard growth. It will itch and flake. Many men feel that the itch is unavoidable and shave it off. Trust me when I tell you, the itch and irritation will go away if you continue to shampoo and condition your beard with a good beard shampoo and conditioner.

After you have followed the above steps, you can now begin to choose the best beard type for you. Below we present all possible options for long beard styles:

The Full Beard

full beard

This has become the standard for most long beards. It is usually a four inches or more and it is trimmed and has a nice even growth to it. It is brushed down and serves a great starting point for creating more beard types. Many of the techniques that we discuss throughout this article can be used to maintain such a beard.

  • It should be trimmed often so that it is rounded and gives the face a nice circular appearance.

 

The Yeard

yeard long beard style

The Yeard, apart from being a beard style nowadays, it’s also a goal for many beardsmen. If you don’t know it by now, yeard is the combination of beard+year. More specifically, it’s when you grow out your beard for one year without trimming and shaping. Of course, you can clean your cheeks and neck to make it look more presentatble.

The Years is a beard that has a more rugged look than just about any other beard. Normally, you should just let both your beard and mustache grow as much as possible during one year of beard growth and keep the cheek and neckline clean for a neat look. It doesn’t take too much time and effort to shape as you simply let everything grow, irrespectively of the way it grows.

The Long Duck Tail

Long duck tail

The name of this beard might seem familiar to some as it’s the longer version of the popular duck tail beard style. If you ask us, this is one of the most impressive beard styles you can get at this length. This beard has more of a professional look to it than some other long beards. It seems to be a nice hybrid of masculinity and professionalism.

As you probably see in this picture, and as mentioend earlier, the beard gets its name from its similarity to the tail of a duck. This beard has been worn by several celebrities from Pierce Brosnan to Brad Pitt to Mel Gibson. The defining characteristics of this beard are shorter cheeks that cascades down the jaw until it comes to a point underneath the chin. Here’s how to get a Duck Tail:

  • You must first by growing out your beard. A Long Duck Tail should be at least 4 inches below the chin. It takes most men over 4 months to grow a beard that can be properly shaped into this style.
  • When growing out your beard, after the first month or two, you should trim the cheeks and mustache areas trimmed shorter. Some men opt for a clean shaven neck area, others just trim it every 5 to 7 days.
  • Trimming the ducktail involves tapering the hair below the jawline down to a point. Make sure you do each side little by little as the hair needs to be symmetrical and shaving too much on one side will dilute the look.
  • Use beard oil or balm to mold the chin hair to a central point. Many men use beard wax to further shape the beard and mustache.
  • So men leave the mustache alone so that it has a seamless connection to the beard. Others curl up the tips of the mustache for added style. This is achieved by putting some strong mustache wax on and twirling the tips of the mustache.

The Old Dutch

old dutch beard style

This is the beard that most men associate with the Amish but there is a slight difference between it and a true Amish Beard. If you have seen the movie, Kingpin, you know which beard we are referring to as the Amish beard. While the Amish and Old Dutch are similar, the Amish beard is less trimmed and shaped than the Old Dutch.

The Old Dutch is best known by its lack of mustache and thick rounded bottom. The Old Dutch is the longer, larger version of the Dutch beard. What distinguishes this beard from many others is that it is connected by sideburns and the bottom of the beard flares out below the jaw at that point of connection.

  • The Old Dutch needs at least 3-4 inches of hair below the jawline.
  • You must clean shave the mustache every two days or so. There should be no hair on the upper lip present or this beard style becomes a different type of beard.
  • The cheeks from inside the sideburns to below the lips should also be clean shaven. This should be kept up every few days. The hair should be shaved to match the curve of the hair below the jaw. Most men opt to leave hair below the bottom lip referred to as the soul patch.
  • Every 5-10 days take a trimmer and round the base of the beard. The hair below the jaw directly below the cheeks should but left as wide as the widest part of the hair on your head or wider. You should round the hair so that it has an even curve from from one cheek to the other.

The Garibaldi

garibaldi long beard style

Giuseppe Garibaldi is the namesake of this beard. He was a famous Italian General that was known for being the Honorary Grand Master of the Grand Orient of Italy.

His beard is almost identical to the Old Dutch but it includes a mustache. The mustache should connect to the beard and brushed down.

The only difference in shaping the beard to an Old Dutch is keeping the mustache trimmed on the upper lip and you normally don’t sculpt it as it stays fairly short.

The Verdi

verdi long beard style

A beard that has the same shape of the Old Dutch and Garibaldi but with a styled mustache.

It gets its name from the composer Giuseppe Verdi. When sporting this style, the mustache should be trimmed similar to the Garibaldi but the ends should be left longer and curled up with some nice wax.

The Wide Battle Axe

wide battle axe long beard style

A beard with this name is also called the Viking beard. Many people have always assumed that Vikings were huge, dirty, burly men. This is not totally true, they may not have showered daily (few people that weren’t royalty did) but they did take care of their skin and hair. Another misconception is that they were large men. They were actually smaller than most men in the same area due to the lack of consistent nutrition.

Vikings took their beards seriously and we constantly applying oil, combing them, and trimming them. This article uses the term Wide Battle Axe because the Viking beard does have some variations (some braid the bottle under the chin) while the Wide Battle Axe always looks the same.

  • The beard needs to be at least 4 inches or more long.
  • It serves as a hybrid of three above mentioned beard styles (the yeard, the long duck tail, and old dutch/Garibaldi ).
  • It is left full on the sides with a really subtle slope to a point below chin. It is much less sharp than the duck tail. Some men use a ruler to ensure that the lines on each straight are sharp and straight.
  • The hair on the cheeks should be left longer and the only trimming that should be done routinely is the mustache and neck area.

The Battle Axe

battle axe long beard style

Similar shaping to the Wide Battle Axe but with a sharper angle of trimming below the chin, is the Battle Axe. The angle of the hair should be between the Long Duck Tail and the Wide Battle Axe.

  • Trim the hair below the jawline at roughly a 30 degree angle.
  • Shave the hair on the cheeks so that the hair begins around the upper lip.
  • The hair on the cheeks should be trimmed so that they cascade down to the bottom of the beard.

The Full Van Dyke

full van dyke

Getting its name from the Flemish Painter, Anthony van Dyck, this is a variation of his goatee and mustache hybrid. The traditional Van Dyke has clean shaven cheeks and hair just a flaired up mustache and hair on the chin and sole patch.

This beard has a similar slope of hair below the jawline to the Duck Tail/Battle Axe but can be slightly less polished. The mustache and the pointy beard below the jaw make this beard style. Most men leave their mustaches long with this beard so that it can be styled up.

  • The mustache is curled up on the tips so that the mustache makes almost straight line just below the nose with pointy tips.
  • The mustache should grow well beyond the edges of the lips.
  • We suggest using mustache wax daily for the desired effect.
  • Trim the base of this beard using the same method as the Duck Tail or Battle Axe and apply a beard wax or balm to keep the style in place.

The Broken Trinity

broken trinity

A beard that had many of the same characteristics of the Long Duck Tail but doesn’t come to the same point. The tip of this beard is more rounded or straight across. It would have a similar shape down the jawline as the Long Duck Tail.

  • Follow trimming techniques of the Long Duck Tail except stop the slope at the edge of the lips.
  • When you get to the lips, take the trimmers and curve the tips of the beard so that it has a rounded edge. The sideburns should be left shorter and the beard should get gradually longer down the face.

The Siamese Beards

siamese beards

Looking at the picture shows that this is quite the interesting beard. It is rounded underneath both cheeks and cuts up higher below the chin. Trust when we say it is a hard beard to pull off but a showstopper.

  • This beard should be left to grow out in a similar manner to the Wide Battle Axe beard. It should be as wide as the hair below the cheeks.
  • Trimming should be be done little by little and go from one side to the other. We prefer to start by rounding out the beard so that it has an even curve like the Old Dutch beard then cutting out the middle.
  • The middle should be cut similar to a triangle shape so that the sides look like even shaped circles.
  • Trim the mustache and neckline regularly.
  • Make sure you use a good pair of scissors rather than a trimmer for this job as it gives you higher accuracy while styling.

The Super Wizard

super wizard long beard style

A super wizard beard is a longer version of the standard wizard beard or American Civil War-type beard. You have seen this beard on, you guessed it, many movie wizards such as Gandalf. While this beard is long, it is not necessarily an unkempt beard. Heres how to achieve such a beard.

  • Let the beard grow and grow and grow. This beard will most likely take you a year and a half or longer to obtain.
  • When trimming the super wizard, you must trim two main parts of the face, the mustache and the neck. The beard should come down, naturally, longer on the chin to give an almost point to the beard. Trimming the neck aides in giving the beard this desired look. You should trim your neck every 7-10 days so that it looks maintained and controlled. Men with the Super Wizard could trim the mustache above the lip if they wish to or simply let it grow and let gravity do its magic by allowing the mustache to follow the rest of the beard. However, few men want to eat their mustache hair. We suggest you brush it down and use a pair of scissors or trimmer to trim the hair just about the upper lip once every two weeks or so. Some men have sporadic hair growth patterns. If your hair grows longer on the cheeks faster than the chin, it is ok to trim that area to a consistent length or shape the beard to the wanted point below the chin.
  • Brush or comb the hair daily. Always comb the beard downward with the grain of the hair. Not only will this keep the beard clean of debris but it will train the beard to grow downward.
  • Take care of that beard. In addition to beard shampoo and conditioner, beard oil will help the hair from becoming dry and brittle as it lengthens. As the hair gets longer, it is farther away from the skin which provides it with needed oils and moisture. We suggest you dab a little oil on your comb or a boar beard brush and work it into the beard.

While a long beard is always impressive, it is not given the term, Super Wizard, until it is at least past your sternum. This is not an easy task to accomplish, but it never fails to impress once achieved.

The Sparrow

sparrow beard style

Some ninja masters or older, wise Asian men in movies are portrayed with the sparrow. Still, it gets its name for its most notorious wearer, Captain Jack Sparrow. It is a huge favorite among quirky facial hair wearers. It is a blend of mustache, soul patch, and goatee whiskers of sorts. Here’s how to get it:

  • Shave your cheeks and neck completely clean. Make sure not to mess with the hair above the lip, below the lip, and on the chin.
  • The mustache should grow past the corners of the mouth.
  • Take a trimmer and shape the soul path into a downward pointing triangle shape.
  • Make sure that the hair on the chin is allowed to extend just beyond the edges of the mouth and let the bottom grow as long as possible. It must be at least 4 or 5 inches.
  • Part the chin hair into two separate strands and braid them. Some men use strands while others use beads to adorn the strands.

As we stated earlier, men wanting to grow a long beard have multiple options. We hope this guide gave you some options that allow you to mold and shape your beard into a style that perfectly fits you.