Trimming a beard is easy and most men do it adequately at home. Setting the cheek line and the neck line is neither, and getting them a centimetre wrong is the difference between a kept beard and one that is merely present.
Two fingers above the Adam’s apple, curved, following the jaw round to under each ear. Set too high it makes the jaw look weak; set on the jawline itself it makes a beard look like it is falling off the face. Almost everyone sets it too high.
Drawn from the corner of the moustache to the bottom of the sideburn, and then softened. A hard straight line up there reads as drawn on, which is exactly the effect nobody is going for.
Scissor over comb through the sides, shorter at the cheek, fuller at the chin. That gradient is what gives a beard a shape rather than a volume.
Cut to the lip line, not above it. Trimmed dry, because wet hair springs up and you find out what you actually took off ten minutes later.
Straight razor along both lines and down the neck, with a hot towel. This is what makes the edge look cut rather than clipped, and it is why the twenty-eight dollars is not thirty seconds of clipper work.
The instinct at the mirror is to shave up to the jawbone, because that is the line you can see. It produces a beard that stops at the edge of the face and reads as a chin strap from any angle other than straight on.
The right place is roughly two fingers above the Adam’s apple, curved gently up towards the back of the jaw under each ear. It feels far too low when you are looking in a mirror. It is not, and the first time somebody does it properly for you the difference in your jawline is the thing you notice.
It also takes about six weeks to recover if you get it wrong, which is the real argument for having it set by somebody standing where they can see all of it.
The advice to leave it entirely alone for a month is half right. Do not touch the length. Do keep both lines clean, because the awkward phase is almost entirely a line problem, and a four-week beard with a proper neck line looks intentional in a way that the same beard with a fuzzy one does not.
Come in every two to three weeks during that period. It is twenty-eight dollars and it is the difference between growing a beard and having one.
Roughly two fingers above the Adam’s apple, curved up towards the back of the jaw under each ear. It will feel too low in the mirror. Setting it on the jawbone itself is the single most common mistake and it reads as a chin strap.
Every two to three weeks if you are keeping the shape, and the same while you are growing one out. The length can look after itself; the lines cannot.
Dry. Wet hair sits longer and straighter than it will when it dries, so you find out what you actually removed about ten minutes too late.
Yes, along with the razor finish on both lines and a hot towel. Nothing on the beard trim is an add-on.
Walk in like everything else. Bring the beard you have rather than a photograph of somebody else’s.
Example interactive prototype. Not a real business. Names, photographs, reviews and figures on this page are illustrative. Identifying details on real client work are changed to protect their privacy. This is what Yeti can build for a barbershop in seven days.