Some of us have super-straight beards that are a breeze to groom, some of us have seriously curly beards that are impossible to run a comb through, and many of us exist somewhere in the middle: we’ve got wavy beards that have a nice soft curl to them, without being too extreme in either direction. It’s a great look, but if you have a wavy beard, then you know it can be a little bit difficult to grow, and it can often leave guys wondering how to style it, how to groom it, etc.
With that in mind, here are a few examples of wavy beards and how to nurture them, along with some info on how to keep them clean, accentuate the waves, and even how to de-wave it, should you want that (and we’d urge to keep your waves—a wavy beard really is a fantastic style).
Anyway, here we go. Let’s start with some pics and get to the how-to stuff after that:
Wavy Beard: Examples and Styles
Let’s start with the “white tiger” of wavy beards:
The Short Wavy Beard
The short wavy beard is actually somewhat rare—most guys only grow waves in their beard after it gets some length—but here’s one:
Many men with wavy beards wear them short because it keeps the wavy hair neat and uniform while still showing the beauty and uniqueness of the wavy style. To get the short wavy beard, you’ll still have to let your facial hair grow out a bit or else the waves won’t come in.
We recommend using clippers to trim the beard no shorter than 12 mm up to around 20 mm. You can also trim the cheeks a little closer, kind of like a ducktail beard so that the waves only come in on the chin.
The Medium-Length Wavy Beard
This guy has some great depth to his beard, and it’s in that great region between “short” and “long.” You can see the waves towards the bottom of the beard, where it comes to a point:
This can be a GREAT look for just about any guy—it’s masculine and shapes the face nicely, it’s well-groomed and clean, and it’s relatively easy to attain, because you don’t need to be one of those guys with super-thick growth to get it. Plus, it looks great regardless of your hair situation—this guy has a thick head of hair, but this shape beard looks great if you’re bald or balding.
The Long Wavy Beard
To really show off your waves, you’ll need to grow out your beard a bit more. Most wavy beards have about one wave every two inches, so to get the full wave effect, you need about four inches of growth.
Of course, you’ll still need to trim the beard regularly to keep the hairs even as well as practice other important grooming habits like applying
The Round Bottom Wavy Beard
Giving your beard a round bottom gives it a softer, less aggressive look that’s both masculine and professional all at once. A round bottom beard also generally requires less grooming than a boxed beard since it follows the shape of your face and jaw.
To get the rounded beard look, just trim the beard in a circle with the shape of your lower jaw. You may have to trim a little closer at the cheeks than the chin to get the full rounded look. Make sure you give it a good combing or brushing regularly to help the waves fill out the round design.
The Boxed Wavy Beard
A boxed beard in general is a good style to provide a sharp, masculine look. If you feel like you have a weak chin or soft jawline and want to make it bigger and sharper, a boxed beard could be right for you.
Boxed beards can be a bit more difficult to achieve for guys with wavy beards because the wave gives the hair a spring that can cause it to change lengths based on how long it’s been since you washed it, the humidity, etc. It also takes longer to grow because the hair from the cheeks needs to come down to the same point as the chin hair, meaning it needs to be a lot longer.
To get a boxed wavy beard, you’ll need a little patience. It will be round for a while, but once your chin hair is over an inch long, you can start trimming it to create the straight edge on the bottom. Make sure you regularly comb, brush, and groom your beard so that the waves stay as consistent as possible.
The Bandholz Wavy Beard
The Bandholz beard has become one of the most popular styles lately. It looks artistic and fashionable and is a good choice for men in creative industries. It’s also one of the best styles for wavy beards because the waves naturally produce the flares that other men have to artificially groom into their facial hair.
Specifically, a Bandholz consists of a flared but boxed beard with an especially long and flared mustache, something that may come to you naturally if your mustache hair is wavy too. Grooming and trimming the Bandholz is similar to the boxed beard, but you’ll have to pay extra attention to the mustache. You may have to use beard wax to set the perfect look.
The Gentleman’s Wavy Beard
Many men get frustrated when they age but continue to be perceived as young. Growing a traditional gentleman’s beard is a great way to give yourself a professional but mature look that will exude the confidence and experience that garner respect. Men with any hair type can do the gentleman’s style, but, in our opinion, it looks especially good for those with wavy hair.
A gentleman’s beard is similar to a Bandholz, but you should allow it to round out a bit more on the bottom. You can let your waves fill out a bit more naturally. Additionally, pay close attention to the mustache, which should be longer on the sides and flare out above the beard.
Here’s another version of the “wavy gentleman”:
The Full Mane Wavy Beard
The full mane is one of the hardest beard styles to pull off, but if you have wavy facial hair, you have a big advantage. Sometimes called a Santa Claus beard, the full mane involves seamlessly blending the sideburns into the scalp hair so that the hair and bear appear as one singular mane around the face. It requires the sideburn hair to be particularly long and flare out from the face instead of growing down.
Since you have a wavy beard, your hair has a lot of volume and rigidity that will help it resist gravity and flare out from your face. While you want to do some standard trimming to keep the ends neat, the main thing you’ll have to focus on is brushing the sideburns and head hair together and getting the sideburns and mustache to flare out as much as possible.
The Ducktail Wavy Beard
A ducktail beard is a classic beard type where the hair is considerably longer on the chin than the cheeks giving it the long, rounded appearance of a duck’s tail. It accentuates the chin and makes it appear larger and more prominent. It’s a good choice for men who want their round or wide faces to look longer.
Like a rounded bottom beard, wavy facial hair often falls naturally into the chin of a ducktail with a little bit of touching up. You’ll just have to be vigilant trimming the cheeks to keep them neat and shorter. Depending on how stiff your wavy hair is, you may have to trim below the first wave.
Here’s a wavy ducktail beard on a younger fella:
The Preppy / Well-Dressed Wavy Beard
The rest of the beards in our “wavy beard styles” collection are on the “rugged and unkept” side, so we want to sneak in one more “dashing” wavy beard look: the Preppy / Well-Dressed Wavy Beard, as you can see here:
Many of the beard looks out there embrace a sort of “gruff” styling, but we wanted to include this to remind everyone (before we get to the “tough-guy” beards) that well-kept beards—particularly wavy ones—can look EXCELLENT.
The Lumberjack’s Wavy Beard
A lumberjack’s beard is basically a beard that you’ve let grow to its maximum but that you keep well-groomed and clean. It’s an excellent way to show off your waves because you’ll get the full effect of having the full hairs with multiple waves in them.
If your beard is thick and grows fast, you won’t have much trouble getting a lumberjack’s beard. Just let it grow out. However, you need to keep it well-groomed throughout the process by brushing it and applying
The Mountain Man’s Wavy Beard
A mountain man’s beard is called such because you’d typically see it on a backwoodsman who rarely sees people and so doesn’t worry much about his appearance. It’s notable for being pretty unkempt and wouldn’t generally be recommendable for professional settings. That said, the style could be appropriate for men who want a rugged and self-reliant appearance.
How do you get a mountain man’s beard if you have wavy facial hair? Well, just let it grow out. There’s not much else to do, though you can brush it out every now and then to prevent uncomfortable knots.
The Wavy Cowboy
We’ll leave you with this one, which may be the most masculine beard we’ve ever seen: the wavy cowboy beard:
It doesn’t get much manlier than that!
Alright, now that we’ve gone over our favorite wavy beard looks, let’s get to the important stuff:
How to Grow and Maintain a Wavy Beard
Wavy beards are beautiful, but they certainly seem to have a mind of their own. If you want to keep them looking neat and well groomed, you’ll need to put in a certain amount of effort to grow and maintain them. Here are some of the main steps you should take as well as some extra tips.
Washing the Waves
It’s important to wash your beard to clean out dirt and grime that could cause your waves to bunch up and knot. On the other hand, you don’t want to wash it too much or you’ll strip oil, nutrients, and water from the hairs, leaving them dried, frayed, and vulnerable to split ends. In general, we recommend washing your beard once or twice a week with a special beard wash like the one from SheaMoisture that helps promote uniform waves by cleaning and moisturizing simultaneously.
Beard Balming or Oiling the Waves
Because wavy facial hair moves in different directions, it can easily knot up. Additionally, it can suffer from a lot of friction that can lead to fraying and split ends if it’s not adequately lubricated and nourished.
To do that, you should apply a
If you want a more natural-looking style, we recommend using a
Trimming the Waves
As you probably noticed, most wavy beard styles require a decent amount of trimming and grooming. This may require a number of different devices, from scissors to electric clippers and shavers. For the longest hair and most elaborate styles, you’ll definitely need a good pair of clippers with guards that allow you trim different parts of the beard at different lengths and blend it all together. Wahl makes a number of products ideal for this such as the Wahl Lithium Ion Total Beard Trimmer that comes with a kit of 11 guide combs.
We recommend trimming your beard after you’ve washed it but before applying the
How to Make Your Beard Even WAVIER
If your facial hair is naturally wavy, there are a lot of things you can do to accentuate those waves and make them even fuller and more striking. Most of this involves maximizing your beard’s health so that the waves can fully form. Here are a couple of tips.
Keep It Moisturized and Conditioned
Make sure to apply
Wash It with Cold Water
Hot water can damage your hair shafts and dry them out, leading to frizz, fray, and split ends. This prevents full waviness. Try to use cold or lukewarm water instead.
Pat It Dry
Most people instinctively scrub their beards with towels to dry them, but this can really hinder your maximum waviness. For one thing, it’s just going to tangle up the hair, which will prevent them from waving together. However, it could potentially damage the hairs via friction as well.
Brush or Comb It Regularly
Wavy beards easily get tangled, and this may cause certain hairs to get bunched up so the waves don’t match up. To prevent this, give your beard a good (but gentle) brushing on a daily basis. Wavy hair shafts are like springs and by pulling them out with a brush they’ll bounce back to their natural place in line with the rest of the hair. This accentuates your waves.
How to De-Wave Your Wavy Beard
If you don’t like your waves or are just looking for a new look, it is possible to de-wave your beard and get a straighter style. Follow the video or read through our step-by-step process below:
Brush Out the Tangles
Before doing anything else, you should brush your beard to get out all the tangles. This will make sure the straightening process doesn’t end up reinforcing those tangles and knots.
Apply Conditioner or Water
Once you have all the tangles out, apply a bit of conditioner to your beard. Now, you can use a specific beard-straightening conditioner that has strong chemicals designed to break down the proteins in your hair so that they lose their rigidity and straighten out. However, these are pretty harsh and bad for your hair in the long run, so you can also just dampen the beard with some water. It shouldn’t be dripping wet, just damp enough to be malleable.
Blow Dry the Beard on Low Heat
Using a brush, pull the beard hairs out straight from underneath the beard while blow drying the hairs from above. You need to use some heat, but don’t make it too hot or you may damage the hair. The heat will help break some of the proteins so that the hair won’t bounce back after you take out the brush.
Apply Beard Balm or Wax
Blow drying your beard can be hard on the hairs, so it’s a good idea to moisturize and nourish them afterwards. Plus, beard balm can give the hair a bit of weight so it doesn’t return to its wavy state. If your beard is particularly stubborn, you may need to use beard wax.
Our Favorite Beard Straighteners
If the process above seems a bit complicated, you can opt for getting a beard straightener. This is basically a heated brush that eliminates the need for the hair dryer. That’s a lot more convenient. If that sounds like a better option to you, consider the two options below.
Tame the Wild Premium Beard Straightener Kit
Tame the Wild has always been our favorite beard straightener because it has three heat settings to get right in the sweet spot where you can control your waves without damaging your beard hair. Plus, it’s a full kit that comes with basically everything you need, including a comb, beard balm, and even a protective straightening spray.
| Preview | Product | |
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Tame the Wild Premium Beard Straightener Kit – Heated Beard Brush for Men – Beard Grooming Kit… | Buy on Amazon |
Last update on 2023-02-13 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API
Xikezan Beard Straightener with Balm and Beard Growth Oil
This beard straightener from Xikezan is another good option. It also has all the tools you need to straighten out your waves, including both
| Preview | Product | |
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Beard Straightener w/Beard Balm & Beard Growth Oil & Beard Comb & Beard E-Book,Patented Design 3 in… | Buy on Amazon |
Last update on 2023-02-13 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API
Waving Goodbye
The world of wavy beards is a wonderful place. Having wavy facial hair gives you a lot of style options that other beard types don’t have. Just make sure you’re putting in the time and effort to care for and groom your beard. When it’s healthy and nourished, a wavy beard can look sharp, stylish, and masculine.
Michael Morris is the head writer here at Rough and Tumble Gentleman. He's got a ducktail beard and loves Brazilian jiu-jitsu. He's married to the woman of his dreams and lives in Brooklyn, NY.
