The goatee is a popular beard style for men who want a cool and masculine look. If you want to experiment, these goatee styles are classy, ruggedly handsome and timeless options for modern gentleman that will make you look sexy.
Whether you want a classic chin-only trim or a thin circle design, a goatee beard can help you create a flattering and manly style to suit any occasion.
For inspiration, we’ll show you examples of the best goatee styles for men. From short to long, the coolest goatees will give you a distinguished and fashionable facial hair style.
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What Is A Goatee?
A goatee is a beard style that features hair on the chin and sometimes upper lip but not the cheeks for a masculine look. This facial hair style can be a versatile, stylish and modern choice for men who want a clean-shaven look with a small beard. When trimming your chin and mustache area, the right goatee beard will complement your face shape and hairstyle for a fashionable and flattering finish.
Goatee Beard Styles For Men
Short Goatee
A short goatee is a beard style designed to lengthen the chin while offering a low-maintenance and masculine look. This classic goatee features a mustache and is often just a simple circle of facial hair around the chin. This fresh and eye-catching style offers half an inch to an inch in length, making it easy to grow and simple to trim with a beard trimmer. If you want something textured but sharp, keeping the length to a light stubble will outline your bone structure but give you a rugged alternative to being clean-shaven. For more contrast, keep stubble on the jawline but clean up any areas around the neck and the cheeks for a dapper finish.
Long Goatee
A long goatee is a stylish and manly style that pairs perfectly with an elegant suit and cool sunglasses. While an old-school look, you can style this fuller facial hair with a modern twist by keeping your chin beard groomed and moisturized with quality products for a smooth and refined feel. You can leave the hair untrimmed for a slightly undone and youthful vibe or keep it neatly groomed along the sides for definition. You can certainly grow your beard past the chin, but if it passes the Adam’s Apple it might start to veer into Viking territory.
Full Goatee Beard
The full goatee beard is the most recognizable style and connects a circular chin beard with a soul patch and a mustache for a fashionable and bold look. This style works well on square faces as the fullness around the chin draws attention to sharp cheekbones and precise facial lines. If you have a rectangular face, experiment with shorter lengths to highlight angles and add balance to your features. The full goatee typically has straighter edges than a circle beard, and it stops around the edges of the mouth for a sleek and trendy result. To maintain your beard, pull out your trimmers around once a week to keep your look fresh and remove any dead hair that might encourage patchiness.
Chin Goatee
The chin goatee is a popular beard style that incorporates hair right at the base of the chin, offering a rugged appearance without the maintenance. This chin-only facial hair style has no mustache and expertly disguises a weak chin while enhancing strong jawlines. It’s a good idea to grow your hair slightly beyond the chin for a signature tufted look, but you can easily keep a two-inch patch of hair on the chin for a subtle feel that’s suitable for the office. To showcase your signature style, fashion your tuft of hair into a wide and rounded shape or go for a teardrop shape to elongate the face.
Goatee and Mustache
A goatee and mustache is a modern beard style that can be easy to maintain for guys. The slight disconnect between the mustache and the goatee creates interest and texture on the face, giving guys the chance to stand out from the crowd with minimal effort. To achieve this look, grab your clippers and start by carving out the classic goatee shape at the chin using light strokes. You’ll want to keep the cheeks completely clean-shaven for maximum contrast and dimension. Your mustache should be well-groomed for a dapper appearance, but you can channel your inner wild child with stray hairs around the upper lip or a badass soul patch.
Van Dyke Beard
The Van Dyke beard offers guys the chance to rock a regal and classy style that will instantly lift any outfit. Although it requires upkeep because of the signature T-shape and handlebar mustache, the historic and sexy appearance of this beard is worth the effort. The goatee beard doesn’t usually connect with the rest of your facial hair and there is a strong focus on the mustache which can be worn straight or grown out and twirled upward. To make your mustache even more impressive, ask your barber to fashion your beard into a subtle teardrop shape and shorten it slightly. The soul patch should also be grown out to match the thickness of the chin beard while the rest of the face is left clean-shaven.
Goatee without Mustache
A goatee without a mustache is a cool facial hair style goatee that will draw attention to your jawline and features. This style is perfect for guys who want a low-maintenance style that can be trimmed every week, as mustaches often require regular trimming to avoid irritating the upper lip. If you want to create the illusion of a striking jawline on a round face, pair your goatee with a chinstrap beard with defined upper lines across the cheekbones. For the ultimate low-effort look, opt for an untrimmed goatee for a bohemian and relaxed feel or a playful chin puff.
Thin Goatee
The thin goatee was all the rage back in the 1950s, but this carefully manicured style is having a serious resurgence among modern men. It’s an excellent option for guys who struggle with patchy facial hair or struggle to grow thick beards as it focuses on interesting lines rather than thickness. Pencil-thin goatees are extremely popular as they circle the mouth and create a sharp look that is effortlessly sleek and defined. This style is also a great choice for men with triangular faces, as the joined lines and sharp edges balance the face without overwhelming it. Although you can style a thin goatee at home, you should head to the barber shop for more precise trimming.
Disconnected Goatee
The disconnected goatee is a fashionable beard style that features hair on the chin and lip without connecting. The disconnected look can be a simple way to shape a goatee when you have patchy hair along the jawline and sides of the mouth. You can throw in stubble around the cheeks for an undone and rugged feel but taming your facial hair into a square-shaped beard with a subtle soul patch looks more elegant. The beauty of this style is that it flatters all face shapes. Round faces can opt for a wider style, while square and angular faces can taper their beard for a chic and refined finish.
Balbo Beard
The Balbo beard is a style without sideburns that includes a carefully trimmed mustache and a chin strap that extends across the jawline. It requires decent volume to look attractive, and you can pair it with a handlebar, pyramid or slim mustache depending on your personal preference. It’s an excellent pick for round and square face shapes, as the fullness around the chin creates the illusion of angular features. This pulls the face down slightly to balance and streamline your look. To create attractive contrast and dimension, keep the sides of your face well-groomed and your cheeks and neck clean-shaven.
Circle Beard
The circle beard is a handsome and classic look that you can easily maintain with an electric shaver. It is characterized by a mustache and a simple chin beard that are joined together in a circular shape. To highlight this connection, keep the hair closely trimmed around the neck and the cheeks. You can wear this beard short for a lightly textured look or keep it long for an edgy biker feel that shows you’re not to be messed with. It adds attractive structure to the face, but this goatee doesn’t add bulky volume that distracts from your features. To maintain the health of your style, work a beard oil or balm through your strands for a light shine.
Chin Puff
Also known as a landing strip, a chin puff is a beard style that can be created by shaving your mustache and beard but leaving a thick line of hair directly below the center of your mouth. The landing strip must be smaller than the width of the mouth and extend to the bottom of the chin. You can grow your puff into a teardrop or diamond shape for a showstopping finish or keep your appearance modern with a small volume of hair that’s uniformly trimmed along the bottom. Although it’s a suitable style for most guys, it’s an incredible choice for men with coarse or natural hair who struggle to tame longer beards into submission.
Anchor Beard
The anchor beard is a playful and youthful style that can look similar to the Van Dyke beard. True to its name, this goatee is designed to look like an anchor with a wider beard, a shorter mustache and a strip of hair that draws towards the upper lip. The angular shape creates exceptional sharpness along the jawline and adds volume without the maintenance of a chin strap or full beard. Whether you want to emulate Christian Bale or Tony Stark, you only need to grow a couple of weeks’ worth of stubble to make the magic happen.
Goatee Shapes
If you want to trim your beard, these goatee shapes will help you create the style that suits your face. When shaping your facial hair, the circle goatee is the most popular style for guys with a strong jawline. For a slimming masculine look, the Van Dyke, anchor and short boxed goatee can complement a round face. Versatile and classy, you can grow and style any goatee when you have an oval or rectangular face shape.
Goatee vs Van Dyke Beard
The difference between a goatee and Van Dyke is that the classic goatee doesn’t come with a mustache while the Van Dyke incorporates a mustache and chin beard. As popular facial hair styles, the Van Dyke beard is a cool choice that will make a bold statement but will requiring regular maintenance and care.
Most Popular Types of Goatees
The most popular types of goatees are the classic, full, anchor, Van Dyke, circle and chin puff styles. The classic goatee is a style that involves just a patch of hair on the chin, while the full look connects a chin beard with a mustache for thicker growth. Using a quality trimmer, these different goatee beards will look cool and classy with the right cut.
