The Anchor Beard: How to Grow, Trim, and Style It

The anchor beard is a striking facial hairstyle that adds polish and personality to your look. Because everyone’s facial hair grows differently, no two anchor beards look exactly alike.

This guide covers everything you need to know about growing, maintaining, and styling an anchor beard.

From grooming tips and product picks to the face shapes that suit this style best, you’ll be an anchor beard expert in no time.

What Is an Anchor Beard?

The anchor beard takes its name from the way it resembles a ship’s anchor.

It starts with a narrow pointed beard that traces the jawline, almost like a chin strap beard. As it reaches the chin, the beard widens out into a fuller shape.

A well-groomed mustache completes the anchor shape, connecting to the beard through a small soul patch.

The cheeks and neck are kept clean-shaven so all the focus stays on those sharp, defined beard lines.

How to Grow, Trim, and Style an Anchor Beard

Start by growing out your beard so you have enough facial hair to work with. Then it’s time to trim and shape:

• Run a trimmer through your beard to bring every hair to a uniform length. Do the same for your mustache to clear up any strays.
• Shave along your neck up to the underside of your chin.
• Shape the bottom of the beard so it follows a clean baseline running from one end of your jawline, across the underside of your chin, to the other side.
• Remove the excess hair on both sides of your face.
• For the mustache, shave just slightly past the corners of your mouth and taper the ends. Keep it trim so the edges sit well above the upper lip line. A detail trimmer is your best friend here.
• Use a detail trimmer to sculpt the soul patch into an inverted triangle, making sure it connects cleanly to the chin beard below.
• Shape the chin strap with a trimmer and razor, tapering it along the jawline and gradually widening it as it approaches the chin.

For the chin strap, you decide how far along the jawline it extends. If your facial hair only grows halfway between the end of your jaw and your chin, you can still shape a solid anchor from what you’ve got.

Cool Anchor Beard Styles

Here are some sharp anchor beard styles worn by guys who know exactly what they’re doing.

1. Disconnected Goatee with Soft Soul Patch Connector

British actor Christian Bale wears a relaxed take on the anchor beard where the inner edges of his goatee have a less dramatic trim, allowing for a smooth, natural curve rather than a hard line.

The medium stubble mustache extends just slightly past the corners of the mouth, while the goatee covers roughly half the chin and merges with the soul patch sitting right below the bottom lip.

2. Petite Goatee with Sparse Soul Patch and Chevron Mustache

Johnny Depp is well known for his anchor beard. He keeps a chevron mustache that starts narrow right below the nostrils and fans out slightly toward the corners of the mouth.

The petite stubble goatee sits along the base of the chin, with a few transitional hairs leading up to a sparse soul patch. Some light stubble along the jawline keeps the whole composition grounded.

3. Coily Chin Puff with Angled Sideburns and Pencil Mustache

The chin puff covers the underside of the chin and tapers to a point, while the soul patch sits wider at the base and narrows toward the top.

The pencil mustache reaches only to the edges of the mouth and doesn’t extend downward to connect with the beard, keeping the upper and lower sections visually separate.

The sideburns drop from the hairline and take a sharp angled turn along the cheeks, adding a bold architectural element to the overall shape.

4. Soft Anchor Beard with Lampshade Mustache and Wide Soul Patch

Jeremy Renner’s anchor beard has a softer trim with less defined inner edges and slightly more length on the chin.

The soul patch is wider at the top and narrows where it merges into the chin beard, while the lampshade mustache maintains a consistent thickness all the way across.

5. Classic Anchor Beard with Sharp Chin Sculpt and Trailing Mustache

No conversation about the anchor beard is complete without Robert Downey Jr., the man who made this style iconic as Tony Stark.

The beard is precisely sculpted at the chin for a well-defined perimeter, and the mustache trails down along the edges of the lips to complete that signature anchor shape.

The soul patch and chin beard are connected to give an hourglass-like shape. From the chin, the beard extends upwards, midway through the jawline, to complete the look.

6. Short Anchor Beard with Squared Chin and Pencil Mustache

When the edges of the beard rise in nearly vertical lines, it gives the goatee a squared chin profile. This specific look pairs that boxed chin beard with a pencil mustache, slightly parted along the middle and tapered at the ends.

The beard grows on the underside and base of the chin, trimmed close everywhere except for the soul patch.

7. Balbo Anchor Beard with Curled Handlebar Mustache and Chin Strap

That bold curled handlebar mustache does a lot of the heavy lifting here, elevating a Balbo that combines facial hair from under the bottom lip down to the chin.

The chin strap extends halfway along the jawline before it’s shaved off clean, leaving only light stubble on the face and neck for texture.

8. Short Anchor Beard with Salt-and-Pepper Chin and Chevron Mustache

Unlike a classic anchor, this shorter variation skips the upward growth from the chin. Instead, it features a smooth curve from the soul patch to the underside of the chin, with carefully trimmed, clean beard lines throughout.

A few flecks of gray show up in the chin beard, while the chevron mustache keeps its darker color and just grazes the upper lip.

9. Balbo Beard with Extended Soul Patch and Partial Chin Strap

This Balbo is on the thicker side and lacks the sharply carved inner edges that define a true anchor beard.

A chin strap runs parallel to the corners of the mouth rather than wrapping the full jawline. A thick, straight soul patch drops down and merges cleanly into the chin beard, tying the whole shape together.

10. Patchy Anchor Beard with Tapered Horseshoe Mustache

There are a few patchy areas in this anchor beard, particularly under the soul patch and through the mustache, but the overall shape still works.

The chin beard is trimmed to flare outward from the chin point, while the mustache dips below the corners of the mouth and reaches downward in a horseshoe shape.

11. Disconnected Goatee Anchor Beard with Heavy Stubble and Parted Mustache

The heavy stubble across the jawline and neck does a great job of accenting this disconnected goatee, which starts below the lower lip and fans wider at the base of the chin.

The chin beard is at its thickest on the underside, surrounded by that dense stubble, and a parted mustache sits above to finish the shape.

12. Sharp Clean-Shaven Anchor Beard with Pencil Mustache

With the rest of the face clean-shaven, the beard symmetry here is impeccable on both sides of the chin.

The pencil mustache ends stay parallel to the width of the mouth without dipping downward, while the beard along the jawline is sculpted to a sharp pointed chin. Crisp outlining is what makes this one pop.

Those are just a handful of anchor beard styles to browse before you settle on how you want to shape your beard and mustache. They cover a solid range of growth patterns, chin projections, and mustache pairings worth considering.