Anchor Beard – Ultimate Guide to Growing, Trimming, and Styling

The anchor beard is a striking facial hairstyle that can add polish and personality to your look. Because everyone has a different type of facial hair, the beard has a distinct look each time.

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

With tips on grooming, products, and face shapes that suit this beard, you’ll be an anchor beard expert in no time.

What Is Anchor Beard?

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

It starts with a narrow pointed beard that hugs 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 the defined lines of the beard.

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 start trimming and styling:

Take a trimmer and run it through your beard so each hair has the same length. Do the same for your mustache, too. This will take care of any stray hair.
Shave along your neck until the underside of your chin.
Shape the bottom of the beard so it follows a straight line that runs from one end of your jawline, the underside of your chin, to the other end of the jawline.
Remove excess hair on the sides of your face.
For the mustache, start shaving just slightly past the corners of your mouth and give the edges a tapered end. Keep it thin so the ends fall well above the upper lip line. Use a precision trimmer for this.
Use a precision trimmer to shape the soul patch into an inverted triangle, making sure it connects to the beard on the chin.
Shape the chinstrap using a trimmer and razor for a tapered end along the jawline. Gradually increase the width as it moves toward the chin.

For the chinstrap, you can decide how far along the jawline it should be. If your facial hair only grows halfway between the end of your jaw and the chin, you can shape it into an anchor the same way.

Cool Anchor Beard Styles

Check out some cool anchor beard styles rocked by fashionable men.

1. Disconnected Goatee with Soul Patch and Mustache

British actor Christian Bale wears a different version of the typical anchor beard where the inner edges of his goatee have a less dramatic trim, allowing for a smooth curve.

The mid-length stubble mustache grows only slightly past the corners of the mouth, while the goatee, covering half the chin, merges with the soul patch under the bottom lip.

2. Petite Goatee Beard with Chevron Mustache

Jhonny Depp is well known for his anchor beard. He keeps a chevron mustache that has a narrow width at the top, where it starts right below the nostrils.

The petite stubble goatee grows along the base of the chin, with a few stray hairs leading up to the sparse soul patch. There’s also some light stubble across the jawline.

3. Chin Puff Beard with Sideburns and Pencil Mustache

The chin puff covers the underside of the chin and tapers off to a point, and the soul patch is wider at the base than at the end.

Here, the pencil mustache only reaches the edges of the mouth and doesn’t extend downward to connect with the beard.

The sideburns, which start at the hairline and move down, take an angled turn along the cheeks.

4. Anchor Beard with Lampshade Mustache and Soul Patch

Jeremy Renner’s anchor beard has a softer trim, less defined inner edges, and longer facial hair on the chin.

The soul patch is wider at the top and narrows at the point where it merges with the chin beard, while the lampshade mustache keeps a steady thickness all across.

5. Full Anchor Beard with Short Stubble

You can’t describe Anchor Beard without mentioning the name of Robert John Downey Jr. aka Tony Stark.

His signature anchor beard look is trimmed from the chin to give it a well-defined look, and the mustache should trail down the edges of the lips.

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. Square Goatee with Pencil Mustache

When the edges of the beard move up in almost vertical lines, it gives the goatee a squared edge. This specific beard includes a pencil mustache, slightly parted along the middle and with tapered ends.

The beard grows on the underside and base of the chin, where it’s trimmed, except for the soul patch.

7. Balbo Beard with Chin Straps

bald guy with anchor beard — hakuna_ma_janu/Instagram

Enhanced by the curled mustache, this balbo beard combines the facial hair growing from under the bottom lip and the chin.

An additional aspect here is the chinstrap beard that grows halfway through the jawline. The rest is shaved off, leaving some stubble on the face and neck.

8. Short Anchor Beard with Chevron Mustache

Compared to the original, the shorter anchor beard doesn’t grow upward from the chin. This variation has a smooth curve from the soul patch to the underside of the chin, showing carefully trimmed lines.

There are a few specks of grey in the chin beard, but the chevron mustache has darker facial hair and barely touches the upper lip.

9. Balbo Beard with Soul Patch

long anchor beard — marcodanesi_attore/Instagram

The Balbo beard here is thicker and lacks the shapely inner edges that define an anchor beard.

It has a chinstrap that runs parallel to the corners of the mouth rather than covering the whole jawline. There’s also a thick, straight soul patch that moves down to merge with the beard on the chin.

10. Patchy Anchor Beard with Stubble Mustache

anchor beard for men — gentlemens_club_barber_shop/Instagram

There are a few patchy areas in this anchor beard, like under the soul patch and in the mustache.

The shape itself is trimmed so it extends outwards from the chin, while the mustache dips below the corners of the mouth to reach downward.

11. Disconnected Goatee with Parted Mustache

The stubble on the jawline and neck accent this disconnected goatee beard, which starts below the lower lip and grows wider at the base of the chin.

It covers the underside of the chin, where it’s thicker and surrounded by heavy stubble, and it’s complemented by a parted mustache.

12. Anchor Beard with Pencil Mustache

As the rest of the face is clean-shaven, the anchor beard here maintains proper symmetry on both sides of the chin.

The ends of the mustache stay parallel to the width of the mouth and don’t dip downward, while the beard along the jawline is trimmed to give it a sharp point.