How to create the Handlebar mustache

1. Pick up your trusty trimmer and trim your mustache to about 3-5 mm. Choose a longer setting for the whiskers around your mouth.

2. Using a precision trimmer, trim in a downward angle following your lip line, to the corner of your mouth. Leave a strip of hair about 5mm – 10mm wide.

3. Follow this up with a mini foil shaver–being careful to keep it upright. This will define the edges and clean up around your Handlebar Mustache.

4. Create a neat part with rounded edges in the middle of your Handlebar Mustache. The shape should look a little bit like two tadpoles about to kiss. You can use a comb and wax or, if your hair is too stubborn, a razor.

5. Give yourself a clean shave on the cheeks, chin and neck, taking extra care around your mustache. Using a rotary shaver, move in a gentle, circular motion.

6. Hold onto your horses – now you’ll just have to maintain the shape, and wait for your handlebars to grow in.
 
Styling/maintenance
Keep your wax at the ready, once your handlebar is grown in you’ll need to shape it daily.

Hold onto your whiskers – this style is wild!
The Handlebar Mustache was big in the 19th century, especially with folks in the Wild West like Wyatt Earp. It goes without saying that you’ll need some serious flair to step into shoes like his and pull off this eye-catching style. (It may be possible to take someone’s eye out with one of these – so wear with caution.)

Handlebars Mustaches get their name because they look a little like the gracefully, upturned handlebars on a bicycle. They’re like the good-guy version of the Fu Manchu.

Like the Fu, the Handlebar Mustache will take a lot of looking after. You’ll need a good, square-shaped, cowboy-esque face to make this work. You may also want to invest in a pipe…and a horse.