The walrus moustache is a defined and strong style moustache that can change the look of your face and overall style. If you are adventurous, bold, and have the commitment to grow a walrus moustache, it could be one of the best decisions you can make.
To grow a walrus moustache, you must wait for three months before trimming your moustache and be very particular about trimming the bottom line of the moustache to embrace the walrus style fully.
Growing out your moustache will require a lot of commitment and maintenance. Once the moustache has got to a certain length, it will require waxing to the side or regular trimming to keep the moustache lines sharp.
This article will go through everything you need to know about growing a walrus moustache and some of the important features of the style.
Article Contents
What is the meaning of walrus moustache?
A walrus moustache is characterised by long hairs on the upper lip that are thick, bushy, and drop over the mouth resembling a walrus.
In some instances, the moustache hairs drop over the mouth and our longer at the sides and extend downwards at the corners. The hairline of the moustache may also be waxed and extend beyond the cheeks or connect to the sideburns.
Some people used to think that this moustache would promote good health by creating a physical barrier between germs and particles.
A brief history of the walrus moustache
Interestingly, the walrus moustache enjoyed popularity among men in the latter part of the 19th century into the early 20th century. It was a defined style for gentlemen ranging from scientists and philosophers to politicians.
It fell out of style in the 1920s and enjoyed a temporary boost in popularity during the revolution in the 1960s.
Today, the walrus moustache is worn by people who want a unique style and want to express their style in a traditional but funky way.
Here is a graph showing the popularity of the style since 2004.
You can see that there is an increasing trend for this style and we’ll likely see it come in and out of fashion in the future.
How long does it take to grow a walrus Moustache?
You can wait anywhere from two days (for a stubble moustache) to more than 100 days (for fancier styles). It all depends on the style of moustache you want to develop.
One thing I liked to do when growing out my beard was to come to a halt at certain levels so that I could savour each one before moving on to the next.
Because facial hair grows at a rate of 0.38 mm per day (0.015 inches per day), I’ve created a table that shows how many days or months you’ll need to wait to develop a stubble to a full elegant moustache.
| Days | Months | mm | inches | Moustache type |
| 1 | 0.0 | 0.4 | 0.015 | Stubble |
| 15 | 0.5 | 5.7 | 0.225 | Intermediate |
| 67 | 2.2 | 25.5 | 1.005 | Full |
| 100 | 3.3 | 38.0 | 1.500 | Fancy + |
After about two months of development, your moustache has grown to about 1 inch in length, which indicates the hairs on the top line are long enough to span the whole length and width of the moustache.
A walrus moustache will require at least 3 ½ months of commitment to grow out the hairs, the upmost line of the moustache to fully cover the depth.
During the growing process, you will have loads of doubts and worries about whether or not you can push through the awkwardness. However, I can assure you that your efforts will be greatly rewarded once you can persevere through the hard times.
Types of walrus moustache styles
There are many variations of this moustache that can make your style unique.
Here are just a few variations to inspire you for your walrus moustache growth journey.
Walrus with a beard
Just as this name suggests, this is a walrus with a beard. You can have a long, medium or short beard with a walrus moustache. However, the extremes of the beard-growing lengths match a walrus much better. So go super short or super long.
Always make sure that your walrus moustache is at the centre of attention of your facial hair by keeping it the longest.
Cowboy walrus
The cowboy walrus is kept a little bit longer at the sides to flow down on the sides of your face.
Grow it as wide and thick as you can, and do not trim up the extreme edges of your moustache to ensure fullness that ways enough to start to droop.
Handlebar walrus
You can take the sides of the walrus moustache and wax them up into a handlebar and fancy moustache shape.
This type of walrus moustache style requires much more wax and stronghold than any other type of moustache style because of the amount of weight you need to overcome if you have grown out a long and fancy moustache.
Stubble walrus
I’m not a huge fan of growing out an extremely large moustache without any support from the facial hair. The smallest amount of stubble will provide a rugged look to your walrus moustache and help support the growth.
A clean-cut walrus with no hair on the cheeks or chin can look too formal. A little bit of stubble can push it from formal to casual, perfect for everyday wear.
Famous walrus moustaches
Throughout history, there have been some incredibly famous walrus moustaches, including:
- Federick Nietzsche
- Theodore Roosevelt
- Mark Twain
- David Crosby
- Joseph Stalin
- Stephen Fry
- Jamie Hyneman
- and many more
How do you trim a walrus moustache?
Trimming a walrus moustache after about 3 ½ months’ worth of growth will allow you to start to pull the shape from the mess.
Here are the tools that you would need to consider and the stages of trimming up your walrus moustache.
Tools
Trimming at the walrus moustache requires that you are very precise with the lengths of the hair.
You only need a couple of tools for doing this properly, which include:
- a good quality fine tooth combs
- a professional set of father scissors. Or the sharpest set of pointed scissors you can find.
- Single blade safety razor
Having sharp and pointed scissors means that you will be able to cut your moustache with millimetre precision and polite the best style from the growth you have achieved.
The good thing is that not all walrus moustaches are ridiculously long or handlebar.
The shorter the moustache is, the more precise the trimming needs to be.
Bottom line
The length of your moustache is up to you; however, because I have a large beard, I like to have mine terminate at the line where my two lips meet.
For a walrus moustache, it is important that the bottom line sweeps nicely from the middle of the moustache and gets longer towards the sides.
As the moustache gets longer towards the sides, it should also cover the top lip to represent a moustache truly fit for a walrus
Sides
The sides of the walrus moustache are where you can decide to have a little more fun.
You can combine the walrus starve with the handlebar moustache style and hold the sides of the moustache up and out for a much more distinguished and full looking style.
Most walrus moustache growers trim their sides downwards, and it finishes just outside the corner of their mouth.
Topline
I like to have a very defined top line of my moustache.
It would help if you considered taking a single blade safety razor to any hairs that sit outside your desired top line.
Nose hair
Lastly, ensure that your nose hair does not blend into your moustache.
People are often very quick to judge a person who cannot separate the nose hair from the moustache. Having a clearly defined line between the nose and the top of the moustache will help it look much cleaner.
How do you comb a walrus moustache?
Combing a walrus moustache is relatively simple as long as you stick to the basics and a few simple tricks.
You can use either a fine-tooth comb or a natural bristle brush for combing your walrus moustache.
Use a fine-toothed comb
Using a fine-toothed comb is important if you want to separate the hairs and ensure that your moustache is hair perfect.
The comb should be wooden or plastic and machined instead of moulded.
These are the steps that you can use to comb a walrus moustache:
- sweep through the entire thickness of the moustache with a fine-tooth comb ensuring you touch the skin
- you can sweep outwards on the sites to encourage the hairs to lay away from the centre of your face.
Try not to brush upwards in the centre of your moustache. However, you can use upwards or sideways motion to create volume on the sides of the moustache.
Using a natural bristle brush
Using a natural bristle brush, you will be able to tuck in the flyaway hairs.
Natural bristle brushes are not good for deep combing of the moustache. They are much better suited to the superficial look and styling of the hair.
Natural bristle brushes are perfect for distributing beard oil and other products evenly and homogeneously throughout the walrus moustache.
A fine-toothed comb and natural bristle brush are perfect for your walrus moustache combing needs.
Pocket moustache comb
Expert walrus moustache growers will also carry with them all times a small moustache comb.
The pocket moustache comb often comes in a sleeve that protects the comb and the pocket you have decided to carry it in.
A pocket comb is perfect for the middle of the day style adjustments and ensures that you never enter a room without making sure your walrus moustache looks perfect.
A simple and quick sweep through with a brush does wonders for maintaining the style of your walrus moustache throughout the entire day.
How to maintain a walrus moustache
Maintaining a walrus moustache is relatively simple; however, you need to look after it much more likely beard than like a moustache because of the thick and dense growth.
A walrus moustache is a serious bit of facial hair and, treated correctly, will look better and more full by using these tips below.
Use beard shampoo
Investing in a specialist beard wash will help you keep your moustache clean, but it will also prevent you from putting strong surfactants (soap) on it, which may dry it out and make it brittle.
You’ve gotten away with using a head shampoo up until now, but because the head is a lot earlier spot than the face, it’s much tougher on the oils.
It would be best to use a special moustache and beard wash to avoid entirely drying out your moustache and making it brittle.
Dry and brittle beard hairs are much easier to break when combing. Therefore I recommend you lay the foundations of a healthy moustache by using a dedicated beard and moustache shampoo.
Trim when required
Purchase an excellent quality pair of sharp scissors to ensure that the hair is cut cleanly and that the new tip of the hair is not damaged.
A dull pair of scissors can easily crush the hand rather than cutting it cleanly.
Remember to trim the bottom line of the moustache only since it will seem fuller and thicker if the hairs grow from the top line to the top of the moustache.
A walrus moustache can look very untidy very quickly, and regular trimming will keep it looking much sharper. It will need more trimming than a beard to maintain its desired shape.
Use butter, balm or wax
Longer hairs will need greater nourishment and hold to keep the style in place throughout the day.
If your moustache seems dry or brittle, you can start applying beard butter to it.
Beard butter is made up of Shea butter and cocoa butter, which penetrates quickly into the hair and provides moisture and nutrients to the hair’s core.
If your moustache has been exposed to UV rays or sea salt spray for an extended period, you may need to do this.
If you want to style your thick moustache and add a little bit of showing with beeswax, you may use a beard balm – which has a wax component – or moustache wax.
Moustache wax is a fantastic product that includes a lot of beeswaxes and can keep your moustache in place all day. If you live in a hot environment, be aware that it will not work.
Warm the moustache wax between your fingers until it’s flexible, then roll it into your moustache’s ends. If you need to secure it quickly, use cold air from your hairdryer to chill the moustache wax.
To discover your ideal style, experiment with different applications and cooling processes.
The pros and cons of growing a walrus moustache
There are many pros and cons to growing a walrus moustache.
From my personal experience of having a long moustache, you should consider some of the important pros and cons before launching into patiently waiting for your walrus moustache to grow.
Pros
I love having a long moustache to support my beard, and here are some of the benefits I have noticed from keeping their beard longer and having it resemble a walrus moustache.
Striking look
A walrus moustache has an incredibly striking and defined look.
Growing a walrus moustache will put you into a very small percentage of men who have the patience and dedication to growing one.
If you grow out your moustache to the length and style of a walrus handlebar moustache, you will stand out for your striking style choice.
Choosing to grow a walrus moustache comes with the responsibility of upkeep. A long walrus moustache can easily become a mess if you do not keep the moustache trend well maintained. We will talk about this in more detail in the upcoming sections.
Many styling options
The simple walrus moustache definition encompasses many different style options.
You have the flexibility of the length of the sides of the moustache. You can also change the thickness and how bushy it is.
You also have the option of styling these parts of the moustache for a unique look:
- bottom angles
- length at corners of moustache
- overall moustache length
- blend options into beards or sideburns
- top line trimming
Given these five different areas for styling your walrus moustache, you will certainly have a unique walrus moustache that matches your growth and style.
Not many people have one
One of the great things about growing any facial hair is that you can end up with something that defines you and makes you stand out from the crowd.
Because of the historical popularity of this beard and some famous figures, everyone knows what a walrus moustache looks like.
However, not everyone has the confidence or patience to grow one themselves.
A well-maintained walrus moustache may be a great option if you want to stand out for all the good reasons. Just keep it well trimmed and groomed.
Cons
Like most things in life, a walrus moustache also has some serious drawbacks that you should seriously consider.
Here are some of the cons of growing a long moustache, including a walrus moustache that I have personally experienced.
Food gets in your hair
One of the biggest drawbacks of growing a walrus moustache is the amount of food that ends up in your moustache hair.
As you eat, the moustache comes into close contact with food. This is particularly true if you are chewing into food with a soft or messy top.
Pizza has never been the same for me.
Eating with a knife and fork and ensuring that the food that I eat does not always contact my beard is pretty much the only way you can avoid a messy lunch.
If you are growing a walrus moustache, I recommend that you carry a handkerchief or napkin to overcome the inevitable food in your moustache.
I have found that having very supportive friends who tell me when there is stuff in my beard helps me avoid the embarrassing day-long food mishaps.
Longer time to grow
there is no doubt that a walrus moustache is one of the longer styles of moustaches that you can grow.
It can take up to 3 ½ months to grow a long moustache that can be styled out to a walrus moustache.
Kissing becomes a massive pain
Having a moustache makes kissing very awkward. I have written a full article on this topic from my personal experience. Click here to be taken to the full article and learn the secrets about kissing with a moustache.
The longer that’s your moustache gets, the harder it becomes for kissing.
Overall, growing a moustache has reduced the frequency with which my partner and I kiss. As the moustache became longer, it took some getting accustomed to it. Trimming the bottom line of my moustache so that my top lip is exposed is the best way for me to kiss.
The final word – How to grow a walrus moustache
The walrus moustache is characterised by a thick and bushy growth of long whiskers that droop over the mouth to give the wearer the appearance of walrus.
Growing a walrus moustache will require patience and pushing through some of the awkward stages of growing out any facial hair.
It will take you about three weeks to get to a length where you can start trimming it up into a moustache shape.
However, you will be rewarded with a unique style and fantastically unique facial hair that can make you stand out in a crowd when you get there.
Looking after a walrus moustache is incredibly simple. With a few simple tools such as scissors and a comb, you can keep it looking as sharp as possible.
Investing in a good quality beard shampoo and beard balm or wax should you wish to condition and provide hold to your moustache is a must for any serious walrus moustache grower.
