Growing out a mustache can be a painful experience. Sometimes this is a literal pain—a topic we’ll delve more into later—but the biggest pain is the frustration that accompanies a slow growing, thin, or patchy mustache.
A common piece of advice is to wax your mustache to make it grow faster. But does this advice ring true? Does mustache wax really increase how fast your facial hair grows?
The short answer is “no”; unfortunately, mustache wax does not make your mustache grow faster. Mustache wax can help your mustache to look much fuller than it is, but it doesn’t actually affect the growth of the hairs themselves. Mustache wax can thus give the illusion that a mustache has grown when really there has been no change.
While there is no trick for getting your mustache to grow any faster, there are many ways that you can keep it looking thick and full by using mustache wax. If used properly, a careful application of wax can ease your mustache troubles.
Waxing a Mustache for Size and Fullness
For a full and thick-looking mustache, the first thing you need to do is understand that it can take time for the hairs to grow. On average, facial hair grows 0.3mm a day, but this isn’t the case for everyone.
Facial hair is a type of body hair, or androgenic hair. We get these all over our body when we are young. They’re the little white hairs that you had before your mustache started coming in. During puberty, they begin to grow from micro-hairs into full hairs.
Meanwhile, we’ve had the hair on our head since we were young. Head hair will continue to grow non-stop, but body hairs will go through phases. Sometimes it will grow and grow, with 0.3mm of new hair a day; but then it’ll just decide to go weeks or months without growing again. It’ll start again, but it has a schedule of its own.
It might be frustrating to wait for your mustache to grow thicker on its own. That’s where mustache wax comes in. Mustache wax can help you to style your mustache in a way that makes it look much thicker.
Mustache wax is made from beeswax in order to have a strong hold. The wax is strong enough to allow you to shape your mustache in many different ways. If applied properly, a mustache will look fuller and much darker.
To achieve this effect, apply mustache wax starting from the middle and working outwards. If you don’t have any hair in the middle of your mustache, don’t worry about it. You might find it frustrating that it doesn’t grow in, but this is determined by your genes. Leonardo DiCaprio can’t grow hair in the middle of his lip either and it hasn’t hurt his status with the ladies one bit.
From the middle of your top lip, stick to the natural shape of your face. The lips slant slightly downwards, so follow that natural slope. Spread the wax outward in both directions evenly until you come to the end of the lips and the end of the mustache.
Mustache ends can be styled downwards and slightly out to the side. This will blend them into your beard but keep them away from the corners of your mouth. Another option is to twist the ends of the mustache upwards and give it some lift. The beeswax will be strong enough to hold it and it can really bring some personality to your mustache.
By following the natural path of the lips when applying mustache wax, each hair blends into its neighbour and together they make your mustache look much darker than it would otherwise. A little bit of product can go a long way in making you happy with the mustache you’re rocking.
Help! I Styled My Mustache But It Looks Thinner!
If you’re facing this problem, then chances are good that you’re styling your mustache for the first time. There are quite a few mistakes that people make when they are first starting out. These mistakes can leave their ‘staches looking thin and weird.
One of the biggest problems that causes this is being too rough with the mustache wax. You might think that this is just common knowledge, but the internet is full of horror stories of how people pulled out their mustache hairs trying to wax them.
Maybe they thought it was the other kind of waxing?
Another issue that is common with beginners is that they don’t take their time. When quickly applied, you can get a really sloppy looking mustache. If it doesn’t look thinner then it’ll just look chaotic, like it has a brain of its own. Styling a mustache with wax takes time and patience.
Get to know each new mustache wax you purchase and give yourself a wide window for applying and styling. With a little bit of practice, you won’t have this problem anymore.
I Heard They Get Thicker When You Shave
This is actually an optical illusion. This illusion has become the biggest myth about beards. Kids I grew up with started shaving before they had anything growing. Then, when their adolescent beard hairs started to come in, they claim it was the shaving that did it.
It seems logical. After you shave, the hairs on your face do look much thicker and darker than before. But if we think about the way that hair follicles work, we can make sense of this. Beard hairs are thickest at the bottom. As they grow out of your face, they get thinner.
So when you shave off the thinnest part of the hair that you see, you are left with the thick base that was obscured from sight. If you look now, the hairs will seem to be much thicker and stronger. But they were always this way down at the base, there was just a mustache in the way before.
What About the Other Kind of Waxing?
Getting a mustache waxed isn’t going to make it grow any faster or any thicker. In fact, while the thickness of the hairs work the same as with shaving, waxing your mustache off is a way of making it grow slower.
When we shave our mustache hairs, we are cutting the hair along the dermal layer, so the hair that grows back a few days later is the same hair that was already there. The hair will appear thicker than it had previously been, but it’s just an illusion.
When we wax off a hair, we don’t cut it at all. Instead, the hair is pulled out of the dermal layer at the base of its root. Instead of having to just grow more hair, the body must grow a whole new hair follicle. This takes it longer, usually around six weeks or so.
So, if you are looking for a way to make your mustache thicker, waxing it off will only leave your upper lip naked. It will in no way increase the size or thickness of your mustache hairs.
I Want to Try Mustache Wax, Which Should I Use?
If you’ve never tried mustache wax, then it can be hard to figure out where to start. Which wax is best for you depends on how much hold you are looking for.
If you are looking for a strong hold then you can’t go wrong with Death Grip’s moustache wax. When it comes to styling a mustache, Death Grip’s wax has a hold that just can’t be beaten.
If you aren’t actually looking for a strong hold to style your mustache, then you are better off sticking with balms and oils. These will keep the hairs soft and smooth. If you’ve never used mustache oil, then give Nature Bare’s oils a try.
Conclusion
You might have heard that waxing your mustache makes it grow thicker, but unfortunately that just isn’t true. Mustache wax can be used to make your mustache look much thicker and this can achieve the same effect aesthetically.
If you are looking for a thicker mustache, then you need to wait and let it grow. However, there are a few things you can do to help your mustache and beard grow better—namely, take care of yourself. A healthy diet and exercise routine doesn’t just keep your body healthy, but it will also help to keep your androgenic hairs growing.
So, take care of yourselves and take care of those beards. And remember, a little wax goes a long way but it takes a bit of time!