Men who have weak jawlines, double chins, or receding small chins, will do practically anything to hide them or make them appear more defined.
You could try things like mewwing, chewing gum, face exercises, losing weight, even plastic surgery.
But at the end of the day, there’s an alternative that can easily both disguise a double chin, and add massive amounts of definition to the lower part of your face naturally.
What is that you ask? Well it’s called growing a beard, and here’s exactly how you can use facial hair to mask a double chin and a small jawline.
Can a Beard Hide a Weak Double Chin?
Yes, you can hide a double chin and a weak jawline with a beard. And not only can growing a beard mask a receding chin, it can completely transform the lower half of your face.
What’s best is that you can control the end result by trimming the beard and trying out different beard styles and shapes.
While the only real permanent way of fixing a weak jawline is through plastic surgery, you can still comfort yourself with the fact that if you can grow a full face beard, you will never have to deal with a receding chin, weak jawline, or double chin ever again…
At least, you don’t have to show them to the world that is. Simply grow a beard, shape it well, and enjoy your new defined jawline and sculpted chin.
I’ve had this happen to me in reverse:
For most of my early beardless life I was pretty lean, and never really had issues with a double chin or face fat, then I decided to grow a beard and while having my face covered in a full beard, I eventually gained ~60 pounds.
Then one sunny day, I was trimming my beard and accidentally shaved the neckline way too high. After fruitlessly trying to correct my beard mistake, I eventually decided that I just had to shave off my beard and start growing it again from scratch.
What a horrible mistake that was! I quickly noticed that underneath my old beard, my jawline had disappeared and in its place was a round chubby double chin.
You’d think that any man would know if they have a double chin, but I had absolutely no idea. It was hidden under my beard the whole time.
Needless to say, I re-grew my beard and have had it ever since.
And yes, I could go all body-positive and talk about how “looks shouldn’t matter” and blah-blah-blah, but at the end of the day; a beard can hide a double chin, and it makes most men’s faces look better, more defined, and manlier, so why wouldn’t you grow one?
Before-After Examples of How a Beard Improves Weak Jawline
How to Disguise Receding Chin & Jawline with Beard
1. Focus on the Length
Weak jawline happens when the chin and jawbone are small and recede upwards and inwards at the bottom of the face.
To mask a weak jawline with a beard, all you need to do is add enough length to the chin part and let the horizontal line (which extends from the chin into your mandibles) grow in length as well.
The biggest mistake guys make when trying to disguise their weak jawlines with facial hair is that they won’t let the beard grow long enough before they start shaping and trimming it.
Just give it time man. Be patient. Wait at least until your beard’s length exceeds 2 inches before any major trimming or shaping attempts. This part alone will take you roughly four months (considering that the average beard growth rate is half-an-inch per month).
2. Keep the Neckline Low
When trying to hide a weak jawline or double chin with a beard, you might be tempted to trim your beards jawline very close to the edges of your own jawline.
Big mistake. Your beards jawline should never go higher than 1″ upwards of the highest peak of the Adam’s apple (more about this in our bigger guide).
If you trim it any higher than that, you will be exposing the soft fat under your neck, and at the same time exposing your double chin.
This may not be so obvious from the front of the beard, but a botched up beards neckline becomes clear as day when looked at it from the side.
Here’s an example of what I mean:
The guy in this example above doesn’t even have a weak jaw or double chin, but even on him; too high of a neckline would expose some of the soft fat underneath the chin.
Now imagine how bad the result of trimming your neckline too high would be on a guy that has weaker jawline and a double chin?
You don’t even have to imagine. Here, I’ll show you an example:
Shaving the neckline too high is the most common beard mistake there is – and one of the easiest to avoid. It’s especially bad for guys with receding jaws and double chin, as it just exposes everything underneath.
3. Use Bold and Sharp Angles when Shaping the Beard
When shaping your beard, don’t be afraid to use sharp angles. It doesn’t matter what your real jawline shape is underneath, you can still shape the beards jawline to be much more angular and defined if you want to.
One simple method is just to create a straight line downwards from your sideburns until you’re at about 1-2″ below the mandible, then create a 45° angle and trim a sharp line down that eventually blends with your chin.
Another good way to trim and shape your beards jawline to mask a receding chin is to create a little “step-cut” inside of the beards jawline.
It’s hard to put this into words, but here’s what I mean with the step-cut:
It takes time to learn what kind of jawline shape best suits you and looks somewhat natural for your face shape.
Maybe it’s the step-cut, the straight line, or even a natural round edge. You may even try trimming a little round arch upwards on the jawline instead of the step-cut above.
4. Keep the Sides Short
Here’s a not so well guarded beard trimming secret:
Almost all good looking beard styles feature short sideburns.
Why? Well, because having short sides combined with a longer beard at the bottom makes your face appear thinner and longer.
If you have a weak jawline and a receding chin, then your face is already most likely short and has a naturally round shape at the bottom, to combat this, all you need to do is to grow a beard that balances these weaker areas.
In other words; to disguise a weak chin with beard, opt for styles that feature short sides and long wide chin and jawlines. The more sharp angles you can create on top of this, the better.
5. Let the Bottom Part Grow Out and Wide
You may keep your sideburns short, but make sure that all the beard hairs below the lowest part of your earlobes grow out and wide as much as possible.
This is a key beard grooming trick that gives your weak jawline the boost it needs.
It’s tempting to reduce the width of the beard and trim the chin down a bit to make your beard look less scraggly as it grows out, but trust me, you don’t want to do that.
You will have plenty of time shaping the beard later on, but just let it grow out first so you have good bulk of hair at the bottom to work with.
Here are two examples to make my point:
6. Don’t Let the Early Growth Stages Discourage You
When you start growing your beard out, there will be various different beard stages that come and go.
The first major roadblock many new beardsmen first give up on is the itchy beard stage which tends to happen around 2-weeks into growing your beard, it’s caused by the short curly beard hairs pushing into the skin.
Once the itchy stage is dealt with, you will then move into months 1 and 2, which are known as the “awkward beard stage”.
That’s when your beard looks patchy – as the slow growing beard hairs haven’t had time to catch up – and the fast growing ones are getting too long. This imbalance can make your beard look like pubes on the worst days.
It’s usually only around the 4 month beard when you start to see your beard really become a proper one, and that’s roughly the right time to wait before you start shaping your facial hair in a way that masks a weak jawline, double chin, etc.
In other words: It takes time to grow enough beard to actually hide a double chin, and many people will likely tell you to shave it off during your grow out, but in the end it will be worth it. So don’t get discouraged, let your beard show what it has to offer.
7. Got to a Professional Barber for Shaping
Trimming a beard yourself is relatively easy and cheap, but for the best results, you should definitely see a professional barber.
Most barbers know and understand that almost all men want to enhance the size and definition of their jawlines and chins with a beard, and they are more than likely to help shape your beard in a way that accomplishes that.
Here’s an example from BeardBrands YouTube channel (it’s the guy from the beginning of the article actually who now looks like a Zeus):
Also, if you have grown your beard out for months, all it takes is just one trimming mistake to go back to square one and start from a clean-shave again. In the hands of a professional barber, this mistake is far less likely to occur.
All you have to do is to make an appointment at your local barber, sit down at the chair and say:
“Hey, I really don’t like the way my jawline and chin are receding, but I have this big beard now, so maybe you could shape it into a style that gives the jawline a nice little boost?”
Nine times out of ten the barber will take a look at your face shape, feel your natural jawline and chin underneath the beard, and then sculpt your beard in a way that enhances your jawline and disguises your double chin – all while balancing out the weak and strong points of your face shape.
Quick tip: After your barbershop visit, it will be easy to either a) go back for maintenance trims or b) trim your beard at home following the lines and edges already sculpted by your barber.
Best Beard Styles for Receding Chin and Weak Jawline
Ducktail Beard
The ducktail beard style gets its name from the long pointy chin which is remarkably similar in shape to a duck’s tail.
It’s a perfect beard style to enhance a weak jawline and receding chin, because it adds volume to those weaker areas of your face, while the sides are kept nice and short so that your face doesn’t get any added roundness which would only exaberate the weaker jawline.
If you want to boost your jawline with some facial hair, you need to create sharp angles and definition, and the ducktail does exactly that.
Garibaldi Beard
The Garibaldi beard style is known for its wide round bottom part, natural look, and short sides.
It’s a full beard style that can add volume and definition to a weak jawline even without having intense sharp angles. Due to its length of 4-8 inches, the Garibaldi will easily hide a double chin underneath it.
Classic Full Beard
It’s obvious that a big full face beard will hide and mask anything you need underneath it…
Which is why just about any full beard style will work wonders in masking a receding lower face, double chin, even scars, pimples, whatever you need covered really.
Such is the case for the “classic full beard” seen above as well. I mean can you tell me where the real jawline of that dude on the example above is at? Because I for sure can’t.
The Yeard Beard
The yeard is a beard that has been growing for a full year without any – or with minimal trimming.
I’m not going to repeat myself and be the captain obvious here. You should already know what happens to your weak jaw if you grow a beard on top of it for a full year.
You won’t be seeing your double chin, or jawline, or even the top of your chest for that matter!
But I Can’t Grow a Big Full Beard, What Now?
So you have a weak receding jawline with a double chin, and you can’t grow a beard to hide it?
It’s as if the universe served you a double-whammy and messed up your looks for good then.
But there’s still hope, as there are many ways to improve your facial hair growth rate, thickness, and even stimulate completely new hairs on places you didn’t think they’d ever grow.
This may certainly sound too good to be true (and don’t worry, I’m not going to try and sell you any useless “beard growth oil“), but just take a moment to read through the following articles, the research and before-afters linked into them, and then make up your mind.
Here you go:
- How to Grow a Beard when You Can’t Grow a Beard
- 7 Ways to Grow Thicker Beard (Density, Fullness, Volume)
- 9 Ways to Grow Your Beard Faster, Stronger, & Better
- Minoxidil for Beard: Does Rogaine Really Work on Facial Hair?
- Derma Roller for Beard Growth: Do Beard Rollers Really Work or Not?
You can will thank me later.
Conclusion
Can a beard improve a weak jawline? Yes.
Can a beard hide a double chin? Yes.
Can a beard hide a receding chin? Yes. Of course.
Growing a beard is the best way (aside from plastic surgery) to boost your chin and jaw and make your face look more masculine and defined. If you can grow one, then what are you waiting for?
If you can’t grow a beard, then go to the subheading above this and read through all the articles I linked, then go get that beard you always wanted.
