By definition, a stubble is a beard style that is extremely short, sometimes barely visible at all.
Most professional barbers agree that 1-10 days of beard growth can be labeled as “stubble”, while anything longer than that will be categorized as short beard and not proper stubble anymore.
From 5 o’clock shadow and designer stubble all the way to thicker and heavier styles, today you will be learning about the best sexy stubble styles, how to choose the right one for your face shape, and how to properly trim and maintain it.
And when we say “sexy stubble styles”, that’s exactly what we mean.
According to multiple studies, women tend to find short stubble beards the most attractive facial hair type for men.
Without further due, let’s dive right in. ↓
How to Trim and Maintain a Perfect Stubble (Tips & Tools)
Unlike longer beards, stubble is very short and requires regular maintenance if you want to keep the desired look.
Luckily though, maintaining and trimming a stubble beard is quick and easy, and you don’t really need any beard oil, beard balm, or even beard comb for that matter. The only tools you really need are a beard or stubble trimmer, shaver or razor, and that’s it.
Here’s a quick rundown on what it takes to maintain a great looking stubble on a daily basis:
- Use a beard trimmer or a dedicated stubble trimmer (these typically have tighter set of length adjustments) and daily go through your stubble area to maintain your desired length.
- If your stubble style requires sharp and defined lines around the neck and cheeks, then you need to also use a shaver or razor to maintain these edges on a semi-regular basis.
- You can add finishing touches to your freshly groomed stubble with few drops of beard oil or after-shave balm, but this step is not mandatory as your own sebaceous glands should easily be able to produce all the needed natural oils.
How to Choose the Right Stubble Style for Your Face Shape
Picking the right kind of facial hair style for your face shape can seem like a difficult task, especially when it comes to stubble beards that typically don’t hide the underlying shape that much.
Any kind of stubble beard is typically a great fit for face shapes that are defined and angular, such as the square face shape, diamond face shape, and the oblong face shape, the kind where you don’t necessarily want to hide the contours with a bigger beard.
That doesn’t mean you can’t rock a nice looking stubble on a round face shape, heart face shape, or a triangle face shape.
For the rounder and less defined face types, it’s best to choose a stubble beard style that adds a bit of length and thickness to the chin and jaw area, while the growth is kept as short as possible on the sides of the face to prevent accentuating any of the roundness.
Bottom line: For defined and angular face shapes, any type of stubble beard will work well. For face shapes that are wide, round, or short, you may keep the stubble short along the sides but let the chin and lower jaw area grow longer.
The 15 Best Stubble Styles of 2024
1. Light Stubble
Light stubble is the shortest possible stubble style a man can have. It will only take a day or so to grow out.
It’s also known as the 5’o clock shadow, and has a length of approximately 0.4 millimeters, which also happens to be the length that your facial hair stubbs will be at when you remove the guard on most beard trimmers and just trim with that.
It’s the perfect choice for men that don’t like the clean-shaven look, but also don’t want to commit to a beard either. Considering you only need to remove the beard trimmer guard and go through your lower face area daily to maintain it, that also makes it a low effort style.
2. Medium Stubble
Medium stubble is a step up from the one above. It’s still really short with a length of only 1-3 millimeters. Medium stubble is also known as the “3 day beard” and designer stubble.
Like almost all of the styles in this list, maintaining a medium stubble is a breeze, just take your favorite beard trimmer or stubble trimmer and set the guard to a length anywhere from one to three millimeters, then just go through the whole facial hair area to maintain its length daily.
3. Heavy Stubble
Heavy stubble is known as the “10 day beard”. It’s close to being a real beard for sure, but still falls into the category of stubble.
As the name indicates, it takes roughly ten days to grow out and has a length of 4-5mm.
If you want to impress the ladies, this style is definitely the way to go, as studies have consistently shown heavy stubble to be the most favorable of all beard lengths among the opposite sex.
4. Stubble with Mustache (BeardStache)
When you combine the powers of a strong mustache and a nice looking stubble, the end result is called the BeardStache.
There really isn’t a strict set of rules as to what it should look like, but in general you should be aiming for a stubble length of 1 to 5mm and a strong mustache style such as the Chevron (seen in the example above) or a handlebar mustache.
5. Scruffy Stubble Beard
If the goal is to look cool and rugged, then the scruffy stubble beard is the way to go.
What is it you ask
Well, literally a stubble beard of any length that is left unkempt and natural on your face. That means no shaving of the beards neckline, and no cleaning up at the cheeks. Just let it grow.
6. Faded Stubble Beard
A beard that starts from extremely short length at the top and gradually gets longer towards the chin is known as a faded beard or faded stubble (depending on which way you want to look at it).
This type of beard/stubble style is a great choice for men that have diamond shaped faces with strong and wide cheekbones.
It’s well-known that a faded facial hair style is very hard to trim yourself, which is why I would suggest you to go have it cut at a professional barber rather than trying it out yourself.
7. Stubble with a Bald Head
Stubble goes perfectly well with a bald head. Want a visual? Just think of Jason Statham or Bruce Willis.
If you are losing hair on top, chances are that you can still grow facial hair very well (as the hormones that trigger hair loss at the top of the head also ironically help with facial hair growth).
And even though it’s a matter of preference, most people would definitely agree that every bald guy should be growing out a beard, or at least a stubble beard.
8. Stubble Beard with a Buzzcut
If you have a strong jawline with a nice head shape, you don’t necessarily want to hide those, but that doesn’t mean you should be shaving your head and going beardless…
You can instead, try a timeless style of short stubble beard combined with a similar length buzzcut. It looks great, almost like a stubble that runs around your head completely.
9. Patchy Stubble Beard
Sometimes growing out a beard doesn’t work out like you pictured it would. It can come in scraggly, curly, patchy, you name it.
What should you do then to fix a patchy beard? Well what if you don’t try to fix it at all, just trim it down to a stubble and it may just look great even with patches, young Keanu Reeves above being a great example of this.
10. Stubble Goatee
Perhaps one of the most iconic facial hair styles is the good old goatee. A style that features growth around the mouth, but nowhere else.
So what if you trim that growth into a very short stubble? The end result is a nice looking stubble goatee.
The pros are that it looks nice and is super effortless to maintain. The cons are that you may lose some daddy points as there’s nothing that screams father energy more than a thick goatee.
11. Salt & Pepper Stubble
Salt & Pepper stubble is as the name indicates, any kind of stubble beard that features a mixture of dark and grey hairs.
As you may now realize, growing out a salt and pepper stubble means that either of these two things has to happen:
- You either need to be old enough to grow some grey beard hairs naturally.
- Or you need to master the art of dyeing a beard to make it look like you do.
12. Boxed Stubble Beard
Boxed beard styles are sharp and carefully maintained. They feature a step-cut cheekline and defined beards neckline that makes the whole facial hair look like it would be “boxed” or framed.
If you keep your boxed beard at a length of 0.4 to 5 millimeters, it will be known as the boxed stubble, just like the example picture above which features a man with a thick and full heavy boxed stubble beard.
even though it sounds somewhat complex, this stubble style is also relatively easy to maintain, all you need are three things:
- Beard or stubble trimmer.
- Good razor or shaver.
- Beard shaping tool (to help with the cheek and neckline).
13. Stubble with a Detached Mustache
For some men, the beard doesn’t connect with the mustache.
Fear not, if you want to grow out a stubble or try a BeardStache, you might want to opt for a style known as stubble + detached mustache.
14. Thick & Long Stubble Beard
So you can grow a thick beard? Great, then you might want to try out a long heavy stubble. It’s a style that looks spectacular when properly groomed, but requires good set of genes to properly pull off.
For a nice looking long stubble, I recommend grabbing a good stubble trimmer and just keeping the facial hair at an even length of five to seven millimeters.
15. Stubble with Long Hair
Rocking a stubble beard with long hair is a choice of many men. It can be a way to make your face look more masculine and lessen the “girlyness” associated with a long hair.
When it works, it just works, and when didn’t a stubble beard work? There’s a reason it’s consistently voted as the most attractive type of facial hair.
Conclusion
Proper stubble beard is a facial hair that is anywhere from one to ten days of growth.
In this post you learned everything you need to know about how to grow and maintain iconic styles like the designer stubble, five o’clock shadow, the heavy stubble and many more.
Hopefully it gave you a nice list of examples for when you need to pick out your next beard style.
