The Italian Opera composer Giuseppe Verdi has been long gone, but what remains of him even to this day, are his Operas, and an iconic beard style called “The Verdi Beard”.
The Verdi beard style features a naturally grown rounded bottom and short sides. The focal point is the long bushy mustache that is combed to the sides or curled up similarly to an English mustache.
A correctly trimmed Verdi beard should not exceed 4″ (10cm) in length, which makes it fall into the “short beard” category.
Funnily enough Verdi himself had a beard that looked more like a modern Garibaldi style facial hair, with the wide rounded bottom part and his whiskers never fully curled up.
In other words: it’s up to a debate what the correct mustache style for a Verdi beard really should be. Curled up like the English mustache or just lightly brushed to the sides like Verdi himself had his mustache?
What Should a Verdi Beard Look Like
That’s a painting of Giuseppe Verdi and his beard. As you can see, the beard style has short sides, big mustache as the focal point, and a nice full face natural looking beard growth all around.
Even though the “modern Verdi” beard style calls for a sharper chin part and curled up English mustache, the actual real Verdi beard had a rounded bottom and mustache that was bushy and waxed straight to the sides.
Personally I think the real Verdi beard looks better than the modern examples where the mustache is curled up.
Verdi Beard Examples
How to Grow a Verdi Beard
To grow a Verdi beard you first need to grow your beard out to 2-4″ length so that you have enough facial hair to eventually shape the Verdi out of.
Since the average facial hair growth rate is ½-inch per month, this will take you anywhere from four to eight months.
It’s also important that you let your mustache grow out, especially on the sides. Remember that it’s the focal point of the Verdi beard, and without a strong mustache to work with, you might as well forget trying to go for this beard style completely.
How to Trim a Verdi Beard
To trim a Verdi, you will need the following:
- 2-4″ of facial hair
- At least a couple months worth of mustache growth
- Beard scissors
- Beard trimmer
Here’s the steps you need to take:
- With a beard trimmer and a 1-inch guard comb, shorten your side burns.
- With beard scissors, cut the bottom part of your beard into a natural round shape.
- Alternatively you can use a beard trimmer without guard to shape the bottom.
- Trim your beards neckline (the line should be ½” above the top of your Adam’s apple).
- Shape your mustache, make sure it’s nice and clean on the front and long on sides.
What Face Shapes are Best for the Verdi Beard Style
The Verdi beard style features a rounded bottom part which gives some bulk to the chin and jaw area.
For this reason, it’s best suited for face shapes that have a narrow jawline and smaller chin, such as: triangle face, heart face, diamond face, and round face.
With that being said, the Verdi is universally a fairly safe beard style to grow, because it doesn’t look bad on any face shape.
It may be a not-so-optimal fit for men with oval, oblong, and square face shapes, but that’s only if your jawline is very wide and you let the Verdi beard grow out too much to the sides.
Products you Should Use with a Verdi Beard
There are two beard products you definitely need for maintaining a Verdi beard, and those are mustache wax and a mustache comb.
I recommend that you get yourself a wax that has enough hold to keep your mustache in shape for a full day.
The mustache comb should be small enough so that you can easily maneuver it around your top lip, and small enough so that it’s easy to carry with you for on-the-go styling.
For moisturizing the rest of the beard, any good quality beard oil should suffice (typical sized Verdi beard soaks up about 5-8 drops of beard oil per use).
Conclusion
The Verdi facial hair style is a full face beard with isolated curled up mustache (or as Verdi himself had it, a mustache that is parted to the sides).
The length should be around 2-4″ and it will take you roughly 4-8 months to grow enough facial hair to be able to shape it into a proper Verdi beard.
What do you think, did we miss anything important about the Verdi? Let us know in the comments.
