So you have a square face shape and you’re looking for the right beard style to fit it. That’s great, we can help.
Other articles in this series:
- Beard Styles for Round Face Shape
- Beard Styles for Oval Face Shape
- Beard Styles for Oblong Face Shape
- Beard Styles for Diamond Face Shape
- Beard Styles for Triangle Face Shape
- Beard Styles for Heart Face Shape
If you have a square face shape, your face height is slightly greater than the width, but not much, it’s almost like a round shaped face, but instead of round features, you have defined, angular, chiseled features.
That’s great actually, so great that you might not want to hide them with a beard at all.
Instead, you should be looking for square face beard styles that are short (even stubble) to give your face some masculine scruff, without hiding any of the dominant features of your defined jawline and slanted chin.
Let’s take a closer look:
What Does a Square Face Shape Look Like
The square face shape is typically not very tall and has pronounced angular features such as a tight angle at the jaw, slanted chin, and defined cheekbones. Think Brad Pitt in fight club, that’s the perfect example of a square face shape.
If you have a square shaped face, then the width of the forehead, cheekbones, and jaw should be close to each other, but not necessarily equal.
It’s common that the width of the jaw is slightly greater than the cheekbones and forehead, and that’s caused by the sharp angle at the connection point between the sides and the edge of the jawline (mandible), which tends to push out the masseter muscles on each side.
Some popular men with the square face shape include: Brad Pitt, Tom Cruize, Henry Cavill, Jensen Ackles, and Colton Haynes.
Is the square face shape attractive you ask?
Well, yes. Even though some research suggests that the oval shape would be the “ideal face shape” for men, there’s plenty of anecdotal evidence to support the fact that women also favor the masculine features of a defined square face.
When it comes to growing the right kind of beard for square face shape, then the best thing you can do is to actually not grow that big of a beard at all, as you don’t want to hide the nice defined jawline and slanted chin too much.
How to Know if You Have a Square Shaped Face
There are many ways you can get to know your face shape.
You could edit an outline of a square on top of your photo on a computer and see if the edges of your face flow along the lines or you could ask other people what they think your face shape is…
Or you could do it properly and take out a roll of measuring tape, and measure it yourself by figuring out four simple measurements.
- Face height (from chin to hairline).
- Forehead width (from temple to temple).
- Cheekbone width (from edge to edge under the eyes).
- Jawline width (from widest point to another, usually masseters).
Here’s a picture to show you exactly where to take these measurements:
You have a square shaped face if:
- The widths of your forehead, jaw, and cheekbones are close to each other.
- The height of your face is roughly 1-1.5 times the widest width.
- The angle of your jawline is not sloped, but tight and sharp.
- There are no round features on your face, everything is slanted and defined.
What Kind of Beard Compliments the Square Face
The fact is that an angled, square, and defined jawline is attractive and visually pleasing, and that’s a common feature of almost all square faced men (unless they’re seriously overweight).
So when you are deciding upon a beard style for your face shape, square faced men should focus on slightly accentuating your jawline, not hiding or exaggerating it.
Basically what that means is that a square face will want stubble and shot beard styles such as the light stubble, medium stubble, or heavy stubble beard, BeardStache, short boxed beard, goatee, and so on.
If your jawline happens to be so overly angular that your face resembles a box, then you could grow a slightly longer full beard and shape the jawline to be rounder than it normally is to help mask the exaggerated angles…
But come on, how many guys really have too defined jawlines? I’ve never heard about that being a thing.
What Kind of Beard Poorly Fits the Square Face Shape
Square face shape is typically not very tall. In fact it’s almost like the round face shape but just with sharp angles.
Because of this, you want to avoid beard styles that add width and roundness to your face, they would make your defined square face look like a soft boyish round face instead.
What you also want to avoid are big bushy and long beard styles that hide your jawline. If you have a square shaped face, your jawline is likely your best asset, don’t hide that with a beard (even though beards are freaking amazing as well).
And even though we are the Beard Resource and are always rooting in favor of growing a beard, you even consider going clean-shaven if your face is square shaped – at least that’s one of the few justifiable face shapes for that sort of blasphemy.
Best Beard Styles for a Square Face
Stubble Beards
It’s obvious that a square face shape with defined features is attractive and visually pleasing, and so are stubble beards, as women tend to rank them highest in many studies comparing different beard styles.
When you put these two together; a square shaped face and a stubble beard, you are winning.
The main reason why a stubble of any length is a great fit for the square shaped face, is that it doesn’t hide anything underneath it.
Stubble beards only ever so slightly accentuate your jawline and cheeks, but won’t distinguish or exaggerate any features.
Any of these three main types of stubble beards fit a square face:
- Short stubble (5 o’clock shadow): takes a day to grow, 0.4mm in length
- Medium stubble (designer): takes 3-5 days to grow, is 2-3mm in length
- Heavy stubble: also called “the 10 day beard”, has length of 4-5mm
BeardStache
The BeardStache is a combination of stubble beard and a strong thick mustache.
It bodes exceptionally well with a square face shape, as it won’t hide your great jawline, gives your face some masculine scruff, and as a cherry on top the mustache really helps to frame the face.
You can see just how well it suits Henry Cavil on the image above on the right, but it’s crucial to understand that Cavil has a nicely chiseled square jawline (the BeardStache will not unfortunately look that good on a round shaped face with weaker jawline).
It will take you just about 10 days to grow the amount of beard you need for the stubble part, but it usually takes upwards of two months to grow enough mustache hairs to pull off this style.
You can read more about this style in our bigger guide to the BeardStache beard style.
Goatee
If you can’t grow facial hair that well on the cheeks, you may want to take a look at beard styles that only need hair on the chin and mustache area (which are considerably easier parts to grow out).
One of the ultimate classic styles is the goatee or circle beard, and luckily it also fits the square shaped face very well.
While it may hide your slanted chin, it doesn’t hide your jawline or the masseter muscle, leaving you with best of both worlds; nice looking facial hair and a visible jawline.
Growing a goatee also helps to add a little bit of height to your face, which is nice since the square face shape is typically a short one and could use a little boost.
Goatees come in all sizes and shapes, which is why you should take a closer look at our guide to the Goatee beard style.
Short Boxed Beard
Like I’ve said many times already in this article, a square face doesn’t want to be hidden, which is why many full beard styles are not great fits for it at all.
If you still insist on growing a full face beard style, then a style like the short boxed beard is the best choice.
This is because it’s short enough to still show the natural angled shape of your jawline, and it features a slightly higher than normal neckline, which also goes well with the sharp angles of the square face.
Sidenote: Here’s how to properly trim your beards neckline.
There are two versions of the short boxed beard:
- The high-boxed version, which has the cheek line as high as it naturally grows
- The low-boxed version, which has the cheek line shaved down 1″ lower than normal.
The better option would be the low-boxed variation, as it exposes more of the defined cheekbones that are typically seen in men with square shaped faces.
The short boxed beard has a length of half an inch, which means that it only takes roughly a month to grow out (if we go by the average beard growth rate of ½ inch per month).
The key feature of a short boxed beard is that it’s well maintained and neat with strong sharp edges, so much so that some call it “the corporate beard style“.
The Balbo Beard
Named after an Italian politician; Italo Balbo, this beard style features a strong full mustache with a chin beard.
The main feature is that the beard won’t connect with the mustache, instead you will shave a ½-1″ gap in-between them on both sides.
It’s a good choice of beard style for square faced men, as it accomplishes two things that favor the face shape…
- it doesn’t hide the jawline.
- it adds length to your face thanks to the chin beard.
There are many variations to the Balbo beard, but the classic version has a length of one to two inches, which means that it takes about two months and more to grow out.
The Van Dyke Beard
The Van Dyke beard style gets its name from Anthony van Dyck, a painter from the 17th century who sported a beard style with thick curled up mustache and sharp pointy chin beard.
It’s one of the best beard styles for a square shaped face, largely due to the same reasons why the Balbo beard is as well…
The Van Dyke won’t hide your jawline, and it adds length to the short face that is so typical to the square face shape.
It takes about two months to grow a nice Van Dyke beard, as the length typically falls between 1-2 inches.
Conclusion
Some great choices of beard style for square faced men include the stubble, short boxed beard, BeardStache, and goatee (along with its variations like the Van Dyke and Balbo).
The goal when choosing a beard style for square face should be to gently accentuate your naturally strong jawline and chin, without hiding it, or exaggerating its shape.
Growing out a long bushy beard is not advised, as it tends to hide the lower part of your face completely, and why would you want to hide your best asset?
It’s understandable that men with rounder face shapes and weak jawlines would want to mask that with facial hair, but if your face is square shaped, you really shouldn’t have anything to hide, quite the opposite actually.
