Knowing which haircut best suits your face is important for a man to look sharp, especially when he is wearing a suit. While this subject is not complicated, it does require some basic knowledge about the most common types of faces and hairstyles for men. With this knowledge, haircut ideas for your next appointment at the barber will be straight forward.
If you are a man who feels like a fish out of water when he visits the barbershop or stylist salon, you have come to the right article. By reading our guide will learn to discern if short, long, straight, or curly hair suits you best, as well as if you would look good with or without a beard.
We have put together a guide to help you understand your hair from a barber, hairdresser, or stylist perspective. When you are asked the classic barber question, “How do you want me to cut or comb your hair?” some men usually have an idea of the style and cut they would like to have, but some men struggled to communicate it clearly.
Some men also might print out a photo of a hairstyle from a famous male celebrity they’d like to mimic, but what hairstyle looks good on one man might not be as good of an option for yourself. This is because we do not all have the same head shapes and sizes.
In this article we will shed some light for you on this topic, explaining first the different types of faces and the male hairstyles that best go with them. We will then educate you about classic men hairstyles that are timeless and guaranteed to make a man look sharp when he wears a suit.
A gentleman should whenever possible visit a barber, not a hair salon. The gentlemen who take up the craft of barber are to be supported with the patronage of gentlemen in their communities, and if you are a male reader of this blog you are now among our ranks. Do your part to support your fellow gentlemen.
Where Should a Man Get His Hair Cut? Barber Vs. Salon Stylist
There can be confusion between what the difference between a barber and a salon stylist is, so let’s discuss this at the start of our article. A barber is someone whose occupation specializes specifically in the cutting of men’s hair in traditional, short styles, as well as the grooming of male facial hair. By contrast a salon stylist is trained to cut longer, fuller hair styles for both men and women, but mostly women. Between the two of them, barbers tend to use clippers and razors and salon stylist use scissors and supplementary styling techniques. A salon stylist may also be called a hairdresser.
As a man who frequently travels I have had my hair cut in many cities around the United States. My personal experience with going to salon stylists have been mixed. There are some salon stylists I have met who do not know how to cut a proper fade. I’ve experienced the misfortune of a salon stylist confusing a fade with a high and tight on several occasions, and one time a hair salon stylist actually shaved my head by running an electric razor up the middle of my skull because she thought a fade, as a “military style haircut”, was a buzzcut. This forced me to have to cut all of my hair off. I looked like a punk rocker for months while needing to grow my hair back out. I was not thrilled about this as I have a round style face so such a short cut made me look silly.
Yet this does not mean there are not good salon stylists who can cut short men haircuts; some of the best fades I ever had were done by a female hair salon stylist. Yet a barber specializes in the cutting of short men’s hairstyles and no barber worth their salt will ever screw it up. Consequently a man is better off going to a barber shop for his haircuts if there is one near him.
Types Of Faces And Men’s Hairstyles that Go Best With Them
To learn the type of face and features you have, let’s talk about the most common faces and the hairstyles that suit you best:
Triangular Face
Triangular faces stand out for having wide jaws yet narrower foreheads. A man with a triangular face should select a haircut style that will have the effect of softening his jaw area and optically widen his face’s upperparts to balance it out.
Men with a triangular face should select a hairstyle that gives the appearance of adding volume to the upper half of the forehead with a cut that is not too long, so hair does not fall below the face, as triangular faces are already bottom heavy.
You may also consider growing a goatee type beard to make the chin appear more prominent (breaking the horizontality of that area) or adding sideburns (that are finite and long), to discount volume in the maxilla area and add length to the oval.
Heart Shaped Face
The best haircut types for those with a heart shaped face (also called an “inverted triangle face) are hairstyles with volume on the forehead and ears. Your goal here is to try to reduce the difference in size between the forehead and the jaw.
The best thing to do is go with male hairstyles that are natural and soft, perhaps betting on a fringe that falls on the forehead, but always with some volume. You should also avoid very short hair at all costs, as deeply short haircuts will exaggerate your chin or expose your features too much.
Elongated Face
Men who have this type of face can take advantage of hairstyles with long hair and look more attractive. Our advice is that men with elongated faces should wear a haircut with more volume on the upper part (both on the forehead and the sides of the head).
Fades and crests are a hairstyle that greatly favors men with this type of face, although you should avoid making the haircut too short on the sides (especially if there is a difference with the rest of your head since you run the risk of giving the impression of prolonging your face).
Growing a beard will also look good on a man with an elongated face, so long as you trim it down so that it works to frame your features. Otherwise, your face will look too long.
Oval Face
Oval faces are considered ideal for a man, as they are both elongated and rounded in equal parts, keeping the proportions of the face very well. Those who have this type of face shape are lucky, as any type of hairstyle will suit them, as will most types of facial hair beards, goatees, mustaches, and so on.
Some general rules still apply for men with oval faces. You should try to avoid wearing hairstyles with many bangs, as this will make an oval face look more elliptical than it really is. The ideal would be to choose a hairstyle to bring the hair up or to the side, clearing the forehead that is very flattering for this physiognomy type. Wearing short hair hairstyles that are shaved on the sides can be an excellent option.
Square Face
The haircut that suits the square face will depend on whether a man wishes to mark or hide his features. For keeping them, the idea is to have a short or very short haircut, but if you like longer hair, you can also take advantage of a haircut style that does not cover the forehead and where the hair falls on the sides.
You should try to use your hair volume to round out your features, so it is therefore a good idea to choose a hairstyle with more hair in the head’s central part. This way, you will look good when you wear a suit.
Round Face
If you are one of those men who have a round face shape you may be overweight, although some men can have very round faces even if they are no. Round faces will often make a man look much younger and childish if the man has too short of a haircut. The best solution to avoid this is to use hairstyles that are neither too short nor too long (a half-length hair with bangs, for example, would be a good option), as this will help to disguise the roundness.
The idea is to concentrate the greater volume of your hair in the upper part of the head; playing with the volume or bringing the hair up will create an effect where the rounded features will be more concealed.
Diamond Face
The diamond face shape is considered by many to be the most masculine and ideal face shape for men, although it is also considered rarer than other shapes of male faces.
As for the types of hairstyles that go well with the diamond face shape, since it is unnecessary to reduce or mask certain areas (because everything is well balanced and portioned in this face shape), you have a lot of freedom to choose.
Classic and Timeless Hairstyles for Men
This section of our guide will show you a list of some classic male hairstyles that make a man look good when he wears a suit. We will show you the most classic hairstyles you can get with short hair, as well as with more modern longer hair.
In general, all the hairstyles that we will show below are very easy to care for and maintain, although long hair has particularities that we will discuss, too.
Fade
The fade hairstyle consists of a men’s haircut with a gradient on the sides of the head. The majority of the hair is kept on the upper part of the head, with the sides’ hairlines progressively reduced as they descend the head. The fact that the length of the hair is progressively reduced gives it a touch of discretion, but you can give it your personality by deciding the brand of the cut.
The fade haircut is a classic male haircut, and is typically regarded as the primary ‘military-style’ haircut for men. It is very low maintenance and usually does not require any effort to style, such as with gels.
Side parting
The side parting haircut for men was especially popular from the 1920s to the 1940s, and became popular again during the 1960s. This haircut style has seen a revival of interest over the past decade as a simpler to-accomplish option in contrast to the slick back, another popular classic haircut.
As the hair style’s premise is a straight short back and sides, the style is flexible and will suit most hair types and face shapes. All things considered, this can risk exposing a balding spot if the hair is excessively long and meager on top.
The styling gel you should utilize relies upon your hair thickness: those with thicker hair are better suited to using hair styling paste, while a matte clay works best for less thick hair types.
While the haircut looks simple and straightforward to style, parting the hair can be a precarious task. You’ll need to identify where your hairs natural parting is at and then comb from that point. To locate the hair’s natural parting point, simply comb your hair back and you’ll see where the parting begins.
Slickback
The cutting edge slick back first came into popularity during the 1920s. At that point, it was valuable to have a haircut that would look sharp when wearing a cap or a hat (the type of which marked a man’s social class up until the mid twentieth century). The Slickback has never gone out of fashion as a popular men’s hairstyle.
Straight hair is best for this – the more twist you have, the harder it is to slick back appropriately. Concerning what face shape suits this style, it’s entirely flexible, as it will permit facial highlights (like whiskers, mustaches) to be more noticeable, with the hair basically confining the face. Tragically, for those with a retreating hairline, the slick back look won’t be ideal as it’ll make your balding forehead far more noticeable.
The back and sides should be tightened, with graduation up to the somewhat heavier top. In case you’re going for an undercut style, there should be a separation here; however blending the hair is better if you have a particularly fine hair type.
To style a Slickback haircut, you should blow-dry the hair back. A traditional slick look utilizes a water-based grease and comb the hair over while it is still wet.
Shoulder Length Cut
Exemplary and refined, this long hairstyle for men has become popular for several decades as longer hair styles have come into fashion, likely because it is flexible enough to be adjusted to match different fashion styles. If you’d like to look like Keanu Reaves as John Wick, or Jared Padalecki as Sam Winchester, this is the haircut for you.
Presumably, the hardest piece of accomplishing this style is growing out your hair. You will look especially silly and wild for several months while growing your hair out to the necessary length to be able to accomplish this hairstyle, yet do not let that deter you if this is the style of hair you really want to go for.
Something to keep in mind with longer hair styles is that many hair types often won’t behave as you expect they will. Straight hair won’t tame as easily as hair that already has a natural wave to it; similarly, men with naturally curly hair will find it challenging to keep their hair from frizzing out into all directions at the top of their head.
Yet with this haircut style you should not rely too heavily on saturating your hair with styling products, as this hairstyle is at its best when it looks natural. So, you could attempt some salt splash to include non-abrasiveness for a messier take. Texturizer can help tame the frizz out of naturally curly hair, and salt spray can soften hair that is too straight.
Do you have a hairstyle you suggest we add? Let us know in the comments below.
