Guide: Where to trim your beard lines

Get control of the lines around your full beard

Get control of the lines around your full beard

Most of our grooming tips should be considered guidelines and good advice, but this one is more like a law: The beard on the neck must be removed!

Below we have created a guide that shows where and how to shave (and trim) the beard so that it gets the perfect shape.

We will talk about cheek line, jaw line and beard line in the guide, so to avoid confusion you can see here where the different lines are located on the face:

Point D constitutes the overriding point in the article: All hair between the beard line and collarbone must be shaved or at least trimmed.


But let's elaborate in the following…

Start the beard at the cheek line

Your beard should basically start at the cheek line, which is the line on the face that follows the cheekbones. All beard growth above this line must be removed with your razor.

This is where the edge line must go

A lot of men think they have to shave right up to the jawline, but that's a mistake! The end of the beard must be a bit further down than the jaw - down to the so-called edge line.

You find the edge line by imagining a curved line between your ears (point A and point B below). The line must be connected to a third point (point C). You find point C by placing two fingers over your Adam's apple: Where your top finger stops is where the edge line starts.

You should now have a handle on the location of the line. Therefore, start by shaving the piece between point C and point D - i.e. the piece between the hem line and the collar bone. As the skin in this area is delicate, it is a good idea to apply a Preshave and a Shaving Foam before you start using your scraper. Be sure to stretch the skin by pushing the chin forward and up to avoid cuts and tears.

How to fade and trim the beard line

To avoid too abrupt a transition between the clean-shaven skin on the neck and the edge line, it may be a good idea to fade the line out with a trimmer. This means that you leave the hairs closest to the beard slightly longer than the hairs closest to the Adam's apple.

Set the trimmer two settings shorter than your beard length and trim the lower half of the piece between the jaw line and the beard line. Leave the top half the same length as your beard. This will create a perfect transition and finish, which will make the beard look nice and well-groomed.

Next step: Trim the beard

If you follow the tips above, you should now have an idea of where to trim/shave your beard to get a nice shape and some perfect edges.

The next step is to trim the beard itself. But how should a beard be trimmed? What tools should I use? And how long should the beard be? We have created a guide that answers these questions:
Read the guide: How to trim your beard