Growing a Mo? I Will Donate to Your Cause
Show me your active Movember page when you come in for your appointment and I will make a donation to your cause.
No form, no code, no minimum spend. Pull it up on your phone at the start of your appointment and that is the whole process.
November is moustache month. What follows is how to get through all thirty days looking deliberate rather than unfinished.
Day One: Start Clean
Shave the whole face so the month actually shows. A moustache grown out of three-day stubble looks like three-day stubble for the first fortnight.
Already bearded? Trim it right down and shape the mo out of what you have.
Then pick a style and commit:
- pencil, if you have fine hair and good patience
- chevron, which suits almost everybody and needs the least work
- handlebar, if you are prepared to buy wax and use it
- walrus, if you have the density and no interest in subtlety
Weeks One and Two: The Itch
New hair grows in with a blunt cut tip, and that blunt tip is what scratches your lip. The itch is normal and it passes.
What helps:
- wash it daily, properly, with soap and water
- a light beard oil once the hair is long enough to hold it
- trimming only what hangs over your lip, nothing else
- leaving it alone the rest of the time
Picking at it is what turns an itch into an ingrown.
MY TWO CENTS
Most men quit in week two, and almost always for the itch rather than the look. Four or five days of restraint gets you past it. The hair softens as the tips wear down.
Keep the Edges Sharp
The moustache is the point. Everything around it should look like a decision.
Shave or trim your cheeks, chin and neck every few days. Set the neckline a finger or two above your Adam’s apple, not along your jaw, which is the single most common mistake and reads as a man who has given up.
Bumps on Your Neck?
They are almost always ingrown hairs, not spots, and shaving the same patch of neck every few days for a month is exactly how they start.
What reduces them:
- shave with the grain, never against it
- use a genuinely sharp blade, not the one from September
- switch to a trimmer with a guard and accept a shadow
- stop going over the same spot twice
Curly, coarse neck hair is the most likely to curl back into the skin. If the bumps are already inflamed and spreading, that is folliculitis rather than ordinary razor burn, and it needs different handling.
Already Mid-Laser?
Laser on your neck and cheeks can usually carry on right through November.
Tell me at the appointment that you are growing a mo and I will map around your lip so nothing gets treated that you are trying to keep.
Do not let anyone talk you into skipping the whole month. Hair grows in cycles, and the schedule matters more than people realise.
The Real Point
Movember raises money for three things: prostate cancer, testicular cancer, and men’s mental health and suicide prevention.
Testicular cancer is the most common cancer in young men, and it is one of the most treatable when it is caught early. Knowing what is normal for your own body is most of the battle.
So while you are growing it:
- learn your family history, properly, by asking
- know what normal feels like so you notice when it changes
- check on the friend who has gone quiet
Learn more at movember.com.
MY TWO CENTS
I work on men’s faces all day and the conversations that come up on that table are rarely about hair. A moustache is a daft reason to start talking about your health, and it works, which is the entire point of the campaign.
Done Shaving the Line?
If the real annoyance is maintaining the edges, that is a solvable problem rather than a permanent chore.
Laser thins the hair on your neck and cheeks so the beard line stays sharp with far less shaving, and electrolysis finishes the edges that laser cannot see.
Winter is the right time to start, since there is no sun to work around. Book at maircare.com/book and ask me about the beard line.
Next Up: Decembeard
November finished? Put the razor down and let the beard fill in around the mo.
Decembeard was launched by the Colorectal Cancer Association of Canada to raise awareness of colorectal cancer, which remains one of the deadliest cancers in this country and one of the most screenable.
Two months, one razor holiday, two causes.
Bottom Line
Grow the mo. Keep the cheeks, chin and neck clean so it looks intentional.
Shave with the grain, set the neckline above your Adam’s apple, and leave the itch alone in week two.
Show me your active Movember page at your appointment and I will chip in to your cause.
Send this to the guy in your life growing one this month.