30 Trendy Tapered Beard Styles & How to Grow Them

A tapered beard is a style that’s gaining more popularity with each passing day.

It’s stylish and modern, looking amazing on any face shape.

Men wearing it show that they care about their look and enjoy all the attention.

And the attention is what you will get when you grow this facial hair style.

Ladies will be attracted by how well-groomed and neat your tapered beard looks, while the guys will love how unique it is.

Gone are the days when only the classic tapered beard was popular.

Today, there’s a plethora of choices, and you’ll want to make sure to choose the style that’s not worn by many.

Here you’ll find the best tapered beards that are trending nowadays, but still, have a unique twist to make you stand out in the crowd.

30 Best Tapered Beard Styles 

If you want to taper your beard, one thing you will not run out of is tapered beard styles to choose from. Depending on the message you want to pass across and your face shape, here are styles that you might consider on your next trim. 

Faded Hair With Tapered Beard

If you are going for a fashionable and trendy look, you can’t go wrong with a taper fade and a beard. The beard goes well with square face shapes. To style it, make the fade more prominent and ensure that you are always combing or brushing your beard regularly to maintain a neat look.

Hipster Tapered Beard

For hipster men with oblong face shapes, the hipster beard will work just fine. Start by growing the beard out to add volume and then maintain the tapering around your temples.

 

Lumberjack Beard

If you want to revamp your personal style with a touch of edge and grunge, go for the lumberjack beard. It works well for oblong as well as oval face shapes. The beard goes well with long hair and to complete the look, ensure that you maintain a mustache.

 

The Guy Next Door Beard

If you are looking to turn heads and steal hearts, the attractive guy next door beard style will do the trick. It is suitable for oval and rectangular face shapes. 

 

To pull off the style, cut the taper with a beard neatly and then pair it with a slick back hairstyle and a low bald fade. 

Hollywood Inspired Faded Beard

For that Hollywood star kind of look, go for short hair and a beard. The style works for diamond and oblong face shapes. For a classy Hollywood inspired faded beard, grow the beard slightly and then give it a tapered effect around your jawline. 

Sleek Hard Part Tapered Beard Style

The sleek hard part beard style works for square face shapes. When done well, it gives a neat and mature kind of effect. To style it, keep the beard full and thick and pair it with a neatly faded hairstyle. 

 

Bald Fade & Beard 

The bald fade and beard are for men who like maintaining a low key appearance while still looking trendy. It is ideal for round faces. To pull off the look, shave your head and then pair that with a slightly tapered beard. 

 

The Sharp and Precise

The sharp and precise beard style works for oblong face shapes. To maintain the look, shave your hair in geometric lines for a more precise taper fade. 

 

High & Tide Fade

If you are going for a neat and trendy look, the tapered beard combo will do. The style works better for men with square or round face shapes. 

 

Shave the beard but leave it full and thick on the jawline to pull off the look. While at it, this beard style looks better when it is paired with a military haircut. 

Geometric Skin Fade

To unleash your inner rock star, go with the cool and geometric skin fade. The style works well with shaper face cuts. To pull it off, give your beard a reversed tapered effect by trimming more from the outside than the inward section. 

 

Mid Taper Fade

For a softer look, go with the mid taper fade. It is ideal for diamond face shapes. To fade the beard, try to be equally subtle with your beard’s fade and the hair.

Low Fade With Beard

If you are going for a stylish and young look, the low fade hairstyle with a beard will do the trick. It works for more defined face shapes.

 

Allow the stubble to grow a little and then taper it from the edges. Also, give texture to your hair to better flaunt the fade. 

Disconnected Undercut and Tapered Beard

For a bolder look, go a little deeper and more prominent with your tapered beard. The style works best for square face shapes.

 

To pull off the look, leave the beard messy but tapered. For the hairstyle, try and achieve a deeper fade. 

What Is a Tapered Beard Style

The tapering style is all about reducing the hair length so that it forms a gradient. The gradient will begin with longer hair at the top and graduate to shorter hair closer to the hairline. 

It is a contemporary beard style where the beard is gradually thinned out from either up or down when it comes to beard tapering. The tapered beard looks neat and well maintained and what’s even better is that it looks great on most men regardless of the face shape. 

If you learn how to maintain it, a tapered beard is the easiest to grow. The only thing you need to ensure is that your beard is always healthy and thicker as it grows down.

To maintain a tapered beard, moisturize your beard daily. Also, natural beard oil is good for facial hair and skin as well. One more thing about a tapered beard that most men forget is that the skin around your jawline should not take prominence. 

Benefits of Having Tapered Beard

There are so many beard styles that you can choose from today. In fact, they are so many that you might feel a little overwhelmed by the choices. 

With that in mind, if you are not growing a beard for the sake of it, one of the styles that you can’t go wrong with is the tapered beard style. So, what are the benefits of a tapered beard style?

Crisp and Clean

One of the reasons why the tapered beard and the fade are taking the world by storm is because both styles look clean and crisp. As such, the style can apply to either professional or casual settings. It is no wonder every man is sporting the beard style from Hollywood stars to businessmen. 

Goes With Any Face Shape

When it comes to beard styling, you need to think about your face shape before choosing a style. Choosing the wrong style would mean accentuating the not so flattering parts of your face.

With a tapered beard style, it’s the complete opposite. The style is so versatile that it goes with any face shape – depending on the tapered style you go with, of course.   

Easy to Maintain

If you have the right products and tools, the tapered beard style is quite easy to maintain. If you are trying the style for the first time, I would advise you to have a professional do it. 

Once you have had a trim, you will find that all you need is to keep your beard looking neat and healthy using products such as beard oil and cleaning the edges from time to time. 

How Does Beard Tapering Work

If you want to have a well-groomed appearance that other beard styles can’t give you, then you need to fully understand how a tapered beard works. 

But, first thing’s first – the tapered beard style is very different from a fade. When a beard is tapered, it means that it has been trimmed in such a way that length and thickness are achieved at the jawline. The hair at the sideburns will be shorter than the rest of your face. The beard then grows longer gradually as it progresses down the cheeks.  

This is different from a fade where the focus is on the sideburns and requires that the hair around the ears matches the beard in terms of length.  

Pros and Cons

Every beard style has advantages and disadvantages and it’s no different with a tapered beard style. 

Pros

• The style is versatile and can be applied in business as well as casual settings.
• The beard style goes with almost all face shapes, which is not something you can say about other beard styles.
• The tapered beard style looks clean and well maintained, especially when it is done by a professional. 
• A tapered beard is also neat and provides a base for more intricate and daring hairstyles. 

Cons

• If you don’t trim your tapered beard well, it can leave people questioning your personal grooming.
• The fact that a tapered beard is often confused with a fade is a disadvantage on its own because it means that you never know what you will be getting at the next trim. 

How to Trim and Taper Your Beard

If you have decided to try the tapered beard style, you are better off having a professional do it. However, if you know what you are doing, you can save so much by trimming it at home.

Step 1 – Allow the beard to grow

Beard trimming and styling are only possible if there is hair to be trimmed and styled. Growing a beard takes patience; therefore, depending on your beard growth rate, give your beard a few weeks to reach a certain length that can be trimmed.

Step 2 – Comb out the beard

Once you have a good length going, it’s time to start trimming. But first, you need to comb the beard to remove any tangles and see if there is any uneven growth. If your beard is thick enough, use a little beard oil to make it easy to work out the tangles. 

Step 3 – Begin trimming

Once the tangles are removed, you can go ahead and start trimming. With a tapered beard, you need to be very careful when trimming by ensuring that you move from the sideburns to your chin with progressively longer hair. 

Some trimmers have specific attachments that make this possible without needing scissors. The goal is to create symmetry with the neckline, cheeks, and facial features. 

Step 4 – Choose a style

Beard tapering that has been done well should create an appearance of length at the end of your facial hair near the chin while still keeping everything tight at the sideburns. 

There are so many tapering beard styles that you can choose from so go with what you feel fits your personality and appearance better. Most men, however, go with hairstyles that are short around the ears for a more symmetrical look.

How to Shape It 

Step 1 – Get the beard to an ideal length

The first thing you need to do is get your mustache and the beard to an ideal length. Next, wash and dry the beard and set the trimmer to the longest setting. Start trimming going against the grain to remove the excess bulk. 

With a tapered beard, the more length you leave, the more dramatic the final look will be. However, if you prefer a subtle look, set the trimmer to a shorter setting until you achieve your desired length. 

Step 2 – Sharpen the neckline

To avoid any stray hairs, brush the beard downwards. Place a finger above Adam’s apple and then trim the vertical strip below the line. Work outwards under the jawline and do the same for the other side. 

Step 3 – Clean up the beard

Ensuring that you don’t mess up the line you just created, clean shave below your neckline.

Step 4 – Trim the neckline

For a crisp look, you need to clean up your neckline. Create a slightly rounded or straight line from the bottom of the sideburns to the mustache’s tip. 

Step 5 – Tidy up the mustache

Brush the mustache hair down and then, using the edge of the blade, follow the top tip line removing any hair that has grown over the lip. You can also trim the top line of the mustache to form a tidy line. This also helps to prepare for maintaining your beard in the long run. 

Tapered vs Faded Beard

When it comes to beard trimming and styling, most people confuse a taper and a fade. A taper is usually achieved when hair gradually goes from long to short from the top of the head to the neckline.

A taper is only possible on the neckline and the sideburns. On the other hand, a fade is the shorter version of the taper and it appears all around the head and ends above the natural hairline before gradually fading into the skin. In the case of beards, when a beard is tapered, it has been trimmed to maintain thickness and length at the jawline. The hair on the sideburns is also the shortest and the rest gradually grows longer toward the cheek. 

When a beard is faded, the focus is mostly on the sideburns. A fade demands that you match the hair’s length around the ears to that on the face. What this means is that hair on the cheeks, neck, and chin remains untouched. 

FAQ

How to cut a tapered beard line?

To cut a tapered beard, begin around the ears, marking a sharp line towards the end of the lips, and then shave off all hair above the line to keep the beard looking neat and precise. 

How to taper a short beard?

For tapering, long beards are more ideal, but short beards can be tapered, but they tend to give a stubble effect. To prevent this, keep the hair around the chin dense and then trim the rest in a gradient. 

How to shape a taper faded beard?

Using scissors and a razor, you can easily shape a tapered beard from the bottom. You can either go for a U or V-shaped look as long as you have the right tools.

Conclusion

If you have enough length to your beard, there is no reason why you can’t experiment with beard styles. The tapered beard style is one such style that you can’t go wrong with because it goes with almost all face shapes.

Not to be confused with a faded beard, the tapered beard is as versatile as stylish. It is no wonder all men, from movie stars to businessmen, are rocking the style. Today’s most popular look is combining the taper with a fade to have a beard that is easy to control.

The only thing you need to ensure is that you keep your beard clean and neat by using the right beard products. You also need to get it right with the trim and use the right tools or, better, have a professional do it.