The Mustache
Anyone who knows me knows two things. One, I have blond or dirty blond hair. Two, I’m not the hairiest kid you’ll find out there. Really, at my age, the amount of hair I have can be a little shocking. I have at most 6 hairs on my chest, none on my back, and very little on my face. It’s always seemed especially strange given that my college roommate basically looked like a gorilla, but with a hairy chest too. So it’s a bit of a sore subject for me.
This year I’ve been really trying to grow some more facial hair but it turns out that its really hard, not matter how hard you push, how much you water your upper lip, and how much Chia paste you rub on your cheeks. It just doesn’t help. And when people tell you the more you shave the thicker it gets, they’re lying. That doesn’t even make sense.
So a couple weeks ago I decided it was time to rev the engines and really see where I was. Now I think I could grow a pretty nasty neckbeard, and I might be able to pull of a soulpatch, but the only thing I really wanted was a mustache. Unfortuantely for me, the hair on my lip is the lightest part. That didn’t stop me though, and for the past few weeks I’ve been letting it grow. And I think I speak for everyone when I say, I’m looking pretty good.
Before I really get into the details of what I’m lookin at here, I want to make it clear what I was going for. There’s a lot of different types of mustaches. I can think of 6:
1: The Fu-Manchu. This is a bunch of wispy strands, growing on the upper lip that are so long they hang around the mouth down to the chin. Popular asian style.
2: The American Fu-Manchu aka the Hulk Hogan. This is a full dense mustache on the upper lip and down to the chin, but hair actually grows down to the chin, it isn’t hanging.
3: The Adolf. Not popular.
4: The Pushbroom. Full dense ‘stache on the upper lip only. Commonly trimmed at the bottom. Popular in the 80s and perfected by Tom Selleck in “Three Men and a Baby.”
5: The English Colonial. Thick sideburns down to the jaw and into a mustache. Basically all facial hair except the beard is shaved off.
6: The Pedro. From Napoleon Dynamite. This is a thin, wispy, failed attempt at a mustache. Popularized by overgrown 8th graders everywhere.
So with this in mind, I was aiming for English Colonial. But I knew it wasn’t in the cards for me. One day I’ll nail it, but for now, I had to work with the ingredients I have. And I don’t have sideburns. So I settled for the pushbroom. It’s pretty classic and I thought I might be able to pull it off. With our big trip to the midwest coming up, I started not shaving for a week (which is normal) and then the night before we left, I shaved everything but the stache. I was pleasantly surpised. I could see it, in the right light, standing 2 feet from the mirror. So that’s like 4 feet in real life, in the right light. I’m still pushing hard and trying to keep it going, but here’s what I’ve found. A good stache seems to have two main components: density and length. I’ve got length, I think. I don’t have the density though, and that part is hard to change. I think I’ll keep trying though. Eventually I’ll get the few hairs I have long enough to fold them over and make it look like more hairs. Then I’ll be really all set. Or maybe I’ll just set myself up with rogaine or something. I heard that stuff can do wonders.
I’ll try to get a picture up soon, if my camera can capture it, in the right light. or maybe if you see me you’ll be able to see it yourself. If you’re within 6 feet. In the right light.