This will be an easy to follow step-by-step guide to waxing that stache & getting your whiskers into shape. It will be fully illustrated, Since you're probably anxious to get started, lets just jump right in. For now, use your imagination...

What you'll need:

A mirror

Mustache wax

A face with a long, grown out mustache

The process is pretty simple. If you've never done it before, it just takes practice and persistence. It will take a while to train the hair to stay in the style you want it, but once you've got it, it requires very little effort to keep.

Mustache wax boils down to two basic types: the water-soluble wax, and the pommade-type wax.

The water soluble type hardens as it dries & will hold a shape very strongly. It's great for hot & dry locations. Since it's water soluble, it washes out easily, It's also the easiest to find in the USA (Pinaud's "Clubman" wax, available at many pharmacy & beauty store chains & on the net).

The drawbacks to this wax are that it washes out in the rain or on the beach, and since it hardens, if your stache gets bent or snagged, or the toddlers get at it, you may have to re-wax.

The pommade-type is a dense oily wax. It doesn't dry, and so can be easily adjusted as necessary. It's very similar to pomade that was popular (and is coming back) in the 50s. Some folks can use regular hair-pommade, and that can usually be found in the mens-grooming section, african-hair care products or crewcut care products. The down side is that real mustache-wax of this type is hard to find, and most of the regular hare-care pommades don't have the holding power necessary. Nevertheless, some people have excellent results with these.

A word about hair gel. I haven't yet found one that will do the trick, since most don't have the stiffness to keep the stache in place while they're drying, but I've found a few that come close. They're called "Molding pommade" or "Molding gel" and they have a very dense, peanut-battery consistency.

I plan to publish links and descriptions about waxes soon!

Get started:

Look at that mess of hair under your nose. (not the nose hair!) at this point, you've probably been growing it out already, in anticipation. You can run a comb through it if you need to. Now take a little dab of wax (from a tube is easy. From a jar of the stiff, oily type you may need to scrape or off with the back of your nail & work it between your fingers first) and work it into the ends of your stache. If its already a long one, work it into the middle of the hairs to gather them together and make 'em more manageable. Work the wax out toward the tip & when you've got it all roughly together, go back and apply a bit of wax to the root of your stache. Work it in so there are no lumps by drawing it out along the hairs, until you're working the length of the stache. Then, for the handlebars , gently roll it back until you've got