5 tips for creating a Tom Hardy-inspired messy goatee

Celebrity grooming tips: How to achieve Tom Hardy’s beard style for Movember

Movember 2024 is drawing to a close, but throughout the month, we’ve been giving you plenty of tips and tricks on how to grow and maintain your facial hair. If you’re new to growing a beard, you might want to look to celebrities and public figures for inspiration, and one of the most iconic beards comes from British actor, Tom Hardy.

The tricky thing about achieving a Tom Hardy beard is that he has so many different styles throughout his movies and TV shows, and on the red carpet. For example, in Peaky Blinders, he sports a large bushy beard with a curly moustache, while in Batman: The Dark Knight Rises, he doesn’t have a beard at all – or at least we can’t tell if he does since it's hidden underneath a mask.

But Tom Hardy’s most recognisable beard is probably his goatee which he tends to go back to most often after each movie he films. He’s also often seen sporting a lot of stubble, which he likely achieved by using the best electric shaver to completely remove his facial hair.

For this guide, we’re sticking to the goatee, so here’s five tips on how to achieve Tom Hardy’s messy goatee look.

1. Let it grow

As Tom Hardy plays around with his facial hair a lot, you’ll want to grow yours out to achieve any of his bearded looks that he’s often seen sporting. For a goatee – a style of facial hair that features a beard and moustache tight around the mouth with no hair on the cheeks – you’ll want to grow it out to the length that you want before doing the next step.

It’s important to note here that a goatee can be any length you want, but it’s typically quite close to the face, so you will need the best beard trimmer at hand to help you.

2. Get creative by trimming small sections around the mouth

To achieve a goatee look ala Tom Hardy, start by trimming your beard and moustache evenly so it has a good amount of hair but it’s not too long or bushy. We’d recommend using a 3-5mm length for this. Next, trim around the edge of your beard and moustache so it’s rounded around the mouth. Goatees typically have a bit of space around the soul patch – a small bit of facial hair just underneath the bottom lip – so use a trimmer to cut around it to give it more definition.

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3. Remove the hair from your cheeks

Once you’ve carved out your goatee, remove the facial hair from your cheeks. Depending on the look you’re going for, you can completely remove the hair from around your goatee or trim it closer to the face while keeping some hair there so it fades into the goatee. Tom Hardy has sported both of these goatee styles, so it’ll depend on how much facial hair you want on your face.

4. Play with contrasts

To find your perfect goatee look, play with different contrasts to see what you like and what suits your face better. For example, Tom Hardy sometimes has a very light goatee with surrounding facial hair, while other times, he prefers a fuller moustache atop a lighter beard. A good example you can try is to grow out your beard and moustache while removing all hair at the cheeks so the goatee gets longer and thicker. Then, you can let the facial hair on your cheeks grow so your goatee is more dominant than the rest of the hair.

5. Use a comb – but let it get a bit messy

Having facial hair that’s longer than stubble can be tricky and tangly to maintain, so after a shower or face wash, make sure to comb out your goatee to remove any knots. Having said that, Tom Hardy’s facial hair always looks a little messy, so use your comb to get rid of unwanted tangles, but fluff out your goatee and run your fingers through it to make it look a little unkempt.

If you want more celebrity grooming tips, check out our advice for achieving a Henry Cavill moustache and David Beckham’s facial hair.