Mustache

Panayot Hitov

The hair that grows on the upper lip of some men is called a mustache. The hair that grows on the sides of the face and the chin of some men is called a beard. Some men have a lot of hair and a big mustache, and some have very little. In the modern world, many men shave part or all of their mustaches, or cut their mustache so it does not get very long. A chin beard with no mustache is called a goatee, whilst a chin beard with a mustache is known as a Van Dyke.

The earliest facial hair above the lip, as a style, is credited to the Iron Age Celts. Diodorus Siculus, a Greek historian, wrote this about the Celtic people:

The Gauls are tall of body with rippling muscles and white of skin and their hair is blond, and not only naturally so for they also make it their practice by artificial means to increase the distinguishing colour which nature has given it. For they are always washing their hair in limewater and they pull it back from the forehead to the nape of the neck, with the result that their appearance is like that of Satyrs and Pans since the treatment of their hair makes it so heavy and coarse that it differs in no respect from the mane of horses. Some of them shave the beard but others let it grow a little; and the nobles shave their cheeks but they let the moustache grow until it covers the mouth.

Mustache in United Kingdom and Commonwealth of Nations is spelled moustache.

Some animals such as walruses also have hair like this, and people sometimes also call this hair a mustache.