USA's Favorite Facial Hair Styles by State in 2023

As we’re in November, men around the world have chucked away their razors in favor of donning a new facial hair style in the name of charity. Movember celebrates its 20^th anniversary this year, having been officially formed in 2003, with the goal to “change the face of men’s health”. The goal is simple, “Mo Bros” will grow out their facial hair – usually in the form of a mustache – to increase awareness around prostate cancer, testicular cancer, and mental health and suicide prevention while raising money in the process. 

The discourse around facial hair has changed over time. Most office jobs in the 1980s and 1990s encouraged a clean-shaven look. A suit and tie were rarely matched with a beard or mustache. In 2023, however, this has changed. Facial hair and its many different styles have become trendier and are far more accepted nowadays in most walks of life. 

So, combined with the fact we’re currently in the midst of Movember,  the research and analytics team at Casinos.com took a quick break from testing US online casinos to find out what the USA's facial hair style was in 2023, as well as similar data for each state. We analyzed data from 19 different facial hair styles, from mustaches to mutton chops and stubble to soul patches. 

The goatee emerged as the nation’s favorite facial hair style in 2023 in terms of search volume. For the purposes of this study, the classic mustache, as well as various variations of the mustache (i.e. English mustache), were measured but treated as separate styles. Stubble, soul patches, the mustache, and the now old-fashioned clean-shaven look all performed well in terms of popularity. 

We’ve created an interactive map above to give a complete representation of what each state’s top three favorite facial hair styles are in 2023. To access more granular data, just hover over your state of choice to find out their top three styles in 2023. 

United States Facial Hair Data 2023 – The Key Takeaways

The goatee was the top searched facial hairstyle, which also appeared as 15 states’ favorite. It also made the top 3 lists a further 23 times. 

Which states are rocking the goatee? – Delaware, Mississippi, New Mexico, Rhode Island, West Virginia, Georgia, North Carolina, Connecticut, Louisiana, Nevada, South Carolina, Arkansas, Kentucky, Idaho and Oklahoma.

Mustaches were a very close second, featuring as eight states' favorite style and a whopping 26 times in top three lists in the state-by-state data. 

Others who performed well in terms of featuring as a state’s top choice were mutton chops (4), clean shaven (6), and soul patch (3). 

The Fu Manchu mustache shocked us to claim Minnesota’s #1 ranking, with the hulihee the other longshot to make the cut as the top dog in Hawaii. 

The English mustache, toothbrush mustache, chevron mustache, and beard no mustache all presented low search volumes – so if you spot one of them in the streets, you have a real facial hair connoisseur on your hands. 

Methodology:

We used Google Trends to measure the level of interest in 19 of the nation's favorite facial hair styles. The measured styles were mustache, goatee, circle beard, soul patch, handlebar mustache, clean shaven, mutton chops, pencil mustache, stubble, Van Dyke beard, horseshoe mustache, walrus, mustache, hulihee, chin strap beard, English mustache, beard no mustache, chevron mustache, toothbrush mustache, and fu manchu mustache.

• Data was collected over a 12-month period from November 1, 2022 - November 1, 2023

In the case where a state had equal levels of interest for multiple styles, search volumes for each item using Semrush were measured in that area to determine a favorite.

What are Each US State's Top Three Favorite Facial Hair Styles