CASPER — Travis Wade has always been a beard guy. He likes the minimal upkeep and the advantage it gives him when practicing Brazilian jiujitsu — a little extra buffer against choke holds.
But lately the Casper resident felt a growing itch to try something new, and this month decided it was finally time to join the growing cohort of mustached millennial men and carved in a thick handlebar.
The reaction among his family was mixed, to put it generously.
“My youngest daughter said she didn’t love me anymore. My son said he couldn’t respect me. And my oldest just saw it and snickered,” said Wade, a professional woodworker, offering a rude example of the power of facial hair to transform a man’s sense of self.
Wade is among a growing group of men who are following a new trend for mustaches. While beards remain popular, more men now are ditching the full beard for just what’s over their upper lips.
The mustache, able to conjure attitudes ranging from rugged masculinity to whimsical panache, is everywhere rewriting men’s identities in its latest moment of cultural resurgence. And its return to popularity has shown a remarkable staying power while bringing nuance to the idea of masculinity, say those in the industry.
“I notice a lot of guys at first just want to experiment, but then they keep it, like it's hard to get rid of because it becomes a part of how they see themselves,” said Mike Northrup, Casper-based barber stylist, who says ’stache popularity began climbing during the pandemic and hasn’t slowed down.
It’s Personal
It's not just that more men are adopting the look.
Its return to vogue has brought new connotations, encouraged with the help a diversifying list of popular examples, from popular TV and movie characters like Ted Lasso and Ron Swanson to “Top Gun’s” Miles Teller. And while trends fade in and out, there are those like Sam Elliott, whose bushy walrus mustache never goes out of style.
Long gone are the days when mustaches were the province of policemen and porn stars. Today they feel as personal as a government-issue ID.
“I think of my mustache as a tribute to my grandma,” said Chase Comer, 30, a postal worker who is a year into growing his over-the-lip caterpillar. “I have naturally blonde hair, but my facial hair comes in with a red and amber tint. My grandma was a redhead, so I think of my ‘stache as a tribute to her.”
Yet even as facial hair is shedding old associations, cliches die hard.
“Everywhere I go people ask me if I’m a cop. It gets old. I have to tell them, ‘I’m not a dang cop,’” said Anthony Schoenwolf, who in reality is a salesman for an energy service company and whose impeccably kept lampshade makes him look not unlike a cop.
Schoenwolf was a contestant in a local mustache competition hosted this month at Oil City Brewery in Casper, a scene that gave a glimpse into the growing variety of facial hair styles.
Sipping pilsner at the bar, a burly man with an angular Fu Manchu, seemingly shaped with a try square, an intimidating look that felt slightly more approachable for having a dollop of beer foam caught over the lip.
On stage at the other end of the venue, the bass player of a local rock band sported a gothic black chevron number, giving an otherwise very American face a subtly exotic air, like he could be an overseas intelligence asset.
Travis Wade is one of the many Wyoming men helping bring back mustaches as a fashion statement. Here he celebrates a mustache competition win in KCasper. (Zakary Sonntag for Cowboy State Daily) 
Austin Olson talks about the resurgence of mustache culture. (Zakary Sonntag for Cowboy State Daily) 
Chase Comer says his mustache is a tribute to his grandmother. (Zakary Sonntag for Cowboy State Daily) 
Anthony Schoenwolf shows off his mustache during a recent competition in Casper, Wyoming. (Zakary Sonntag for Cowboy State Daily)
Cowboy Culture
Wyoming’s cowboy culture lends itself to big, bold facial hair, said Northrup, which made Casper a choice destination for hosting the National Beard and Moustache Championships in 2022.
He said it’s also not surprising that Cowboy State locals have become a staple of the competition circuit.
Barber-stylist and Casper native Austin Olson, 27, whose bow-shaped ’stache has wings like a turkey vulture, styled two national champions and took home first prize himself in the musketeer category at a Daytona Beach contest last year.
Olson, a dilettante barbershop historian, attributes the rise to growing acceptance among men that it's OK to invest in your appearance, even pamper it, efforts that are stereotypically associated with women.
“Guys want to put their best foot forward,” he said. “A guy can go to the barbershop and get himself pampered, taken care of, and it doesn't seem like it's feminine or unmasculine.
“Us guys who have mustaches spend more time trying to take care of this thing than women will on their hair. Some champions that I know wake up at 4 a.m. in order to get it styled by 7.”
It’s An Attitude
Predictably, the trend has spurred a whole genre of social media influencers addressing the ins and outs of styling, grooming, products and instruments, from beard balms to brushes and specialized scissors — though many men say they prefer to teach themselves by intuition on the fly.
Comer has discovered the mustache learning curve can hurt and that dietary restrictions are advised.
“What sucks about having a mustache is that when I’m drinking soda, the tab of the can gets caught in my mustache and then it rips out the hair and leaves a bald spot,” he said. “You can really get screwed by a can of soda because it doesn’t grow back.
“And in the summer, I love eating a cob of corn, but it's a bitch with a mustache because you’re constantly having to lick it and clean it and style it. Wet wipes are good.”
The current mustache moment is an inflection point between tradition and change, and for some has yielded insights about masculinity itself while offering a rebuttal to cookie-cutter notions of manhood.
“I was always resistant to getting a mustache because it seemed like an authority thing, and I was very anti authority. My dad always had a mustache,” said Wade. “But my sense of what it means to be masculine is has changed throughout the years. I’ve learned that masculinity is important in developing character for men and women. It's not if you have feminine qualities, you're emasculated, or if you want to be masculine you can't have feminine qualities.”
He offered by example the martial arts community.
“Jiujitsu is a very aggressive thing, and it can be seen as very macho,” he said. “But all the people there care about one another. Even though they're simulating choking each other out, breaking arms and stuff, you still feel like you're carrying arms. It's kind of paradoxical.”
