Despite the current fashion trends and the warnings from your friends and family, you decided to grow out a thick old-school mustache, just to find out that it grows patchy and thin with bald spots in it.
So how do you fix it? Here’s the short answer up front:
- Let it grow for 4-6 months before judging it – most “patchy” mustaches are just short mustaches, since upper lip hair grows slower than the rest of the beard.
- Style it sideways with a strong mustache wax – bundled hairs look dramatically denser, and this works from day one.
- Pick a style that suits your growth pattern instead of fighting it.
- If you’re young, wait – facial hair follicles keep maturing well into your late twenties and thirties.
- Beyond that, there’s minoxidil and dermarolling – both have some evidence behind them, which we’ll break down honestly further below.
The rest of this article goes through each of these in detail: first why mustaches grow in patchy (age, genetics, hair color, and the completely natural gap in the middle), and then all seven fixes in order of what to try first.
NOTE: If you’re looking for a guide on how to fix a patchy beard, not just one focused on the mustache, then click that link. That post is specific to the entire beard area, this one focuses primarily on the mustache.
Common Causes of Patchy Mustache Growth
Young Men Typically Grow a Thin Mustache
Man’s facial hair area has tens of thousands of hair follicles from where beard and mustache can potentially grow, and in the beginning most of this growth will be in the form of translucent tiny vellus beard hairs.
Eventually when you hit puberty, your male hormones and their receptor sites will begin to become more active and that’s what causes the follicles to also mature, as the male hormones (the androgens testosterone and DHT in particular) gradually push the follicles toward producing thicker, pigmented hair.
And that’s when the tiny barely visible vellus hairs on your beard and mustache area will start converting into bit thicker hairs. These light hairs are commonly known as the “peach fuzz”. It’s still not the “proper” kind of facial hair, but it’s a step in the right direction.
That peach fuzz growth is what makes the mustaches of young guys look weak and patchy. Even though the mustache hairs are now pigmented and more visible, those still haven’t matured into fully terminal thick ones yet.
So how can you make your peach fuzz mustache thicker as a teenager? Well, I hate to break it to you but growing older is the best way, because facial hair follicles take a long time to mature. For many men that maturing continues well into the late twenties and thirties.
The good news is that if you can sprout even a weak patchy mustache as a teen, you will likely also be able to grow a denser mustache later on in your life as you grow up more.
The Mustache Gap in the Middle is Completely Natural
Like beards, mustaches do come in all kinds of shapes and sizes, but what’s characteristic to most of them, is that there will be a distinctive gap in the middle.
You might think that this is an issue with patchy mustache growth, but it’s actually just a naturally occurring genetic trait that many guys have – even many who have a ridiculously thick mustache otherwise.
The gap in the middle of your upper lip where mustache rarely grows is well-known in science and it’s actually called the philtrum. It can be seen in humans and many animals (dogs being one popular example).
The official definition of a philtrum is as follows:
“The vertical groove between the base of the nose and the border of the upper lip.”
So if your mustache is otherwise thick and full, but there’s a bald patch right there in the middle underneath the nose, then you really shouldn’t worry about that. It’s just the philtrum where mustache typically doesn’t grow in the majority of men.
Heck, some men who can grow mustache on their philtrum areas actually voluntarily cut themselves a gap there with scissors to mimic the natural bald spot.
To be straight with you: there’s no trick that reliably grows hair on a bare philtrum. What you can do is grow the sides longer and style them inward with wax, which visually narrows the gap. But mostly, this is one to accept – it’s what a mustache looks like.
No, Shaving a Mustache Will NOT Make it Grow Back Thicker
One of the most pervasive myths about facial hair is that it would grow back thicker if you just keep shaving it.
This myth has made its way to mustache growing as well, and if you take a look at any beard forum or sub-reddit online, you will quickly find men asking questions like: “I decided to grow out my mustache but it came in patchy, should I try a re-grow?”.
The answer is no. You should not attempt to shave your mustache in an effort to make it thicker. That simply does not work.
Shaving cuts the hair shaft above the skin and leaves the follicle completely untouched. Regrowth only feels coarser because a blunt cut end is stiffer than a naturally tapered tip.
Heck, by the “shaving for thicker growth” logic, all the balding men around the World who shave their heads should eventually grow out thick hair, but that’s not something that happens, is it?
Blonde and Ginger Mustaches Look More Patchy
It’s an unfortunate fact that light colored mustaches will always look more patchy than darker mustaches do.
It has to do with the fact that darker mustaches absorb much more of the visible light and they tend to create a sharper contrast with most skin tones. The density is the same – the visibility isn’t.
The only way to get around this mustachious issue is to either live with it or dye your beard and mustache to a darker color – just remember that you really shouldn’t jump from a blonde mustache suddenly into a jet black one, it would look absolutely unnatural and weird. Stay within a shade or two of your natural color.
Most Men Trim their Mustache Before it Reaches Full Potential
The hair on your upper lip typically grows a bit slower than the rest of the facial hair, and it also has a much shorter terminal length.
With that being said, most men who struggle with weak mustache growth don’t even have that bad of a mustache to begin with – they are just too used to trimming it short way too early.
A good mustache will take months of time to grow, and a big surprise to many newbie mustache growers is that really nice looking thick mustaches typically completely cover and overlap with the upper lip, it’s just that they’re waxed to the side so you really don’t see that.
So if your mustache starts to overlap into your mouth after growing out your beard for one month or two, then don’t just immediately run to trim it, instead just get some mustache wax and keep styling it to the sides. Eventually, you will have a criminally good looking thick dad-stache.
NOTE: I’m not saying you should completely abandon mustache trimming. It’s best to first let it grow for a few months naturally, and then when you eventually do trim it and clean it up, make sure to first style it to the sides and then only trim the most rogue hairs.
How to Fix a Patchy Mustache: 7 Methods
1. First Just Try Letting it Grow for 4-6 Months
Like I already said, growing out a mustache is slow. It grows much slower than the rest of the beard.
So if you have only grown hair on your face for a month or two, and you’re starting to look at your mustache like “man, that’s one bad looking patchy mustache”, then please just don’t rush on trimming it just yet.
The secret to growing a thick and nice looking mustache is to actually let it grow out first.
So before you do any trimming on it, just let that sucker grow right out over your top lip even.
Yes it will look horrible when it’s not styled, but if you get some beard wax or mustache wax and regularly style it to the sides, it’s not that bad, and it gives your mustache the much needed time to grow into a big one.
In the most careful estimations, it will take 4 months of beard growth before your mustache will start to look good and it can take as much as 6 months of beard growth before you have enough bulk in your upper lip to properly trim out a good looking thick mustache shape.
Sure there are horribly patchy mustaches that will look bad even after half a year of growth, but even the patchiest thin mustache will look better if you just let it grow out long and keep styling it to the sides.
Don’t be afraid of it drooping over your upper lip, just resist the urge to shave or trim, and style that ‘stache to the sides. You will thank me later.
This is a mustache mistake I myself made for years. I just kept looking at my otherwise thick beard and then looked over at my patchy looking mustache and always hated it, then trimmed it, and every time I did this way too early, and then just kept trimming it.
Eventually – after years of beard growing – I just let my mustache get loose and grow wild for six months, and that’s all it took for it to look thick and good.
2. Make Sure Your Mustache Gets All the Necessary Nutrients
Growing facial hair is an energy-expensive process. It takes calories, the right vitamins and minerals, and a lot of involvement from hormones to make hair appear on your top lip.
So if you cut your calories very hard for a long time, or run genuinely low on nutrients like zinc, iron and vitamin D, two things can happen:
- Hair quality tends to suffer, and you can start growing a wispy beard and mustache.
- Severe and sustained calorie restriction can also lower your testosterone levels (here’s a study showcasing this), which doesn’t help your mustache either.
One honest thing to understand about the direction of this: fixing a real deficiency can restore growth you were losing – but eating extra amounts of nutrients you already have enough of does not add growth on top. A decent diet is protective, not performance-enhancing.
How to correct this? Very easy, just eat a balanced diet with a reasonable amount of calories. If you want ideas, take a look at our post on the best beard growth foods.
3. Skip the Beard Growth Supplements
There is a massive market for beard growth supplements and all kinds of beard growing vitamins.
Why?
Simply because there is a massive demand for them.
Many men want to grow epic beards and mustaches, and when they can’t, they want to find something that could help, and what could be easier than popping one of those flashy beard pills.
Let’s pump the brakes here though. No supplement has been shown in a controlled trial to increase facial hair growth in men who aren’t deficient in something to begin with.
Most of these purported beard pills are just normal everyday kitchen-sink multivitamins with a beard-label printed on them and a massive price tag.
If you suspect your diet is genuinely lacking something, the smart move is to ask your doctor for a blood test rather than guessing – and if you do need to supplement, a basic cheap multivitamin covers the same ground as any “beard vitamin” at a fraction of the price.
Please remember though: if you’re not deficient, a supplement gives you nothing to correct, and no pill will take a mustache from super-patchy to super-thick.
4. The Beard Roller: What the Research Does and Doesn’t Show
One of the most popular “underground” methods of filling a patchy mustache is to use a Derma Roller on it, or as some have started calling it, a “beard roller”.
Beard rollers have hundreds of tiny needles on them, which you use to roll around your mustache area. The idea is that the needles poke tiny micro-holes into the skin, and the body then responds by shuttling in more blood and ramping up collagen production, which theoretically improves hair growth as well.
Now, here’s what the science actually says, because the study everyone links (including me, back in the day) is usually described wrong:
- That 2013 study by Dhurat and colleagues was done on the scalp, on 100 men with male pattern baldness.
- It did not test rolling on its own. It compared weekly microneedling combined with twice-daily 5% minoxidil against minoxidil alone.
- The combination group grew significantly more hair – so it’s evidence that rolling boosts minoxidil on the scalp, not evidence that a roller by itself grows a mustache.
There is no published study of dermarolling on the mustache area at all. Facial skin is also thinner and more sensitive than the scalp. If you decide to try it anyway, use the short 0.5mm needle size, roll at most 2-3 times per week and never on consecutive days, and keep the roller properly sterilized – infection and scarring are the realistic risks here.
I’ve been writing about Derma rollers for beard growth since before the “beard roller” brands showed up – my full article on the topic is here. I’m still interested in the method, but you deserve to know the evidence for the face is theory, not proof.
5. Minoxidil: What the One Study Actually Found
Minoxidil has made quite a name for itself online as a beard growth booster.
But let’s back-pedal a bit here.
What the heck even is minoxidil?
It’s the over-the-counter hair loss medication many guys are familiar with from treating a balding scalp. For years the idea that it works on facial hair was pure forum legend, until an actual randomized controlled trial was published (here’s the study).
That trial – Ingprasert and colleagues, 2016 – is the only randomized controlled trial on minoxidil for facial hair in men, and its details matter:
- 48 men aged 20-60 used 3% minoxidil lotion or a placebo twice daily for 16 weeks.
- It was applied to the chin and jawline – the upper lip was not studied.
- The minoxidil group grew significantly more hairs than placebo (about 5 extra hairs in the measured spot vs. essentially none).
- Hair thickness did not significantly increase – many of the new hairs were fine rather than coarse.
- Side effects during the trial were mild, though 46 men over four months can’t rule out rarer ones.
So the honest summary: one small, fairly short study found more hairs but not thicker hairs, on a different part of the face than the mustache. That’s real evidence that minoxidil does something on facial hair – but it’s a long way from the dramatic transformations you see circulating online, which are self-selected, unverified, and depend on continued use.
Minoxidil is also a real medication with real potential side effects, including skin irritation, unwanted hair growth on nearby areas, and rarely heart-related effects. We can’t recommend it, as we are not medical professionals – discuss it with your doctor first, even though it’s available over the counter.
Further reading:
6. Heavy-Duty Mustache Wax Can Give a Boost in Thickness
There’s a two-step mustache thickening effect you can get by using a strong mustache wax.
- It helps in creating the illusion of added thickness as your mustache hairs now bundle up nicely together in a uniform direction rather than just pointing everywhere.
- Mustache waxes that are strong are also typically those with a thick pasty consistency that adds more weight and volume to your ‘stache. It’s a purely cosmetic effect, but an effect nonetheless – and by far the fastest result of anything in this article.
There are hundreds of mustache waxes to choose from and we have listed some of the greatest ones here.
7. Choosing the Right Mustache Style Works Wonders
While you definitely don’t want to trim your mustache too early, that doesn’t mean you never should be trimming it.
Once you have enough bulk and thickness on your upper lip (typically I would say this will be around your 5th month of beard growth) you should be starting to look at different mustache styles and deciding which one best suits your face and your natural mustache growth patterns.
The mustache style in the picture above is called “the Hungarian”, it’s perfect for making your medium-sized mustache look thick as a house painting brush.
If your upper lip area has a large vertical height, you could try a style like the Chevron which goes well in combination with a heavy stubble beard (the style is called the BeardStache).
For men with a narrow gap between the nose and upper lip and a thinner mustache, a good style would be the English mustache combined with a Verdi beard style or a natural mustache that connects with the rest of the beard.
It’s really up to you, there are so many different mustache styles to choose from, just be sure to wait long enough before you start trimming your mustache.
Conclusion
Mustaches are magical. They can frame a face and add a lot of character to your beard style, or if you’re bold enough you can rock a ‘stache without any other facial hair as well.
When it comes to fixing a patchy mustache, patience is the key.
Most guys – even with quite good mustache growth – make the mistake of trimming their top lips too early, and then they never get to experience the full potential that the mustache would offer if they’d just let it grow longer naturally.
Time, wax and the right style fix the large majority of “patchy” mustaches, and they cost nothing and carry no risk. The medical-ish options – dermarolling and minoxidil – have some evidence behind them, but it’s thinner than the internet makes it sound, and both belong in a conversation with your doctor rather than an impulse purchase.
This article is for general information only and is not medical advice. Talk to a qualified healthcare professional before starting any treatment.
