My face needed help. The moustache delivered

It’s best not to think too deeply about hair because it doesn’t take long to realise that styling the weird, silky protrusions that sprout from our bodies is inherently strange.

Hair, as with many things in life – birds, superannuation, the success of the Kardashians – is best appreciated by not thinking too hard about it. Once you’ve mastered the trick of not being slightly disgusted at the concept of hair, you can move straight into being obsessed by it, and the people who wear it well.

I now have big moustache energy.Credit: Jesse Graham

So, on that note, it’s time to discuss the best thing you can do with hair (apart from selling it to make your family some much-needed money): grow a moustache. The moustache gets less love than a beard, yet is deeply superior. The moustache never makes you look like a Viking, a cave hermit, or Tom Hanks in that romcom where he falls in love with a volleyball on a deserted island. A beard can just happen. A moustache is curated – a choice. That’s what turns it from an accident into a style.

A moustache should, technically, resemble a tiny broom stuck to your nose, or a pair of runaway eyebrows, or a lip in a fabulous wig (I told you not to think too hard about hair!). Yet it remains one of the most impressive things a face can do. I’ve seen a moustache rescue an entirely forgettable face, adding a touch of rakish charm, a hint of rapscallion seduction – transforming what was, moments earlier, a face like a loaf of unraised bread.

The recent Met Gala, always reliably a showcase of the fabulous and those who simply wish to be fabulous, was an absolute smorgasbord of handsome men with statement moustaches. The moustache is having a moment. Now’s the time to heed the fashion gods and hide your shameful upper lip. Such is the cultural trend of the moustache that the weedy little teen boy fuzz popularised by Timmy Chalamet and other internet boyfriends has been recast as “sexy little dirtbag moustaches”.

My decision to grow a moustache was born not of confidence, but of deep insecurity. I’ve always had a baby face, which, at times, has worked in my favour. Sure, looking five to eight years younger has its perks, but it’s also led to accusations of vampirism, suspicions that I was one of those socially stunted prodigies who finished high school at 14, or worse, that I’ve got a Dorian Gray-style portrait ageing disgracefully in an attic somewhere.

Pedro Pascal has been a recent moustache pioneer.Credit: Getty Images

A few years ago, I reached a strange crossroads: I had the smooth, innocent features of a bright-eyed toddler, paired with the crow’s feet, wrinkles, scars that betray my true crone age and a lifetime of questionable decisions. I’d tried facial hair before, but whatever genetic quirk cursed me with eternal youth also made it impossible to grow even the suggestion of a beard. Still, during our endless pandemic lockdowns, I had the privacy to coax out a moustache – slowly, painfully, like passing a kidney stone – without fear of being chased down the street with pitchforks and razors for looking so deeply strange.

I had all sorts of worries about growing a moustache — would it collect crumbs like a face Roomba? Make me look like a circus ringmaster? Would it connect to my nostril hairs and stage a coup against my other (perfect) features? Ultimately, the only unexpected consequence was that it made me look even queerer than I already did — which, honestly, felt like a bonus.

Closer to home, Tony Armstrong has displayed a bold face bush. Credit: Screenshot

That said, my one gripe with the moustache revival is what it’s done to my already unreliable gaydar. Moustaches have become just the latest flamboyant queer signature that the straight male community has gleefully borrowed – right alongside left-ear piercings, colourful bead necklaces and, of course, basic hygiene.

The thing about the moustache is that, while styles and wearers may change, it always holds the potential to be deeply sexy. Not all kinds – the Charlie Chaplin moustache, popularised by Charlie Chaplin and nobody else that I can think of, is a deeply unsexual style. But for the most part, the moustache is a winner –not because it’s inherently attractive (as I’ve said, stare too long, and it starts to resemble a nomadic emo fringe that’s drifted south), but because it’s a confident choice. A bold move. And confidence? That’s always attractive.