Handlebar Mustache

A handlebar moustache is a moustache with particularly lengthy and upwardly curved extremities. It is named for its resemblance to the handlebars of a bicycle.  It is also known as a spaghetti moustache, because of its stereotypical association with Italian men. The Handlebar Club humorously describes the style as "a hirsute appendage of the upper lip and with graspable extremities".

Even though I have had a recent haircut and trim, the last time I was at the barber, I only had the my barber blend my haircut into the sides of my beard along the jawline by my temples.  I decided to let the chin and moustache area grow out some to have a bit of fun with my appearance for a while .

Last evening, I decided to start coaxing (twirling) my mustache into shorter version of a traditional "handlebar" shape that typifies the look of many men in the early 1900s. Like the fellow in the link shown, the look gives me a perpetual sort of grin on my face. My mustache stands out well from my beard so the look is pleasantly noticeable. My wife laughed (and sighed as well) when I showed her and told her I was planning to wear it this way  for a while.   She told me I look like I should be singing in a barbershop quartet.

I like throwing a bit of eccentricity into my manner. A large number of people equate "eccentric" with oddballs, but for me being a tad eccentric is all part of the benefit of being a professor. There are many ways in which I am likely unintentionally eccentric... my pipe smoking (some say), being a professor in the first place (again some say), being a scientist (again a stereotype). I have typically found people that society proclaims "eccentric" to be amongst the most interesting and entertaining people I know.

PipeTobacco