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The ducktail beard takes its name from the tail of a duck: full through the cheeks, tapering down to a narrow point under the chin. It is one of those styles that looks complicated from a distance and turns out to be a straightforward guard sequence once you see it done. The tutorial embedded below, presented by barber Joshua Bela for Wahl, walks the entire build in under five minutes using nothing but a charged trimmer, three guards and a softener, and every step below follows his order of operations.
Video credit: Joshua Bela for Wahl, on YouTube. This guide follows his method step by step; nothing here is our own testing.
What a ducktail actually is
Keep the anatomy straight and every later step makes sense. A ducktail is defined by two things: volume and length carried low, toward the chin, and a gradual taper that funnels that hair into a point. The cheeks stay controlled, the jaw carries the shape, and the chin does the talking. It is the opposite of a beard cut square and flat across the bottom, which is why the guard sequence runs in the direction most people never think to cut: longer going down.
The look has been a barbershop staple for decades precisely because it is structured without being fussy. It gives the lower face a defined silhouette, and unlike a goatee it keeps the full-beard coverage most men want while still pointing somewhere.
Step 1: prep the trimmer
Bela starts with the two things that get skipped at home most often: the trimmer is fully charged and the blades are oiled. An undercharged trimmer slows down mid-pass and chews a line instead of cutting it, and dry blades pull on longer beard hair rather than shearing it. Thirty seconds of prep protects the whole cut, and on a style defined by one clean point at the bottom, there is no room to redo a chewed pass.
Key theme: Prep is part of the cut: charge the trimmer and oil the blades before the first pass. A slow trimmer chews lines, and on a pointed style there is no way to hide one.
Step 2: the guard ladder, #1 up to #3
The heart of the style is a graduated sequence down the sides. He trims the upper sides with a #1 guard using his dominant hand, then moves down to a #2 guard below that, and finally a #3 guard toward the bottom, letting the length grow as he descends. The result is sides that sit short and tight while the hair thickens toward the chin, which is exactly what builds the ducktail point at the bottom.
That sequencing is the whole trick, and it is the step most home attempts miss. Cut the sides all at one length and there is nothing left for the point to taper from; the beard ends as a rectangle with a fringe. Keep the ladder in order, #1 up high, #2 below, #3 low, and the taper builds itself.
For anyone new to guard numbers: each guard number leaves more hair than the last, so the ladder deliberately walks from shortest to longest as it moves down the face. If you want to see exactly how much hair each number leaves before you start, our clipper guard sizes chart lists them all.
Step 3: the mustache
He takes the #3 guard across the mustache to bring it to the same length as the lower sides, which keeps the mouth area from reading heavier than the cheeks. Matching the mustache to the jaw line is a small step that makes the finished beard look deliberate rather than assembled, because the eye reads any thickness jump at the mouth as a mistake even when it is not one.
Key theme: Match the mustache to the lower sides on the #3 guard. A thickness jump at the mouth reads as a mistake even when it is not one.
Step 4: define the lines with no guard
With the guard off, he cleans up the neckline and cheek area just enough to establish a clean line. This is the step that gives the style its shape: the ducktail reads because the silhouette has edges, and edges only show once the stray hair around them is gone. Bare-blade work is where mistakes get made at home, so light pressure and frequent checking beat one confident sweep.
Step 5: the under-jaw touch-up
He switches to a #4 guard for a light pass under the jaw, right where the beard starts to point down into the tail, taking just a little off. This keeps the transition between beard and neck smooth so the point stays crisp instead of dissolving into neck hair. He follows it with another no-guard pass to clean up, which is the pattern of the whole back half of this method: shape with a guard, define without one.
Key theme: Shape with a guard, define without one. The #4 pass under the jaw smooths the transition into the point, and the bare blade afterwards keeps it crisp.
Step 6: soften and style
He finishes by working a beard softener through the whole beard, notes how much softer the hair feels, and uses it to style the beard into its final shape. This matters more on a ducktail than on most styles because the look depends on the point holding its shape: soft, trained hair cooperates and hangs into the taper, while dry hair sticks out sideways and rounds the tail off.
The tools the method needs
The kit list is short because the video proves it: a cordless trimmer that accepts guard combs, a #1, #2, #3 and #4 guard, a bare blade for the lines, and a softener. The guards carry the ladder and the bare blade carries the definition, so the trimmer is the one decision that matters. Guard compatibility is the spec to check, because the method needs four lengths and a trimmer sold with only a couple of combs forces substitutions.
Below is the Wahl cordless from this family with its full comb set, plus the two softeners from the finishing step. If your trimmer already has a full guard set, the softener is the only real spend here.
Keeping the point sharp between trims
The ducktail’s failure mode is drift. The chin grows faster than the cheeks, so within a week or two the tail loses its taper and the beard reads as ordinary length. Maintenance is the same ladder at shorter total length: re-run the #1 and #2 on the sides, leave the chin alone, and re-establish the lines with the no-guard pass. Five minutes once a week keeps the style; letting it slide two weeks means rebuilding it.
One habit from the video worth carrying over: the sequence is done with the dominant hand throughout, which keeps the angle of attack consistent from guard to guard. Switching hands between passes is how invisible length differences show up between the two sides.
Starting the grow-out right
Anyone heading toward a ducktail from clean shaven or short stubble spends the weeks before this method growing the chin and jaw, and the shape decision matters from day one. Let the chin run while keeping the cheeks and neck tidied along the way, and the taper has something to work with when the trimmer finally comes out. Let everything grow wild and the first session turns into a reduction project instead of a shape-up, which is how uneven growth ends up deciding the silhouette instead of you.
During the grow-in, the softener earns its place even before any trimming starts. Dry, untrained growth at the chin is the hardest hair to make hang into a point, and working a softener through from the first weeks keeps that hair behaving for the day the shape is cut. Once the beard is long enough to carry the ladder, the method above takes over.
A different question is how long the chin needs to be before the point reads. The video’s build is a short, tight ducktail that works from moderate growth, so the answer is: sooner than most people assume. The ladder does the shaping; the chin only needs enough length that the #3-to-no-guard finish leaves a visible point rather than a rounded end.
The mistakes that undo a ducktail
Almost every failed home ducktail comes from one of four moves, and the method above quietly avoids all of them. First, cutting the sides at a single length: without the #1 to #3 ladder there is no material left to taper, and the point never forms. Second, skipping the charge-and-oil prep: a trimmer that slows down mid-pass chews its way through the exact area the point depends on. Third, cutting the chin first: the point is the finish line, not the starting block, and everything above it sets the length it tapers to. Fourth, heavy bare-blade work on the neckline: one aggressive sweep where a #4 light pass belonged takes the transition with it.
The pattern behind all four is the same: the ducktail is built by subtraction, guard by guard, and anything done in one bold stroke takes away the middle steps the shape needs. Work the ladder, check often, and let the guards do the tapering.
Key theme: The style is built by subtraction, guard by guard. One bold stroke where the method calls for a light pass takes out the middle steps the shape depends on.
Key theme: Grow the chin, tidy the rest. A beard grown wild everywhere makes the first ducktail session a reduction project instead of a shape-up.
Variations the same ladder supports
Because the method is a guard sequence rather than a fixed recipe, it stretches to the common variations without changing its logic. Keep the ladder tighter, #1 and #2 only, and the point sits shorter and sharper for a subtle version that stays inside a collar. Stretch the bottom of the ladder longer before the point and the tail lengthens for a fuller, more dramatic shape. Take the upper sides down with a fade instead of the #1 and the same chin taper drops out of a modern faded beard. The chin work and the softener finish stay constant across all of them; only the ladder flexes.
That flexibility is the practical reason to learn the sequence rather than one haircut: once the guard ladder down the sides is second nature, most beard shapes become a matter of choosing where the ladder stops.
Questions people ask before picking up the trimmer
Can the ladder run on a clipper instead of a trimmer? Yes, and for thick coarse growth a clipper often moves faster through the #3 and #4 passes. The method does not care which machine holds the guards, only that the same four lengths are available and the bare blade can still reach the neckline cleanly. What matters is keeping the sequence intact, because the taper comes from the order of the passes, not the machine making them.
How short is too short for the point? If the no-guard finish leaves the chin rounded instead of pointed, the hair under the jaw was taken too high into the tail zone. That is the one area to leave alone on the next pass; everything on the ladder can be re-run tomorrow, but the chin needs weeks to recover.
Does the mustache have to match the #3? That is what the video does, and it keeps the lower face reading as one unit. A deliberately longer mustache styled out to the sides is its own look, but it is a separate decision layered on top; leaving it untrimmed while the rest is tapered is the only combination that does not hold together.
What if the growth is uneven between the two sides? Use the guard ladder on the fuller side, then let the lighter side dictate its own pass rather than forcing it down to match with a shorter guard. Forcing symmetry with a shorter guard on the thin side hollows it out and the taper collapses. Symmetry in a ducktail comes from matching the angles, not from forcing the lengths.
Who a ducktail suits
The style rewards a beard that grows evenly down the jaw, because the taper has to have material to work with; patchy growth at the chin reads worse in a pointed style than in a rounded one. Face-shape wise, the added length under the chin flatters rounder faces by stretching the silhouette, while already-long face shapes usually do better with a fuller, rounded beard. Our face shape guide covers the matchups in detail.
If you are growing one out from scratch, two of our guides carry the groundwork: how to grow a thicker beard for the grow-in, and beard oil vs balm vs butter for what to work through it while it does. And when the trimmer itself is the upgrade, our 2026 beard trimmer guide sorts every type, with a long-beard edition for heavier growth.
The short answer
Prep the trimmer, run #1 on the upper sides, #2 below it, #3 toward the chin, trim the mustache with the #3, define the neckline and cheeks with no guard, take a light #4 pass under the jaw, then work a softener through and style the point. Guard ladder down, lines up, softener last.
